word‘journeyman’butifIhadbeenone,Iwouldhave
walked away from the Tour. To me, it was make it big
or nothing.IfirstrealisedIwouldbeabletomakeagoodgoof
professional golf after my first year at Houston.Iwas
thereforjustninemonthswhenIcamehometocompete
inthe1984BritishAmateur.IlosttoJoséMariaOlazabal
inthefinal.TherewasnowayI’dhavereachedthatfinalif
I’dstayedintheUK.MyinitialimpressionofOlazabalat
thattimewasthathedidn’tstriketheballparticularlywell
fromtee-to-green,butGodcouldheputt.Hehadahole-
in-one,holeda2ndshotanddrainedseveraltramlinerson
the way to beating me 5&4 over 36 holes. And his short-
gamethen,believeitornot,wasevenbetterthanitwas
when he won the Masters.I’vehad10top-10finishesinmajors.Did I overachieve
orunderachieve?Ifyou’dtoldmeatthestartofmycareer
thatwouldbemyrecord,I’dhavesaidI’doverachieved.
ButwhenyougettoNo.2intheworldandspendnearly
adecadeinthetop10,youhavetosaythat10top10s
inthemajorsisn’treallyasgoodasyou’dhavehopedfor.Of the five runner-up finishes I’ve had in majors,Iwas
beatenbytheotherplayerinfourofthem.Atthe2006US
OpenatWingedFoot,however,Ibeatmyself.Onthefinal
hole,VijaySingh[playinginthegroupahead]hadtotake
twodropsandtookabout10minutestoplayhisapproach
whileIwasstandinginthemiddleofthefairwaywaiting
toplay.Itwasashame.I’mconvincedthatifI’dhitthat
shotinrealtimeI’dhavewon.Iwasintheperfectposition
inthefairway.ThepinwasontherightsideandIfadethe
ball.Itwaseasierformetobirdiethatholethanitwasfor
me to double-bogey it.owmorethan 20 years on,people
erbeingthehottestever.Ialways
feltinAmericathatifIledtheputtingstats,Iwouldwin
because I hit the fairways and I hit the greens. And I did
lead the putting stats at Oakmont that week... and I didn’t
lose. Over 72 holes, nobody beat me.92 Golf World August 2017
The play-off on the Monday was a poor day for me. It
was a poor day for everybody, actually. Ernie [Els] shot 74
and won. I think we had all had enough, to be honest. It
was a really weird feeling – like we were getting in the way
as the stands were coming down.Iplayedterrificgolftee to green.Ihit69outof
s–stillamajorrecord.Myfinishingtotalof
17-underwasalsoascoringrecordforanon-winner.If
I’dwontheputtingstatsthatweek,I’dhavewalkedit,but
I putted badly and lost the play-off to Steve Elkington.Why didn’t I win the Masters? First, Augusta National
never suited my eye. Second, I wasn’t an aggressive enough
putter to risk a three-putt in order to hole the first one.
I was good enough to two-putt my way around Augusta
but that meant scoring 70, 71, which wasn’t good enough
to win. I never felt comfortable enough to bang it past.My one career regret is not joining the PGA Tour. It
would have given me more opportunity to win majors. But
my wife was happy living in the London area. Our three
children came early so we put them first. I came over for
majors on an ad-hoc basis. It was difficult to get used to the
time zones, to the courses and to the American way of life.
I think I did pretty well, all things considered. If I’d come
in to those majors on the back of four or five weeks on the
Tour, who knows? I might have done just one shot better.My strength is hitting fairways, so I get upset when we
have to play on these bloody wide-open plains where you
can just rip it, find it and rip it again. That’s not the golf
I was brought up with. In America, they simply slice the
top layer of grass off and call it a bunker. That’s not a
hazard. That’s not a penalty.If you’ve played any of the golf courses I have designed,
you’ll have noticed that the bunkering is more severe than
normal. When I was growing up, if you drove it into a
bunker it was half a shot penalty. You should be penalised
for missing fairways – especially now technology has made
every club easier to hit. If you miss your target, it’s you