The Masters 2012

[Chazza]

Could be a classic this, the Europeans looking really strong and Tiger coming back to form at the right time

Even Ernie Ells is back playing some good golf

Home hopes
Rob runs the rule over GB and Ireland's Masters contenders..

It's not long to wait for The Masters now and things are hotting up very nicely indeed.

Tiger Woods is a winner again, Rory McIlroy was flying before his rest period, Graeme McDowell is finding some form and Justin Rose has finally got some consistency. Things couldn't be better and this is probably the most anticipated Masters in years.



Could we see a winner from Great Britain or Ireland? It's a strong possibility. I'm looking at McIlroy, Rose and Lee Westwood as the key contenders because even though none of them have won at Augusta they have all challenged there.

So let's take a closer look at the home hopes...
Luke Donald (world number 1)

In terms of credentials, Luke Donald is top of the class; he is a special player and has won back his number one spot. However, I'm just not sure that Augusta plays into his hands. He has a brilliant short game and is a wonderful player from inside 150 yards plus his putting is very good, which is important at The Masters. However Augusta is more subtle than that and with some of the flags you need to be hitting two or three clubs less than he does. He's more than qualified to win a major and has played well there in the past, but I don't recall him being right in the mix looking to win. I just don't think Augusta suits him.

Rory McIlroy (world number 2)

Rory will go to Augusta thinking he's owed a little bit after what happened last year. Ever since the PGA Championship finished last August, this is the one he's been waiting for. All the rest of the events are all well and good, but when you're as good as he is, the four majors are what it's all about. He is more than ready for Augusta, he's a wiser player than he was this time last year and he's also a better player. He fended off a surging Tiger Woods at the Honda Classic and he should be very excited because he knows he's got what it takes to win. Things couldn't be better for him right now.

Lee Westwood (world number 3)

Lee Westwood hits the ball as good as anybody in world golf. His performances in Thailand and South Africa at the end of the last year contained some of the most incredible golf you're likely to see and if he's on his game then he could "out golf" Augusta. By that I mean he could play so well that he won't need to rely on his putting or holing chip shots. If he hits the ball as well as he can, then he might just need to be reasonable in the other departments.

Justin Rose (world number 8)

For me, consistency was always the issue with Justin Rose. He's always been a methodical, method-orientated swinger of the golf club and if he was just one degree out then he wasn't able to compete. However, I don't feel that way about him anymore. Over the last 12 months he has found a way to turn 73's into 69's and when you can do that - as he showed at the WGC-Cadillac Championship - he can beat a world-class field. He likes Augusta, he's played well there before and he definitely has a credible chance of winning.

Graeme McDowell (world number 13)

Graeme McDowell has definitely got a chance, simply because he has bucketloads of heart and can make things happen. He's a brave golfer and will show no fear if he gets into contention. I just wonder if he can hit the ball long enough and high enough consistently over four days around Augusta; that's my main concern. I can see him winning an Open Championship more than I can see him winning at The Masters.

Ian Poulter (world number 24)

The biggest reason why Ian Poulter might pop up and win a major is because he believes he can. Many players are limited by what they feel they can achieve and I don't think Ian has ever put a cap on that, which is great. In terms of mentality, the very top of the game is accessible to him, but you'd have to say he hasn't been playing well enough for most of the year. That all changed at Bay Hill, where he finished third, and he can go to Augusta with confidence. Before that display I wouldn't have given him a price, but now, who knows? A bit like McDowell he doesn't need to build himself into form; if he finds a bit then he can run with it straight away.

Paul Casey (world number 32)

At full fitness and with a good spell of tournament golf behind him, I would have said Paul Casey has a good game for Augusta. He can hit high, towering iron shots and he is a superb player on his day. But he's been blighted by injuries to both his foot and his shoulder and I'm just not sure he's played enough golf. He's still on the way back, and while he is capable of winning there, I don't think he's got the reps to contend this time around.

Martin Laird (world number 34)

Martin Laird has competed in some of the top PGA Tour events of late - so there's no doubt he has an outside chance at The Masters. However, he's outside odds for a reason and it's rare for Augusta to unearth an outsider. I know we've seen players like Zach Johnson and Mike Weir win there from long odds, but the course has changed since then - it's back to the way it used to be - and I think it now favours the gamblers who are on their game, rather than the plotters and the planners.

Simon Dyson (world number 36)

Simon Dyson finished sixth at the 2007 PGA Championship and ninth at last year's Open but we still haven't seen him right in the mix on the final day at a major championship. He's only played two competitive rounds at Augusta, missing the cut there in 2010, so competing for the Green Jacket would be new ground for him. I think you need to have played there a bit more and have a bit more knowledge of what's required of the course if you want to do well.

Paul Lawrie (world number 46)

Paul Lawrie has major credentials and I know he hates it when people say he only plays well in bad weather because that's utter rubbish - it's just that he has had some good rounds in bad weather. Quite frankly he's playing some of the best golf of his life at the age of 43 and I could see him having a good Masters. Can I see him winning it? Probably not, but I can certainly see him having a good tournament.

Darren Clarke (world number 57)

If Darren Clarke is on form then he is a match for anybody, as we've seen on more than one occasion. He's the Open champion, he's one of the few players who has won more than one WGC and back in 2000 he beat Tiger Woods over 36 holes to win the Match Play - and that was when Tiger was at his very best. When he's in tip-top shape he can beat anybody - the only caveat is that he hasn't been in tip-top shape lately. He's working like a dog on his game to try and get things right and if he finds his game he can reinstall himself at the front straight away. But he hasn't shown us that to date.

Padraig Harrington (world number 93)

Padraig Harrington is Europe's most prolific, active major champion with three to his name. He recently shot 61 at the Transitions Championship at Copperhead, so there have been flashes of form from him but nothing consistent; he certainly hasn't come close to winning a tournament all year. In my eyes he hasn't been playing well enough to add a fourth major to his collection.

http://www.skysports.com/opinion/sto...632603,00.html

[Shaggy]

Els won't get in though, unless he gets a last minute invite.

Set up to be an amazing tournament though.

I'll be supporting Luuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuke

[RichC]

Really looking forward to this.

A lot of good young golfers out there who could push on and do it, the Aussie pair of Scott and Day look pretty decent and might be in with a shout.

Hopefully we'll see either Westwood or Donald break their duck at a major though

[Chazza]

Els won't get in though, unless he gets a last minute invite.

Shame that

[Liverpool]

Rory has had 177 putts from 24 foots plus this year, missed all them

[Liverpool]

just looking to narrow down my bets

Olazabal 602/1
Molinari 390/1
McDowell 120/1
Donald 16/1
Rose 34/1
Stallings 876/1
Woods 8/1
Haas 100/1
Cink 470/1
Cabrera 180/1
Laird 230/1
Bjorn 200/1
Bo Van Pelt 140/1

[Assassin]

I have £200 on Luke to win

[Chazza]

The Masters 2012: Luke Donald finds the strength to survive blackest of days

Not a day slips by for Luke Donald without thoughts of his father. It could be the smiles of his baby daughter Sophia, born a mere three days after Colin Donald passed away last December, which stir the memory.



Or it could be the emollient words of his brother Christian, who embraced him after last year’s double order of merit triumph and told him how intensely proud their dad would have been.

Three months on, the hurt of his loss remains raw, softened only by the sense of grace that his second child brought. “It was strange,” Donald admits, with a sigh.

“Such a high and such a low. It helped that I was able to put my energy and focus into the birth of my daughter. That shed some light.

"I was able to enjoy the birth for a few days, and then it was back to England for my dad’s funeral. I said my goodbyes. That was tough, but I hope I came out of it a better person.”

The reaction distils the essence of Donald as a personality: sensitive, clear-minded, perpetually seeking some measure of self-improvement.

His perfectionism in practice drills is mirrored in his life, where he applies the values imparted by his parents every bit as assiduously.

A character who can seem almost glacially cool on the golf course often projects such a guise simply to sublimate his emotion.

The moment of his victory presentation in Dubai, where he dedicated his historic double of money list titles to his father, was the closest we had ever seen him to tears.

“I think it was very fresh at that point,” he reflects, exuding a vulnerability one would not at first intuit in golf’s world No 1.

But there is an unhappy backcloth to this story. For Donald’s father, who died of heart failure, had for years been battling depression, arising from the bombardment of medication that followed a double knee operation.

The recollections clearly trouble Donald as he sips his water here in the Florida sunshine.

“My parents struggled,” he says, expanding on the episode for the first time, his voice trailing off.

“My mum still isn’t doing that great. For whatever reason, my dad had a knee operation and everything changed from that point.

"It was a bigger procedure than he thought. He was 72 at the time. He thought he was very strong and so did I, but the doctors say the operation is about the most painful thing you can endure. And it took something out of him.

"It was extremely painful, he was given medication, but the doctors maybe kept him on it for longer than they should have.

“My father was just never a person who dealt well with pills, and unfortunately it just spiralled.

"It was hard to get off them, then it was tough to live without taking them. It was just a bombardment, all kinds of things. It would affect anyone, really, in the end.”

Donald, having returned to the family home in High Wycombe last Christmas, discloses the mental torment that this ordeal inflicted upon his mother Ann.

“My dad was always the rock in the family, supporting my mum. And when he came back from hospital, she saw him in a state where she perceived, perhaps, that he couldn’t look after her as well. That had a knock-on effect.”

Fleetingly, he is freighted by a sadness, talking movingly of the desperation that he has seen wrought by depression. “I believe that it is a lot more prevalent than we see,” he argues.

“Many people suffer but keep it to themselves. The question is, ‘How are you ever going to get out of it?’ Unless you have been through it yourself, it’s hard to know to fix.”

It seems apposite to ask, given the background of problems in his immediate family — not to mention the golfer’s routine of incessant touring, a lifestyle that has gnawed at the psyche of several prominent England cricketers — whether he, too, has harboured feelings of isolation.

“I’ve been lucky, in that my wife and kids have travelled with me quite a bit,” he explains.

“When they don’t travel, I have plenty of friends out here, and caddies who I go to dinner with. But I see how it could take a toll. It is the strain of trying to play well to make a living.

"It’s the same in every job, I suppose, but in golf you generally don’t get paid unless you’re playing at the weekend. There are stresses in that.”

Donald would be the first to acknowledge that he has acquired a gilded existence, sustained by £23 million in career earnings to date.

Throughout a superlative 2011 season, his accomplishments came almost faster than he could count them: the No 1 ranking, four tournament victories, 20 top-10 finishes and £9 million in prize money alone.

Such wealth of Croesus has, however, been conscientiously earned.

Ever since his successes as a student at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, where he eclipsed the national record for stroke average once held by Tiger Woods, the 34 year-old has carved out a reputation as a ferocious worker.

Last year all the hours sacrificed on the range yielded reward as Donald struck a seam of metronomic brilliance.

The breakthrough was born of a fusion of uncommon talent, fearsome work ethic, and enhanced mental fortitude. It was the third of these attributes that proved hardest to come by, owing much to the ‘little black book’ Donald has carried with him of late.

The book is best defined as a diary, inscribed with motivational wisdom that helps the No 1 reaffirm a belief in his own pre-eminence.

At The Masters 12 months ago, he employed it as a crutch, promising himself that he would defy a traditional Augusta hex in winning both the par-three competition and the tournament itself.

“I always keep writing down positives,” he says. “For example: ‘Six birdies in a row.’ It’s something that I continue to do to this day.”

The trick echoes a method used by Serena Williams at Wimbledon at 2007, when she would scribble ‘You are No 1’ in her on-court notebook, and is the brainchild of sports psychologist Dave Alred, most renowned for his work with the similarly single-minded Jonny Wilkinson.

“Unless it’s backed up by facts, it’s hard to make a difference saying it to yourself. But the better you play, the stronger your mental side is.

"There are times when positive reinforcement is really important — especially for me, being English and a little more subdued. Dave has helped me to become more ruthless.”

Ah yes, Englishness. It can be a label both gratifying and pejorative in Donald’s case. On one hand, it can capture his impeccable politeness, yet on the other can cause him to be bracketed by his American audience as diffident and taciturn.

These caricatures are inaccurate, as anyone who spends any time in his company would testify, although Donald derives a certain pride from his icy façade.

“I’m not ashamed of it, it’s something you’re born with. As a nation, we keep to ourselves a little more. I guess we’re — I don’t know what the word is, I don’t want to get myself into trouble.”

Reserved? “Yeah, reserved. That’s the way a lot of the English are.” Shy? “Private would be a better way to describe me. I have a close circle of friends and I’m not shy around them. It takes a while for me to open up to people I don’t know too well.”

Donald is reaching the stage where he has spent as many years living in the Midwest as the Home Counties, and has developed the mid-Atlantic intonation to match. So would he consider himself Americanised?

“Not really. It’s true, you pick up a bit of a twang here and there. But I just feel like I’m an Englishman in America.”

A refreshing novelty about Donald is that, contrary to US-based players’ habit of decamping en masse to Florida, he keeps his home in Chicago.

After all, it is the city next door to Northwestern, his alma mater, and the place where he began dating Diane Antonopoulos, whom he married on the Greek island of Santorini in 2007. “For me, it’s a cleaner, more manageable New York,” he explains. “It’s a fabulous city to live: wonderful restaurants, culture, and a lot of great art.”

If Donald were not so wedded to his craft, one suspects that the Art Institute of Chicago, home to a panoply of Monets and Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks, would be his natural habitat.

He studied art theory and practice in college and in 2002, one of his oil paintings was auctioned by the PGA Tour.

While the easel has since been shelved, Donald’s devotion to golf still conceals a rich hinterland — in particular, a passion for wine that has spawned his own Napa Valley collection, in partnership with university friend Bill Terlato.

“I can’t indulge it too much,” he says, grinning. “But yeah, that’s a fun hobby of mine. I haven’t done much in the line of art recently.

“Having two children, aged two and four months, I find that they take up most of my free time. It’s perfect for me. They’re great kids and it’s fun to spend time with them.

"I was in the park the day that Rory McIlroy won the Honda Classic to take the No 1 ranking away. I don’t want to get too wrapped up in golf. My parents always encouraged me to lead a balanced life and to have other interests.”

For the next eight days, Donald’s sights are trained solely upon the Masters.

A preconception endures that the No 1 must struggle at the punishingly long Augusta National, due to his lack of length off the tee, but he is convinced that his gossamer touch on and around the greens can compensate.

“This is the third time that I’ve had an opportunity. The first time I played, in 2005, I finished third. Then in 2007, I was one shot back in my third round and made a triple-bogey at the ninth.

"Last year was my best chance, as I felt great about my game.”

Donald’s decisive lapse in the final round was to deposit his tee shot at the short 12th straight into Rae’s Creek.

And yet he still reached 10 under par, tying the clubhouse lead at the time, when his chip-in at the last cued a most uncharacteristic fist-pump. “I wanted to get my own back on the course,” he says.

His motivation has never been more potent than this year, as he seeks the major championship title to garland a magnificent career.

Asked if he carries any anxiety about the task approaching, he concedes: “The expectations are tough to manage. We’ve seen it time and again — someone does well in the game, has significant success, and it’s hard to follow that up.

"It can be a burden sometimes. But I feel I’ve handled it pretty well. I wouldn’t have been No 1 for 40 weeks if I couldn’t deal with it.”

The steel in his eye leaves the strongest impression yet that the iceman cometh.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/golf/mastersaugusta/9176840/The-Masters-2012-Luke-Donald-finds-the-strength-to-survive-blackest-of-days.html

[Chazza]

Els won't get in though, unless he gets a last minute invite.

Sky Sports @SkySports
Ernie Els won't play the Masters this week, even if Augusta National were to offer him a last-minute invite http://bit.ly/HMuESR

[Chazza]

Dustin Johnson has pulled out with injury

Groups and Tee off times

• 7:40 a.m.:Arnold Palmer, Gary Player, Jack Nicklaus (honorary starters)

• 7:50 a.m.:Craig Stadler, Brendan Steele, Tim Clark

• 8:01 a.m.:Jose Maria Olazabal, Robert Garrigus, Randal Lewis

• 8:12 a.m.:Larry Mize, Paul Lawrie, Anders Hansen

• 8:23 a.m.:Ross Fisher, Ryan Palmer, Harrison Frazar

• 8:34 a.m.:Ben Crenshaw, Robert Karlsson, Bryden Macpherson

• 8:45 a.m.:Adam Scott, Bo Van Pelt, Martin Kaymer

• 8:56 a.m.:Steve Stricker, Padraig Harrington, Stewart Cink

• 9:07 a.m.:Aaron Baddeley, Kyung-Tae Kim, Lucas Glover

• 9:18 a.m.:Kyle Stanley, Jason Day, Bill Haas

• 9:29 a.m.:Trevor Immelman, Rickie Fowler, Justin Rose

• 9:40 a.m.:Tom Watson, Johnson Wagner, Hideki Matsuyama

• 10:02 a.m.:Matt Kuchar, Geoff Ogilvy, Yong-Eun Yang

• 10:13 a.m.:Gary Woodland, Henrik Stenson, Alvaro Quiros

• 10:24 a.m.:Charl Schwartzel, Keegan Bradley, Kelly Kraft

• 10:35 a.m.:Tiger Woods, Miguel Angel Jimenez, Sang-Moon Bae

• 10:46 a.m.:Luke Donald, Francesco Molinari, Nick Watney

• 10:57 a.m.:Scott Verplank, Sean O'Hair, Gonzalo Fernandez-Castano

• 11:08 a.m.:Mark O'Meara, Chez Reavie, Martin Laird

• 11:19 a.m.:Sandy Lyle, Simon Dyson, Corbin Mills

• 11:30 a.m.:Ian Woosnam, Edoardo Molinari, Kevin Chappell

• 11:41 a.m.:Louis Oosthuizen, Mark Wilson, Graeme McDowell

• 11:52 a.m.:Zach Johnson, Ian Poulter, Patrick Cantlay

• 12:14 p.m.:Kevin Na, Fredrik Jacobson, Ben Crane

• 12:25 p.m.:John Senden, Jonathan Byrd, Paul Casey

• 12:36 p.m.:Bernhard Langer, Jason Dufner, Charles Howell III

• 12:47 p.m.:Mike Weir, Brandt Snedeker, Webb Simpson

• 12:58 p.m.:Vijay Singh, Lee Westwood, Jim Furyk

• 1:09 p.m.:Thomas Bjorn, Scott Stallings, Rory Sabbatini

• 1:20 p.m.:Fred Couples, Darren Clarke, Ryo Ishikawa

• 1:31 p.m.: David Toms, K. J. Choi, Sergio Garcia

• 1:42 p.m.:Angel Cabrera, Rory McIlroy, Bubba Watson

• 1:53 p.m.:Phil Mickelson, Hunter Mahan, Peter Hanson

[Shaggy]

Some great threeballs there.

How come Tim Clark seems to vanish for 51 weeks and appears at the Masters every year without fail?

[Chazza]

Some great threeballs there.

How come Tim Clark seems to vanish for 51 weeks and appears at the Masters every year without fail?

You mean 185 in the world with an average of 77 Tim Clark?

Played 3 tournaments this year and 6 last according to

http://www.pgatour.com/golfers/023135/tim-clark/scorecards/#uber

[Shaggy]

Haha blimey he's tumbled down the rankings.

Only 6 appearances last year - was he injured or summat?

[Shaggy]

Just read he was out for nine months.

Got disqualified from the Arnold Palmer Invitational the other week

He likes it round Augusta.

[Leyton388]

Looking forward to this. Hope Rory can get on top and not implode this year. Should be a classic masters this year.