91Èȱ¬

Arriving at Augusta
This is it, the holy grail. Whether you are a debutant or a multiple champion, Augusta gives you a special feeling.

"When I drive down Magnolia Lane I get re-energised with the game of golf. I've played since I was 18 months old. I'm 40 now, so 38 years I've been playing this game. I love it and have such a passion for it. But I could easily forget, playing the PGA Tour, how lucky I am to play this game. When I come back to Augusta National I just remember how much I loved it as a kid, dreamt of playing the Tour, dreamt of playing in the Masters and winning this tournament and being a part of it," says Phil Mickelson.

"Driving down Magnolia Lane is just looking at some trees really. I love walking out of the clubhouse, past the tree and having the course there in front of me. I'm excited now just thinking about going out there because that to me is the rush," says Tiger Woods.

Warming up

It's an hour before your tee time. You hit the sumptuous new range to loosen those muscles and limber up the swing.

"I'm trying to find the rhythm of my swing, I'm not too concerned about technique, I'm just trying to work myself into a nice calm rhythm. I think that's the most important thing in the warm-up. I'll go through the bag and I might try a few shots I'll face on the golf course - so if I've got to draw a ball into a left flag on 16, I might try some of those. Often I'll try to hit the first tee shot in my mind's eye before I walk off the range," says Justin Rose.

"My routine on the course when I get behind the ball is I take two practice swings. I'm just thinking about the distance, I'm not thinking about the shot shape at that point. When I get over the ball I kind of pick what I'm going to do, whether I move my left foot back to hit a cut or move my left foot forward to hit a draw. I'm thinking about the process of distance first, then secondly what kind of shot I'm looking at. When I'm ready to go I try to make sure there's no thoughts in my head, that's when the bad shots come. The thoughts are usually about something like dinner," says Anthony Kim.

A glance at the watch, half an hour to go. You give your caddie a nod and get a cart to the clubhouse. You walk through the narrow hallway lined with photos of past champions, through the small lounge and out on the course side. Passing under the old oak tree you squeeze through the thick crowd of patrons to the practice putting green.

"I'm keeping my mind relaxed, keeping my head still and not letting tension creep in. I'm also keeping my hands nice and soft and not paying too much attention to the results of the warm-up - whether putts are going in or not. The warm-up is about finding the rhythm not about, 'oh I'm hitting the ball well, it's going to be a good day' or 'oh heck I can't make a putt I better change something," says Rose.

The first tee

After 20 minutes it is time to go. You walk down the narrow, roped-off chute to the first tee. You shake hands with your playing partners and draw out your chosen weapon. Game on.

"The first tee at Augusta is a surreal experience, often like an out-of-body experience, especially the first couple of times you do it. It's a place you had imagined so many times as a kid and now you're walking the turf. Whether you're a player or a fan or a journalist, when you first go there it either is or isn't how you imagined it to be and it's a slightly dream-like situation. They also have a unique way, they say, 'Fore please, Justin Rose now driving. So they've shouted 'fore' even before you've hit it, which is pretty unnerving. The whole place is pretty surreal," says Rose.

"The first hole is a daunting drive, there's something about it. These guys today, if they block it right they're in the bunker, but it's got that little kink in it fractionally left-to-right so if you hit a draw and overdo it because you are nervous, it's in the trees on the left in a flash. So it wakes you up straight away," says Nick Faldo.

"And the green is a real brutal one. When the pin is front left there's a putt from the middle that you read with three to four feet of break, but you know this is the Masters so you think, 'I'll give it five feet' and it actually ends up being something like eight feet."

Phil Mickelson tees off during his practice round at Atlanta. Photo: Getty Images.

Settling into the round

You make a couple of early birdies and quickly your name is up there, leading the Masters. The actual Masters. Life's great. Or you drop a shot or two and you're fighting to keep it together. Can you stem the rising panic inside?

"There's no point getting ahead of yourself at Augusta. No round is safe until you're in the clubhouse or certainly until you're through 15 or 16. You may as well have your head down, play one shot at a time and commit. You can hit good shots, say on holes like 12, and get terrible results, so commit, pull the trigger and do your best," says Rose.

"You have to be right on it from the get-go. You've got to stay patient. If you get down on yourself and get negative thoughts in your head you're going to make a few more bogeys. If you can stay positive you know there are some opportunities out there. The par fives, 13 and 15, are reachable in two so you know there are still chances," says Ross Fisher.

"It's the kind of course that looks easy but plays hard. It's a fine line between gambling to get near or play safe, but that's still a risk because you might three-putt. The margin between pars and birdies is minute," says Sandy Lyle.

No hiding place

We all know about Amen Corner, the stretch of holes from the 11th to the 13th tee, but early in the round comes its little brother, the little-mentioned but taxing stretch from the fourth to the drive on seven. In fact, the fifth played the hardest hole on the course in 2010.

"They're unspectacular-looking holes for Augusta but incredibly tough. The fourth hole can be a five wood par-three. It has a very narrow front portion of the green. If they put the pin on the front you either make a choice to hit to the back of the green and have a really quick putt, or if you hit it pin-high you've got about 10 yards to hit it into. If you miss and put it in the right bunker it's almost impossible to get up and down. That's the point of Augusta, there's always one miss where you know you can't get up and down," says Rose
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"Then there's the second shot on the fifth. Even though the green is 30 yards long and 20 yards wide you only have about six yards in which to land the ball. If you miss that spot it rolls 30-50ft from the flag."

Amen Corner

You reach the turn still fighting. You know Amen Corner is looming but first you need to bend a good right-to-left drive down around the corner on the 10th, statistically the all-time toughest hole on the course with a minefield of a green.

"The 10th green has an awful lot of break. There are some brutal putts there," says Faldo.

Escaping with a par you climb back up to the 11th, the real start of Amen Corner. You are entering the most famous stretch of holes in golf.

"You're just trying to get through unscathed," says Faldo. "You can waltz through there and you can go in and almost not come out again - we've all done that. I've never made three on 11 so four there is a great score. If you hit a good shot on 12 you can make a two and of course you should make four on the par-five 13th. But you know darn well that on all of those if you get it all wrong you can go six, five, six - piece of cake. That's the brilliance of this golf course.

"The toughest shot is the second on 11 - that's a scary golf shot. The green is below you, the pond is on the left, over the green is Rae's Creek, there's a bunker back right and if you miss it short right you've got a brutal chip shot - slightly uphill to mega-fast downhill. Plus, you've got to pull the right club out because when the wind is swirling, and especially with clear blue skies, you've no indication where it really is. There's an element of doubt and guess. Get the gust wrong and you can end up 20 yards out. You might be trying to turn it on the breeze, suddenly it changes and you look like a right Charlie. It has only got to happen a couple of times and it scares you."

You make par and scamper quickly to the 12th tee in front of the huge vocal gallery on the bank and in the grandstand. You study the wind and select your club. It's tempting to fire at the pin but get the breeze wrong and there's the water in front that has proved costly over the years. Tom Weiskopf ran up a 13 here in 1980.

"You need a bit of discipline. Straight over the trap and try to hit the middle of the green. You make four threes there, I think most people would take that," says Lee Westwood.

"Amen Corner can be eerie when you get away from the crowd on to the 12th green and 13th tee. It's strange. If you make a birdie putt on 12 there is a two-second or three-second delay until people figure out the ball has disappeared and they see you picking it out of the hole. Then they cheer but they are 200 yards away and five seconds late, which is a bit weird. Then the 13th tee is eerily quiet. Sometimes you can hear golfers playing the course next door, which is kind of strange," says Rose.

Making your move

Out on that remote 13th tee you've got to conjure another draw, or fade if you're left handed, to avoid running out of fairway on the iconic par-five 13th. Otherwise you'll end up in the pine needles. Not that it mattered to Mickelson last year, when he pulled off a blind shot from behind a tree with a six iron to the heart of the green to set up a birdie.

"The 13th hole is my favourite hole for two reasons," says Mickelson. "It sets up very well for me being able to carve a slice around that corner as opposed to trying to time a hook. And it's at a point in the course where your round is going one way or the other. It gives you an opportunity to get a shot back, or to keep a hot round going if you're able to make birdie or eagle. I think there's great risk/reward there. Rae's Creek [in front of the green] has hurt a lot of players' chances to win this golf tournament and that hole has also propelled a lot of players on to victory. Not only is it a challenging golf hole, strategically placed and designed, it's one of the most beautiful holes in golf, too, as you look down and see the azaleas. It's really a special part of the course."

In the hunt

You make your birdie putt or even an eagle to get the crowd going and make your way to the bunkerless 14th and then another par five, the 15th, which offers another good eagle chance if you're far enough down to get a second shot to stop on the green after flying the pond. The gallery is thickest down in this corner of the course and roars are reverberating around the towering Georgia pines as your nearest rivals make their moves all around you. Do you get anxious?

"You make a game plan before you even get out there. The crowd don't really have much impact on the way you play. You just formulate a plan in the practice rounds and do your homework and stick to that. So the crowd are really irrelevant. You know they are going to have favourites. If you're playing with an American and you are European you know they are going to be cheering for the other guy," says Westwood.

Then it's Augusta's stadium hole, the short 16th , with its lake and its bunkers and the slick, steeply sloping right-to-left green. How many balls have we seen dribble into the water over the years? But there is a chance of a birdie if you get it right.

"The first year I played here in '91, Nicklaus and Watson were playing together and they were on the 16th green and I was on the 18th. Watson holed it from down below to the front-right pin and it was shocking how loud the roar was. And when Nicklaus holed it on top of him I could feel the ground vibrate at my feet," says Mickelson.

As a left-hander, Mickelson finds himself at a disadvantage on the 16th.

"The 16th is an extremely tough shot for me because if I come out of it, it goes into the pond left and if I pull it fractionally it goes on top and I have an almost impossible two-putt," he says.

91Èȱ¬ straight

Through 16 and you are still in the hunt. You cannot relax yet, though. Remember Justin Rose hitting a branch with his drive in 2007? But you reach the 18th tee with a very real chance of winning the Masters. Knees knocking?

"You've probably practised the shot a million times - this is 18 at Augusta, it's a three wood or driver, you've rehearsed it and should be on automatic pilot," says Sandy Lyle. "But you've got to get your emotional levels under control. If you can't you are on the road to disaster. I was fairly tired going down the last few holes when I won in 1988. I'd had a big week the week before the Masters, winning at Greensborough. You get in that stage where you don't get over-excited and that probably helped as far as being in the zone. But if you can't control your emotions you're not going to make a good back swing. You're going to start thinking of bad things."

"The 18th is one of the toughest drives because it's a real chute. You think, 'if I neck this I'll catch the trees on the left about 100 yards away' and we've seen many a guy block it right. I always go to the right-hand side of the tee and try to blast a power fade off those bunkers. In my day we couldn't reach them - it's a slog with a piece of wood and a lump of rubber. But it's all about the takeaway. And remember to breathe," says Faldo.

So close

Drive dispatched you need one more full shot to the green. You can almost hear Peter Allis on the commentary saying, "One more good swing, my lad, just one more".

"In 1988, I tried to remove the risk and planned to just get the ball down there 240 yards to have a second shot, but I found the bunker off the tee. Even the best plans don't always work," says Lyle.

"But I knew that at least in the bunker, as long as there was a reasonable lie, there is usually a good chance to get it out. Then it's about just controlling everything and making the best swing you can. Whatever you're working on at that moment, maybe the previous tee shot, just grab that little morsel of energy where you can at least feel what you're doing. If you're looking down and the lights are on in the office but nobody is in it's going to be a disaster."

You climb the steep hill to the 18th green and take the applause of the packed crowd who have camped out all day for this. You line up your putt and there is Alliss again. "So this is it, this to win the Masters". It's the scenario you've played out in your head a thousand times since when you were a little kid. You step up, somehow get the putter back and watch in slow motion as the ball disappears and the crowd erupt.

"When the putt went in it was absolute elation. I thought I'd lost it earlier in the round and I wanted it so badly. The pressure feeling in my shoulders started to drain. If I could have just melted into a blob there on the side of the green I'd have been quite happy," says Lyle.

Say cheese

Not easy on the spur of the moment, but worth bearing in mind your celebration will be recorded for posterity. Lyle did a little impromptu jig, Ian Woosnam went down on one knee and pumped his fist, admitting later he pulled a muscle, while Phil Mickelson opted for the leap into the air. Photos show him quite literally inches from the ground.

"I think the little dance was going to be a somersault but I had no legs left," says Lyle.

"The cameras did not get me at the apex. I need to stress that," laughed Mickelson. "It's not something I work on per se, but I would venture to say that it's hard to get any worse."

So you are the Masters champion. You've received your Green Jacket and done all your press. What next?

"I came back here to eat with the members about 8pm and there were eight or nine TV crews waiting for me again so it was non-stop and my feet never touched the ground," says Lyle. "My parents were here and Dad thoroughly enjoyed himself and said, 'If I die now I'll die a very happy man'. I got away about 930-10pm and went back to the hotel I was staying in, which had been pretty noisy all week with its own bar and disco. So I thought that this was my one big chance to go and celebrate. But there was nobody there. Everyone had left to go home and get ready for work on Monday. So I didn't really celebrate until the following week at Hilton Head when I got together with some of the caddies and press guys. It was a little bit of an anticlimax, though, yes."