Masters Report: Snedeker's Masters Degree

Snedeker's play and demeanor reminded Watson of himself as a 25-year-old.

After Friday's round, Snedeker marveled about an iron shot Watson chased into a green as if it was the British Open. "I love the way he swings the golf club," Snedeker said. "I love the way he has always carried himself, and to see how he still hits the golf ball at age 58 is pretty phenomenal."

Inspired, Snedeker shot 68-69 the first two days, which included that zero-putt 2 at the sixth Friday when he blocked an approach shot to the back-right quadrant of the green. The pin was back left -- but that was no problem for Snedeker, who asked caddie Scott Vail for his 60-degree wedge. "I knew there were a couple members worried when I took out the lob wedge," he said. "But I figured it would be OK if I didn't take a divot, and I didn't, so the green is no worse for wear."

When he came off the course with a 70 Saturday, his instructor, Todd Anderson, talked about the ease he saw in Snedeker as he made his way around the course. "He loves this place and the way you have to play it," Anderson said.

But right from the start, Sunday was a different matter for the 27-year-old Tennessean. The tone was set when he missed the green and short-sided himself from the middle of the first fairway. That unforced error began an afternoon where his short game was short-circuited by swirling winds and final-round nerves. "He knew it was going to be a tough day," Anderson said. "But he could never get any momentum going. His pitching and putting were not as sharp, and those putts you've got to make to win majors, those four- to six-footers to save par, he never got his rhythm. It got going south. The first time you're in that position, in contention at a major, in the last group, you never know how you're going to act."

After Snedeker bogeyed No. 1, he quickly rallied with an eagle at No. 2 but gave it back by burying his drive at No. 3 in the face of a fairway bunker. When he lipped out for par, it was the first sign that his putter was going to behave differently than it had the first three days. Still, after dropping shots at the sixth, seventh, ninth and 11th holes, he was not out of the tournament. After a birdie at No. 12, and a ripped drive around the corner at No. 13, he faced his most important decision of the week. Immelman already had laid up.

"Golly man, if somebody could tell me how to play that second shot, I'd love to know," Snedeker said afterward. "Because two days in a row I've hit it right in the middle of that damn water."

He never recovered after the bogey at No. 13, shooting 77 and finishing four strokes back in a tie for third place. Although he would have taken third place at the start of the week, that was before the thought of owning a spot in the Champions Locker Room had become such a possibility.

While Immelman was on the practice green at the green jacket ceremony, Snedeker was sitting next to an Augusta National member named Larry Pugh who was doing his best to keep the news conference moving while the golfer tried to steady himself. Asked to describe his range of emotions, Snedeker said, "I think I'd put myself in a psychiatric ward, put it that way. I went from extreme highs to extremes lows, and that's what you don't want to do around here."

Outside the club's pro shop, Snedeker was greeted by his family: father Larry (where he gets his hair); mother Candy; and his older brother, Haymes, who hugged Brandt for what felt like a week before letting go. "It's hard to watch someone that close to you go through something like that," Haymes said later in the parking lot by Washington Road. "I know what the game means to him. It seemed like the script was written."