Canada says Weir No. 1 after Mike scores in OT

By Dan Jenkins

Photo By Dom Furore

June 2003

It figured that if a man was ever going to win a Masters in a mudslide by playing 30 holes one day, 24 holes another day and 19 holes the third day, and do all this while a comedy troupe was down the street performing a play titled "The Burk Stops Here," it would be a left-handed Canadian.

But what else should anyone have expected in a dyspeptic week such as this one in April? A week in which golf and Canada's Mike Weir were barely squeezed in between irksome rain and silly protest?

Nobody saw anything but rain from Monday until Friday, and nobody saw Martha Burk's protest against chairman William (Hootie) Johnson and Augusta National's all-male membership on Saturday unless they looked very quickly — and beyond the media mass and such loons as the Elvis impersonator who, incidentally, only wanted a ticket to the tournament. Which was one reason Hootie scored a 9-and-8 victory over Martha. All in all, the demonstrations lasted about an hour, after which everyone turned their attention back to golf, without commercial interruption.

But it was back to Mike Weir golf, not Tiger Woods golf. Mike Weir played good golf, smart golf, Hogan golf. Canada's new national sports hero played the best golf of the week and deserved to win, which he eventually did in that sudden-death playoff, even with an over-anxious three-putt bogey. His only bogey of the day, by the way.

Weir, now ranked fifth in the world behind Tiger, Ernie Els, Phil Mickelson and Davis Love III, hit fairways and greens throughout the wet, muddy week and never met a four-, five- or six-footer for par that he didn't like. This wasn't the deer in the headlights who missed everything while shooting 80 in the final group with Tiger in the PGA four years ago. "I made literally all my putts inside of eight feet today," he said. When's the last time you could say that about your own game?

After rain wiped out play on Thursday, Weir's steady rounds of 70-68 through the wettest part of the tournament gave him the 36-hole lead. His third-round 75 included a couple of his only mistakes. It put him two strokes behind leader Jeff Maggert, who was less than 24 hours from a two-hole meltdown. But Weir's 68 on Sunday was a study in control, authority, good thinking.

Mike's Sunday round slowly caught him up with the surprising Sunday intruder, Len Mattiace, whose ball continually couldn't get out of the way of the cup. He was shooting a seven-under 65. Mattiace wasn't Jack Fleck, Orville Moody or Sam Parks Jr. where majors are concerned, but he was in the neighborhood: only two wins in 12 years on and off the tour, though both came last year.

It looked like three wins until Weir's lay-up birdie at the 15th hole, the result of a crisp, 91-yard wedge shot that grew teeth four feet from the flag. Just as solidly, Weir parred the last three holes, forcing the playoff with a six-footer you wouldn't want for a $2 nassau, much less the Masters.

The playoff occurred because Mattiace didn't quite finish business. He'd chipped in for a birdie at the eighth hole and made a Crenshaw-like monster birdie putt at the 10th — what would he have given for that a couple of hours later? — before eagling the 13th, birdieing the 15th and hitting it snug at 16. He was eight under for the day as he stood on the 18th tee, a par away from matching Gary Player's 64 from 25 years ago as the best final round by a Masters winner.

Well, Len has an excuse. The poor guy was playing his first Masters since he was a junior at Wake Forest. After slicing his tee ball into the trees at 18, he pitched out and barely sneaked a six-foot bogey putt in the side door.

In the playoff, back at 10, Mattiace's drive was OK, but he hooked his approach down a slope and behind a pine. He pitched back onto the green some 30 feet away, and then almost putted it off the green before gunning it long again.