The time hurtles by. It’s 45 years now since Seve Ballesteros struck a mighty blow for European golf at the Masters with a trail blazing triumph that just about left scorch marks on the tarmac of Magnolia Lane.
The Spaniard’s four-shot win at Augusta National in 1980 was the first by a golfer from this side of the pond and provided the catalyst for a tremendous period of plunder and prosperity.
Over the next 16 years, the green jacket would be plonked on the shoulders of nine European champions.
As the opening men’s major of the season looms on the horizon again, the current Euro stars have the kind of momentum you’d get with the trains in the channel tunnel. Well, when there’s not essential works taking place on the lines.
Six wins have been delivered on the PGA Tour in 2025, the most European successes before a Masters in the modern era.
Rory McIlroy, who announced the other day that he’s nursing a little elbow complaint just to ramp up the pre-Masters hysteria a notch, has been at the vanguard of this profitable push with two wins.
There are plenty of form horses, even though many are predicting the kind of two horse race you got when War Admiral took on Sea Biscuit.
“I’m looking forward to the Rory-Scottie show … and that’s the end of the conversation, let’s leave now,” chuckled Curtis Strange, the double US Open champion and current ESPN television analyst, during a conference call ahead of next week’s Augusta showpiece.
The Scottie, of course, is the USA's Scottie Scheffler, the reigning Masters champion and world No 1 who is looking to hang a third green jacket in his wardrobe. What McIlroy would do for just one, eh?
As for our own Robert MacIntyre? Well, the Scot returns to the Masters for the first time since 2022 in fine fettle after a well-deserved breather back in Oban.
A share of 11th in the esteemed company of the Arnold Palmer Invitational was followed by a fine tie for ninth in the Players Championship at Sawgrass before he shrugged of the effects of a 23-hour journey from Florida to the far east with another top-10 in the Porsche Singapore Classic.
With that breakthrough year in 2024, when he won the Canadian and Scottish Opens on the PGA Tour, MacIntyre made plenty of folk sit up and take notice. He certainly caught the eye of Strange.
Along with old chestnuts like, “the Masters doesn’t begin until the back nine on Sunday” or “the course is much hillier than it looks on the tele”, another hoary adage about this storied neck of the golfing woods is, “Augusta suits a left-hander”.
It certainly suited south paw MacIntyre to a tee. He shared 12th on his debut in 2021 and was on the fringes of the top-20 a year later.
“But I don’t think right or left-handed makes any difference really,” stated Strange, who was three shots clear with just six holes to play in the 1985 Masters but saw his hopes drowned in the water and had to settle for joint second behind Bernhard Langer.
“I think talent overrides everything. He (MacIntyre) has got speed. He’s got talent. He’s won now. It’s hard to put into words the importance of winning and what that does for your self-belief.
“Do you walk around with your chest puffed out all day long? No, but when a shot comes out the next month, you know down deep inside that you’ve done it under the gun. You believe in yourself a little bit more.
“Whoever wins the Masters this year is basically the same player that they were the day before. The difference, especially if it’s a young kid, is the belief and the confidence. That’s huge. And he has that right now.”
That observation was backed up by Strange’s old mucker Andy North, another past US Open champion, as he talked up MacIntyre’s chances of emulating the Masters moment of his groundbreaking compatriot, Sandy Lyle, in 1988.
“I don’t see Bob being much of a different player today than he was maybe two years ago,” said North as he joined the MacIntyre appreciation society. “I just think for the first time, he really believes that he can do it, and that’s such a big part of it.
“I think deep down, he knows he can win. He knows that he can beat these guys. I don’t think he knew that two or three years ago.”
Watch this space, folks.
