When Rory McIlroy won the Masters last year, I wrote with some enthusiasm that it was about as good as sport gets. For what more do you want than a hugely likeable bloke who had won everything else bar the Masters finally fulfilling his dream and putting on the green jacket, just when it looked like it might be drifting away?
Well, you could have some drama on the final day, I guess?
We got that, too!
For, as you’ll recall, while we all held our breath, McIlroy had a final round of trading vicious death blows with … himself. Time and again he put the ball so awry it really looked like he was choking in a manner reminiscent of Greg Norman’s catastrophic collapse of three decades ago.
More pertinently it also risked being a replica of his own collapse at the US Open at North Carolina the previous June, when he’d missed two three-foot putts in his last three holes to relinquish what appeared to be a certain victory.
Time and again, however, on that final day of last year’s Masters, McIlroy managed recovery shots that were simply stunning in their skill, while also countering his three bogies – oh NO! – with six birdies – oh YES!!!! – until finally, he won the whole thing. Bottom line? Great bloke, and a credit to his country, gets the bickies, just when it seemed all was lost.
What could match that for sporting pleasure this year? Not Rory, again, as fine as he is playing. Let’s go for instead our own Jason Day, finally bringing home another Masters for Australia, to match the one by Adam Scott in 2013.
You’ll recall back then how one of the major threats to Scott winning was Day, and yet when Scott nailed the final putt, the first man to warmly congratulate him was Day himself, despite what must have been his desperate disappointment at finishing third. For Day, that was part of a slew of second and third place finishes in majors, where he’s been so close, but still so far.
But through it all, he never stopped smiling, never stopped trying his best, never stopped believing that one day it would happen for him, too. He was Australian sport at its very best. Hugely competitive, but no gnarl, no snarl, no swagger, no dagger. Just a great bloke doing his best.
In 2015, it all came together for him in stunning fashion when he won his only major at the US PGA Championship on the Whistling Straits course in Wisconsin with a breathtaking final score of 20 under. The nation rejoiced and loved him even more, focusing on his moving backstory: he had lost his father when he was young, but used a golf club he’d found on a rubbish tip to teach himself the skills that would support his journey to the top. And he’d been backed all the way by his widowed mother, who sacrificed everything and took two jobs so he would lack for nothing along the way.
Day’s victory in 2015 was warmly acclaimed by his peers, with then world No.1 Jordan Spieth tweeting: “That was a clinic yesterday @JDayGolf. Really impressive by you and Colin. Great people and great champions!” This was closely followed by “@McIlroyRory also posting : “2 inevitable things happened today, @JDayGolf winning a major and @JordanSpieth getting to 1 in the world! Congrats guys!! Inspiring stuff!”
Now, true, since that time Day has been relatively quiet when it comes to troubling the engravers, in part due to dreadful problems with his back. Still, he’s never stopped believing that the magic would return.
LIV golf for him? Yeah, nah. There was talk of it, and maybe if he’d pushed he could have followed the then world No.2-ranked Cam Smith – now No.222 – and gone after the big bucks. But Day stayed, and has always professed how happy he was to do so, telling ESPN: “I’m so thankful and so happy that I stayed on the PGA Tour. I just feel that the tour was a perfect spot for me.”
And he remains the perfect player for us to top last year’s wonder story. For Day made a great start and was just two shots back from McIlroy and Sam Burns after the first round, having shot a three-under 69 and looking strong throughout. He is not entirely pain free, but in the right headspace, and it shows.
“I’ve had success at Augusta,” he told the Herald just before the tournament started, “and I’d like to break through at some point. I’m very hungry. Trying to win the Masters is the biggest thing on my mind every year. I think I’ve got the game to do it. Sorry, I shouldn’t say, ‘I think’; I know I have the game. I have experience. If I give myself opportunities and take some, I’ve got a good feeling I can win.”
So do we, Jason. Go, you good thing. We are watching, mate.
Sharpe operator
Eagle-eyed TFF readers may remember me spruiking the charms of Alison Sharpe over the years, Australia’s “foremost female croquet player” – and on a good day, “best player, full stop”.
I’d never met her, but one of her supporters kept emailing me about just how great she was. Hence, my shock when, not long ago, it turned out she is my new neighbour!
On Easter Monday, she and I were partners taking on two of my rugby mates who also turn out to be keen purveyors of the sport, Michael Hawker and Steve Anthony, and I was appropriately stunned at her skill and the fun of the game. Alison, I kid you not, can hit a ball from 10 metres away through a hoop with a credit card’s width of space on either side to work with, and not blink.
Sadly, we didn’t win as one of us – I am not saying who – let the side down, but I now get the game as never before. As it happens, if you want to see some of world’s best croquet players in action, The Fletcher Sharpe Invitational for the players aged 35 and under – the richest croquet event in the country, and boasting players from the US, New Zealand, Egypt and Australia – is on at the Cooks River Croquet Club from April 22-25. My money is on Alison.
I shall be in my trailer.
What they said
Greg Norman, on his infamous choke against Nick Faldo at the Masters 30 years ago when he had led by six shots going into the final round: “Look, I can remember the sights and sounds of that Masters. Vividly. I remember on the Saturday evening when I was leaving the locker room and Peter Dobereiner [the late British golf writer] was standing at the corner of the bar you had to walk past. ‘Not even you can f— this up,’ he said to me. And I replied ‘Thanks, Peter’. I laughed. Peter was my friend.”
Norman on his conqueror, Nick Faldo: “There is something about Nick. It’s in him. There’s the public side of Nick. You know, he was the one who came up to me, he’s the one who hugged me. He’s the one who said, ‘Don’t let those b——s get to you’. But it didn’t really mean much to me, because I knew he’d soon go back to being the way he was before. We never had any sort of relationship. We were chalk and cheese. He was a loner. I couldn’t be like him.” Geez, Louise. If Norman isn’t the Noddy No Mates of our time, I don’t know who is.
Nick Faldo holding his fire until after the Masters: “I’m not going to say anything about you know what. Out of respect to the Masters and the tournament, I’m going to wait, and I’ll be putting out a statement on Monday.”
Rory McIlroy on coming to the Masters without the weight of the world on his shoulders having won it in 2025: “For the past 17 years I just could not wait for the tournament to start. And this year I wouldn’t care if it never did. It is so nice to walk around the property or be out on the golf course and, yeah, just not have that hanging over me, like it feels that it’s a big weight off my shoulders.”
Jason Day on Tigers Woods and his latest driving incident: “It just shows the human element and the human side of someone that is struggling with some sort of an addiction. It is tough. I’ve never dealt with an addiction before, other than golf …”
Incoming Wallabies coach Les Kiss: “There is a uniquely Australian way to play. Our athletes are forged in backyards, friends dusting each other up, finding a way to win. Sometimes you have to be inventive, sometimes physical. The Australian way isn’t formulaic, it’s expressive. Outside influence is important, but there’s a way Australians solve things on the sports field that make us special.” I like it.
Nick Kyrgios on the 2022 Wimbledon final when he lost in four sets to Novak Djokovic: “I won the first set, I’m right there, two sets away from basically becoming immortal in the sport. I think about it every day, it still bothers me, and I still get asked about it. I got so close … I think about it, and I feel like now, I’m not physically … I’ve had four surgeries, three surgeries in the last couple of years. So I feel my body isn’t as elite as it used to be.”
Gold Coast Suns coach Damien Hardwick on past performance not being a predictor of future performance: “Ladder last year is worth shit.”
Sydney Kings star Kendric Davis on his rivalry with Bryce Cotton: “He said he never had a rivalry. He do now.”
Dragons coach Shane Flanagan on their horrible 0-5 start to the season: “I don’t accept it, I’m not happy with it, I’m terribly disappointed, and I’m sorry.”
The Dragons coach talking about himself in the third person. The beginning of the end?“Don’t worry about Shane Flanagan, he’ll get through it.”
Sydney Swan Tom Papley after bringing up 200 games: “I could be plumbing, I could be in Bunyip, but the Swans took a chance on me and I just wanted to repay the faith. They didn’t have to pick me. I was just this fat bloke from Bunyip that drank some piss and ate some pies for breakfast.”
Storm coach Craig Bellamy on the team’s poor defence: “You don’t have to be a brain surgeon to be a good defender. You just need to work hard and be determined.”
Team of the week
Sydney Kings. Won the NBL title, beating the Adelaide 36ers in overtime in the fifth and final game.
Nyadiew Puoch, Chloe Bibby, Kristy Wallace. Australian basketballers taken in the WNBA expansion draft.
Dragons. Shane Flanagan received flak at the beginning of the season for saying they weren’t going to win the title. Well, he showed everyone! (To be fair, however, which is not like me, apart from some recent blowouts, the Dragons on his watch have specialised in gut-busting losses by a razor’s edge.)
Essendon. Haven’t won a final since 2004. Will likely match that ignominy by going one worse than their longest losing streak – 17 games – today against Melbourne.
Panthers. Amazingly, after beating everyone this season by at least 20 points, went down on Thursday night to Canterbury, 32-16.
Peter FitzSimons is a journalist and columnist with The Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via X.