AUGUSTA – “Unexpected, aren’t it?”
Those were the first words -- exaggerated in a playful Cockney English dialect – from the mouth of Danny Willett after carding a first-round 68 at the Masters Thursday.
And it was very much unexpected, most of all by Willett himself. One of the most overlooked former Masters champions, there was no reason to expect much from the Englander from Sheffield. Just six months removed from major shoulder surgery that was expected to take out for 12 to 18 months, Willett didn’t commit to playing in the 88th Masters until late Sunday after playing a round with a friend.
Pulling a 10:54 a.m. tee time in a rain-delayed opening round Thursday, Willett was thinking nothing but survival when he hit driver off the No. 1 tee. But he’d make birdie at the first and another on 18 with some wild and wooly but mostly satisfying adventures in between. After going out in 3-under, Willett gave almost all of it back through 14. Then he birdied three of his last four holes, including an 18-foot, side-sloper to walk off No. 18 as leader-in-the-clubhouse at 4-under.
“Nice finish there on them last four holes to come back,” Willett said. “Instead of posting an all-right score of ‘levelish,’ which, again, would for me have been an amazing achievement. But to shoot 68, yeah, really happy.”
It was Willett’s third-best round of all time at the Masters, falling behind a second-round 66 in 2020 and his famous final-round 67 to come from behind against Jordan Spieth and Lee Westwood to win the green jacket in 2016.
But few Masters champions have done less with their accomplishment. Still only 36 years old today, Willett missed the cut on his next three trips to Augusta National Golf Club. After a T-25 in 2020, Willett logged two more missed-cuts with a 12th-place tie in 2022 sandwiched in between.
Willett’s struggles weren’t limited to the Augusta. That 2016 Masters victory remains his only PGA Tour win. Two years later, Willett had plummeted to 462 in the world rankings. He was at 260 when he arrived at Augusta National this week.
Turns out there were some good reasons for the decline. Willett ramped up his international schedule after his Masters victory, which many believe contributed to back problems. Then Willett’s left shoulder became a source of pain and discomfort.
His doctors have long been aware of a tear in the labrum, but Willett chose to treat it with physical therapy. It wasn’t until last September when it got really bad and he finally relented to have surgery that doctors were aware of the extent of that tear.
After the procedure, Willett was in a 90-degree cast for six weeks. At the time, playing the 2024 Masters wasn’t even a pipe dream.
“I don’t think any of them really would have given me a sniff of playing this week,” Willett said earlier this week.
Willett wasn’t certain what he’d do until Monday, really. He played 27 holes at Augusta National on Sunday with a friend. He performed well enough then to know his swing would be ready, but he couldn’t be sure until he saw what he felt like the next day.
Obviously, he felt well enough.
But Willett’s not going to let expectations get in the way of the good vibes.
“It’s nice to come and prove that if you’ve done the work and you do the right things that you can hit the shots still when you need to,” he said. “But everything is just a building block. This was a completely neutral week. Whether I played or not I was still going to come here and enjoy being here.
“I might go out tomorrow and shoot 80, I don’t know. But it’s just the fact that we’re here and pain-free, it’s just a nice way to be.”
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