Even Danny Willett's Instructor Thought The Masters Was Over
/Granted, Mike Walker had an early flight the next day, had delayed his honeymoon to help Danny Willett prepare and couldn't do anything from home.
Still, as James Corrigan writes in a lengthy Telegraph piece, the instructor to Danny Willett (along with the legendary Pete Cowan) turned off the telly and prepared to sleep. That was after Jordan Spieth had birdied four holes in a row.
“I actually went to bed at 9.30pm when Jordan birdied nine to go five clear, thinking that was it,” Walker said. “But then an hour later my phone went mad. I turned on the TV and Spieth was just finishing off his [quadruple bogey] seven on the 12th. Danny was leading and I was like ‘wow’.”
What followed next is already enshrined in golfing folklore. “I had to have a few beers and then Liz [Walker’s wife] cracked open the Prosecco. Even after all that, I couldn’t get to sleep. So much stuff was going through my head. I didn’t hear the alarm. I spoke to Dan about 9am UK time, which was 4am over there and he was still going strong. We were both in a state of shock.”
The story goes on to look at how Walker and Cowan work with the clients they share and the lift this has given UK elite golfers like Andy Sullivan, Chris Wood and Matt Fitzpatrick.