Overview:The
Masters Tournament is famous for all the
great golf and great things that have
happened over the years on the second nine
in the final round.
Future dates for The
Masters
The final round of the Masters each year is
scheduled the second Sunday in April.
Tentative future dates for upcoming
Tournaments are: 2009 April 6 - 12
For the
second year in a row, we have a Masters
champion who didn't seem to have the
credentials to win such a prestigious
tournament. Last year, it was Zach
Johnson, who had won only a single PGA
Tour event before his victory at Augusta
National. Now, it is Immelman, also a
winner of just one title before Sunday,
looking as though he was made to wear a
green jacket.
Immelman slept on the lead for three
nights, something not accomplished by a
champion here since Seve Ballesteros in
1980. Immelman, a 28-year-old with a
polished swing, who finally realized his
potential in the wicked wind of Augusta
and a final round that yielded only four
rounds under par. |
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Immelman
certainly had a fine résumé. After last
year's Wachovia Championship on the PGA
Tour, he had risen to No. 12 in the Official
World Golf Ranking. He was coming off a 2006
rookie of the year season, when he won the
Western Open. And he had won three European
Tour titles.
Immelman is the sixth player since 1997 to
win his first major at The Masters, but that
list includes Woods, Mark O'Meara, Mike Weir
and Phil Mickelson, all of whom built a
reputation before winning at Augusta
National.
And he joins a long list of surprise major
championship winners, especially in recent
years.
Johnson had missed the cut in his previous
three majors and never had finished better
than a tie for 17th. Ben Curtis won the
British Open and Shaun Micheel the PGA
Championship in 2003. Neither had won a PGA
Tour event before those victories. Todd
Hamilton, a 38-year-old rookie in 2004, won
the British Open in a playoff over Ernie Els,
his second victory of the year. Since then,
he has missed the cut in nine majors.
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