Sandy Lyle and Larry Mize, the 80s Masters

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When Sandy Lyle and Larry Mize were rocking out at the Masters there was no internet, you could smoke on a plane and George Michael was dominating the charts. The Saudis were not particularly interested in elite golf and it was not disputed that after a round in a professional tournament one does not go out in shorts. Those were the 80s, which in the golfing space-time are fading with the passing of the editions of the major in Georgia (USA).

Masters, results

Lyle, a 65-year-old Scotsman from Shrewsbury, was an exponent of the first European 'invasion' of North American golf, that of Seve, Faldo, Woosnam and Langer. Eight green jackets from 1980 to 1993, two per head for the Cantabrian, the English and the German, one for the Caledonian and the Welsh. Only Langer, a machine that at 65 years old has 25 victories in the senior circuit and in 2020 was still capable of making the Masters cut, and Txema Olazábal, champion in 1994 and 1999, somewhat later, will play next year . Neither Lyle nor Mize, a 64-year-old native of Augusta, one of the American containment dykes, along with Couples, in that time of foreign dominance, will return to the tee of one on a Thursday in April.

Time has been consuming the generation of the 80s and early 90s from the Masters, the relay from another golden age, that of the Nicklaus, Palmer, Player, Watson... When Langer and Couples stop playing, which will be within little but when they want, because in Augusta tradition is respected and that is why champions enjoy exemptions for life, a volume of the history of this tournament will be closed. That of Lyle and Mize concluded this Friday, when they said goodbye in the last and penultimate position respectively after a +5 for +12 in 16 holes and a +10 for +19 in 17 before the suspension of the game was decreed due to bad weather. .

Lyle donned the sport's most coveted garment at 88. It's a memorable victory, beautifully crafted, crowned with a birdie at 18 after a sensational 7-iron from a bunker and a holed downhill putt. “I've had good years, but my time is up. I will return if my health holds up to watch the tournament and dine with old champions, ”he assured the BBC before concluding his 42nd participation in the Masters. "It is a great achievement. a pinnacle. Like an athlete winning a gold at the Games. It is something that you celebrate all your life”, says the also champion of the British in 1985 and The Players in 1987, the first non-American to win the latter.

Mize was a prophet in his land a year before. In his case, the spring of 1987 was his golfing zenith. The rest of his resume is much more modest than Lyle's: He won four more times at the PGA between 1983 and 1993, never before at a major. “It is challenging to face this course at my age, and I enjoy it, but there is a reason this is my last Masters. I haven't played in a while, and my game isn't where I'd like it to be,” laments Larry. He already has a long field. Like Langer, who reveals new changes that have gone more unnoticed than those of the 13th hole: "They have also lengthened the 11th, which no one talks about, and the 18th. I heard something about that, I asked and they confirmed it."

The German confesses that the end is near. “I am coming to the end. I have not thought carefully when it will be, ”he confesses. Faldo's fifth left him in 2006; Seve, who passed away in 2011, didn't play beyond 2007, and Woosnam said goodbye in 2021. “We talked about him and things that happened with him,” Langer recalls of Seve. "We tell stories. I am good friends with José María (Olazábal) and Miguel Ángel (Jiménez), so Seve appears in our conversations often. He was a very important part of my life for a long time. We miss him. But that's life”, the resigned sentence of the green jacket from 1985 and 1993, one of the last vestiges of an era that is dying out.

from Tennis World USA https://ift.tt/5qwfhIP

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