WHEN WOOSIE RULED THE WORLD

As Ian Woosnam calls time on his Augusta career, we look back at his Masters triumph in 1991 as well as his rise to the summit of the world rankings

- RODERICK EASDALE

Early in 1991, Ian Woosnam went for a knock round his local course in Oswestry. He missed putts on the final three holes “all from less than 12 feet, one of them from about two feet”. Despite this, he shot 57, and “that gave me the feeling 1991 could be a special year”.

The Shropshire-born Welshman had entered the year at number four in the world rankings, behind Greg Norman, Nick Faldo, and Jose Maria Olazabal. Ever since he had been a teenager working on his father’s farm, his dream had been to be the World No.1.

Back then this aim may have looked exceedingly optimistic, for, as I tentatively suggest, he had not been the most obviously gifted teenage golfer. He rocks back and laughs: “No, I was crap! But I have always been a believer. You also have to remember I was working on the farm, so before I was 18 I was only playing once or twice a week.”

His father had wanted to be a professional boxer, but “his own father had told him: ‘you are going to be a farmer and that’s it.’” Ian Woosnam’s own father backed his son’s sporting ambition. “I always remember my dad saying to me ‘you have to treat this as an apprenticeship. Give yourself five years. And it was down to the day, nearly, of those five years – I was 23 years old – before I won. There were times I was going to give it up and become a club pro. But my dad kept on at me: he had that belief. He took me everywhere and he wrote all his expenses down, and when I started winning money he presented me this book and said ‘you owe me £2,000 plus 10%’.”

Flying high