Easy does it

Fred Couples’ career saw him glide serenely to World No.1 and a Green Jacket, but it wasn’t always as effortless as he made it look...

- Michael Weston

It’s hard to imagine Fred Couples feeling like he doesn’t belong. Here’s a man who rolls out of bed, pulls on a smart shirt, strides on to the first tee and effortlessly crunches one down the middle. However, he’s not always been so relaxed. Believe it or not, Couples was, and in fact still is, rather “skittish”. The wide smiles and the nonchalant doffing of the cap, it’s not all an act – yet it reveals only part of one of the game’s most laid-back characters.

The player known as ‘Boom Boom’ – because of his long, straight driving – arrived on the PGA Tour in 1981. This was an era not lacking in personalities, the likes of Jack Nicklaus, Tom Watson, Raymond Floyd and Lee Trevino among them. Then there was Johnny Miller, the type of ‘cool guy’ a 20-year-old Couples would seek out just to stare at on the range. In the main, though, he tried to avoid the players he idolised – at least, he says, until he became a much better player.

The memories of those first few seasons on tour are still vivid, one in particular. After a respectable start to his professional career, Couples made his Masters debut in 1983. It was, as it normally is for first-timers at Augusta, a learning experience – but one that would prove most valuable. “I wasn’t a slow player, but I was nervous that I was holding back the guy who won The Masters twice in the last five years,” he says of the 81 he shot playing alongside Watson. “I just panicked. I was just shocked how great he played, how fast he played and how easy he made golf look.”