There's so much aura,' explains three-time winner Faldo

Are the greens as fast as legend insists? "Faster," says the 67-year-old man reverentially as he sits up in the sky on the 27th floor of Shaw Centre.

- Rohit Brijnath

We're talking about the Masters, which starts this week, whose serenity is a beautiful ruse. The pines soar, stone bridges cross still water, the azaleas bloom. But danger lurks and this man at lunch, his meaty, gifted hands wrapped around a wine glass, has long studied its mysteries as player and commentator.

Only Jack Nicklaus (six), Tiger Woods (five) and Arnold Palmer (four) have more Green Jackets than Nick Faldo and he lays out the testing lie of this historic land. Of how a few shots can bruise a fine round.

"You can come back in 42 (shots) and you go, 'I only hit one or two bad shots'. You just were in the wrong place... Then it scares you because you realise, 'Wow'... and then you have to go to the next hole and deal with it."

Everywhere challenge lurks. At one point, he says, to some laughter, you come to the 495-yard, par-four 10th hole and you think, "Don't be short. Don't go left. Don't go long. Don't go right. All right, start again."

The Masters is an immovable institution, the youngest Major but the only one competed for on the same stretch of land. It means, says Faldo, "you know it" through the years. He means its moods, its subtleties, its history.

"You've seen guys collapse with three-shot leads. It's all been registered. I first watched from 1971 so I've seen years of how to win it and how to lose it. It adds a lot of pressure."