The shot of a lifetime

I always thought that, when I’m on my death bed, if there’s one shot from professional golf that I’m still capable of dredging up, long after all other memories have faded, it would be Tiger Woods’ chip on the 16th hole at Augusta National in 2005.

Though over 20 years ago now, I remember vividly where I was, who I was with, and what our collective reactions were. The mind has a way of playing tricks, however. I know I was watching on Sky Sports, and my associating Verne Lundqvist’s legendary “In your life have you seen anything like that?” call with it is due to repeated rewatches on YouTube and Masters replays, but they are memories I’m happy to blend as the commentary only serves to heighten the spectacle.

I still hope that memory lingers until the end, but I now think that Rory McIlroy’s shot into the 15th in the final round of this year’s Masters will outlast it if I’m left with just one.

Tiger’s chip was iconic, but give me a wedge, and an endless supply of balls and time, and I’ll eventually hole that chip. It might not drop in dead weight, a perfect Nike advertisement, but I’d eventually do it. We all would.

Put me behind those trees on 15, a 7-iron in hand, and there’s simply no way I ever recreate Rory’s shot. There are very few who ever could.

That, in itself, makes it a shot worth remembering. But given what had transpired over the previous 25 minutes, the difficulty of the shot, and the penalty for failure – not just seeing another Masters slip from his grasp, but surely delivering the sort of crushing blow that even a man who’s repeatedly pulled himself off the canvas could never recover from – what Rory pulled off has to make it the single greatest shot I’ve ever seen a golfer hit.

Does it matter that he missed the eagle putt afterwards? No, not really. Tiger went on to bogey 17 and 18, but that took nothing away from the shot he executed on 16, so the same thing applies to Rory’s shot.

Like most of us, I went through the full rollercoaster of emotions that Sunday back in April. 20 years from now, I’ll vividly remember where I was, who I was with, and my reaction to it. I was up off my seat and screaming, “Oh my God, what a shot! What a shot! WHAT A SHOT!”

I’ve rewatched it too many times to count, and one of the things I find most mesmerising is the way he walks after it. For somebody who had a four-shot lead on the 11th green and found himself a shot behind on the 15th tee, with a decade’s worth of major scar tissue and the ghosts of Augusta National past coming back to haunt him, his face is serene. There’s no grimace, no pleads for it to “go” like we’d get on 17, no signs of any stress whatsoever. He knew it was perfect.

Like with Tiger’s chip, I was watching on Sky Sports, but I’ve now blended Jim Nantz’ CBS commentary into the memories. “Is it enough?…….. It is!……… Oh, here he comes………. The shot of a lifetime!”

On Sky Sports, Nick Faldo had the reigns and his “Absolutely incredible. Is this the magical moment to save him?” looks good on paper, but it lacked the expressive delivery of his CBS counterpart.

They were both right though. It was absolutely incredible, and the shot of a lifetime.

And, fingers crossed, it delivered a memory that will last a lifetime.

Watch it in all its glory again.