It’s the second week in April, and the sights and sounds filling our senses are reassuringly familiar as ever.
Yes, here comes the plinky-plonky piano refrain that even Richard Clayderman would reject as too schmaltzy (nobody under 40 knows who Clayderman is, Steve).
Here is the twitter of birdsong, piped over the TV pictures because there’s strangely no birds to be found on the premises at Augusta National.
Here is the almost impossible uber-greeness of the Masters, made by agronomic practices so environmentally unfriendly the partially-clothed eco-demonstrators at the House of Commons the other week would have to go fully naked for a proper protest.
It’s the youngest of the majors yet somehow can claim “a tradition like no other”. It is an invitational field – not even a championship by the proper definition – numbering under 100 most years.
Yet, Augusta National make their own rules, and you have to concede that this, by some careful design, has become the golf tournament that most people in the world associate with our sport and, in their dreams, would want to win.
As well as all the green vistas, it helps a lot to be the first major championship of the year, a signal for most that the serious golf season is beginning in earnest.
For all the many fine tournaments played in the first three months, this is always the first three-line whip for golf’s top players.
You can pass on the Players, miss the Matchplay or move by Mexico, but everyone comes to Augusta National. Even Lee Trevino, one of the few to openly say how much he hated the course, never missed an invitation.
And failure to win the Masters can define a player.
Greg Norman won scores of golf tournaments, millions of dollars, was World No 1 for an age, and he has two Claret Jugs; a glorious career by any measurement.
But everyone still remembers Norman’s various calamities at Augusta, and how the place tortured him.
It’s tortured others although not on such a seismic scale. Ernie Els, who seemed to spend an eternity on the ANGC putting green waiting and hoping for someone else to falter, recently expressed a final frustration.
“To be honest with you, I won’t miss the place…I’ve had enough of it,” Els told the New York Post last month.
And disaster as much as triumph can be the narrative with Augusta, even those who have won. Phil Mickelson suffered several times before he won in 2004 and having got the monkey off his back, won twice more.
Jordan Spieth won handsomely in 2015 but he’s blown three more, and arguably his epochal collapse at the 12th in 2016 and his equally epic charge and tree-top disaster last year are better remembered than his victory.
Tiger Woods has four wins, but the last is 14 years ago now (14 YEARS?!?) and it’s come to define his struggles in the last decade.
Yet Woods is still the highest placed Masters champion in the current Official World Golf Ranking, at 12th. The top 11, indeed 17 of the top 20, have still to get the Masters monkey off their back.
Of those 17, current World No 1 Justin Rose has got closest, losing in a play-off to Sergio Garcia two years ago. No 2 Dustin Johnson has three top tens in his last three tries (interrupted by the trip down the stairs in 2017) but has never really got a sniff of winning.
Rory McIlroy, famously, shot the worst final round ever by a professional player leading the Masters in 2011.
Even though his astonishing performance to win the US Open two months should have erased that collapse, the fact that the Masters became the last, as yet unachieved leg of his career Grand Slam in 2014, has loaded the pressure on him.
McIlroy seemed to be in position to complete the square of major championships last year, but somewhat inexplicably faded on the final day to basically hand the jacket to Patrick Reed.
It seems Rory has gone – given recent pronouncements – from wanting it too much to almost not caring. It’s as worth a try as much as anything, as caring avidly hasn’t worked so far.
Certainly McIlroy is the best form player coming into the Masters, if you go by ranking points gained in 2019. You could only argue that Johnson and Francesco Molinari, on limited starts, are as good nick as Rory.
Now that he can putt, Molinari may be the most solid each way contender in the field. We know he has the metal fortitude and the game, but he’s only been in the top 20 at Augusta twice in seven attempts, and never better than 19th.
Paul Casey, in a career renaissance nobody quite expected, could be fancied had he not visibly backed off every major chance he’s ever had. He’s been 6-4-6-15 in his last four Masters.
Similarly Matt Kuchar is in form if not enjoying the greatest PR at present. But Kuchar makes a habit of “backing in” to a strong finish with a big final round without ever threatening to win.
So who does win? Time for destiny to be fulfilled, surely.
I think McIlroy will get over the hump and into a Green Jacket some time, so why not when he’s the best form player of the year?