Sandy Lyle, who this week is making his 39th (!) Masters appearance, is a national treasure. Sadly, we can’t claim him, even if he does call South Florida home. Lyle hails from Shrewsbury, England, but is associated more with his father’s native Scotland, which Lyle chose to represent when he turned pro in 1977.
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He went on to win 18 times on the European Tour, including a pair of the big ones, the 1985 Open Championship and the 1988 Masters. The latter of those two titles earned him an annual invite back to the gleaming fairways of Augusta National, where year after year Lyle, who is now 62, continues to test his game against players who hit it 50 yards past him, and then some.
On this muggy Masters Thursday, Lyle’s day started with a 4:45 wakeup call. That’s what happens when you have a 7 a.m. tee time, as Lyle did alongside Jimmy Walker and Yuxin Lee, the Asian-Pacific Am champion. After a hot shower, Lyle slipped on a striped shirt and navy slacks, followed by an accessory that later in the morning would have Golf Twitter delighting: suspenders.
Suspenders! On a golfer! At the Masters! Whoever thought of such a thing?
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Lyle said he became a braces believer a few months back when hammers and wrenches were weighing down his “work trousers,” causing his shirt to untuck. Why, Lyle thought, couldn’t the same device be applied on the golf course, where he was having a similar issue with the force of his swing dislodging his shirt? “Very long torso,” he said.
“I don’t use it for a fashion parade,” Lyle continued with delicious detail. “I do it because I am so fed up with my shirts coming out and constantly having to tuck it in. And when it’s so warm like this, and you’ve got grubby hands, you tuck your shirt in, you pull your hand out and the shirt comes with it.”
Suspenders it is, Sandy!
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Anyway, three or so hours later, Lyle arrived on the tee at the par-4 10th, his opening hole. Because of the limited daylight this time of year, the tournament is sending players off split tees. If you know anything about Augusta’s 10th hole, it’s a daunting tee shot that asks right-handed players — most of the pros play a 3-wood — to sling a draw around the corner. Not exactly the easiest shot to execute out of the gate. “Very nerve-wracking,” Lyle said later.
It showed. With mist rising from the fairway below, Lyle addressed his ball, took a lash and … did he top it?! He’d thought he had, quickly looking to his playing partners for guidance on where his ball had gone. “I thought I’d scuffed it up the left side where Rory McIlroy went some years ago,” Lyle said. “It just skirted the trees and it didn’t get down the hill.” In fact, the shot wasn’t too bad. It bled back into the fairway, leaving Lyle 214 yards into the green. His ensuing hybrid shot came up short, leading to an opening bogey.
On the next tee, Lyle bounced back with “an absolute banger of a shot,” but before he could build on that momentum, the horn sounded, pulling the players off the course. Nearly three hours passed before they returned, at which point Lyle strolled down to his ball in the 11th fairway and “slaughtered a 4-iron to the green.” He added: “That was a really good confidence-builder for me; I had some big hopes of maybe getting through the 16th back to level par.” Alas, it wasn’t to be. When Lyle’s tee shot at 16 plugged in the bank by the pond that fronts the green, he was forced back to the tee. Double.
He made the turn in three over, then added two more bogeys on the first nine to sign for a 78. “Six over now is just a little bit too far.” A lot bit too far if we’re being honest, what with 50 players under par when darkness set in, including Lyle’s contemporary, Larry Mize, who while averaging a mere 250 off the tee (we’re rounding up), still managed a splendid two-under 70.
“I’m shattered,” Lyle said. “It was a long day.”
As for the suspenders? Does Lyle intend to grant them a place in his permanent golf wardrobe?
“If I start shooting some scores,” he said, “I definitely will.”