Nick Rodger: Masters musings as Garcia, Rose and the rest provide plenty to ponder

You’d have to have a heart made out of an industrial rivet which is encased in granite and sealed with cement not to feel a tad of emotion in the aftermath of Sergio’s Masters moment. Watching the Spaniard in the majors down the years has produced such a roller coaster of sensations he could probably open up a theme park to rival the Blackpool Pleasure Beach. If he wasn’t skipping gleefully down the fairway on the final day of the 1999 PGA Championship as a 19-year-old while harrying Tiger Woods all the way, then he was missing a little putt to win the Open at Carnoustie in 2007. And then there was his snivelling confession that he felt he didn’t have what it takes to win a major. Forget the Green Jacket. You feared it was a strait jacket Garcia required. Garcia was the heir to the thrones of Ballesteros and Olazabal but we all wondered if that coronation would ever come. At last, he is fulfilled in a year in which on course contentment has been mirrored by the happiness of his personal life. It certainly wasn’t straight forward at Augusta but these swashbuckling Spaniards don’t tend to do things the straight forward way. Sergio did it his way. He did it Seve’s way, too. Finally, and joyously, Garcia found his way to master a major.

GOLF REVELS IN ANOTHER OF ITS GREATEST DAYS

There are folk who are never done moaning and bleating about golf. This Royal & Ancient pursuit takes more beatings than an auld rug in the back court of a tenement. If sneering, mocking observers are not grumbling that it’s too slow and out of touch, then those champions of gaudy razzmatazz are demanding fireworks, walk on music and funky new formats to give it a bit more pep. Masters Sunday proved, once again, that golf, with its spirit, passion and spell-binding skill, truly is the greatest of games. You don’t have to do much to it when it’s played like this. Like Stenson and Mickelson in the Showdoon at Troon last July, this was a shimmering example of both sporting excellence and gracious sportsmanship. The cherished values that are at the very core of the game were showcased superbly as Garcia and Rose did their bit to inspire, excite, engage and enthral in a way that only top level sport can. It was a wonderful advert and had all and sundry talking golf up instead of down.

RORY LEFT FEELING BLUE IN HIS QUEST FOR GREEN JACKET

By all accounts, Rory McIlroy remains such a stick-on for Masters glory he has adhesive tape on his Nike t-shirt. But then, in the fickle world of golf, these so-called “can’t miss guys” can often miss. This was McIlroy’s fourth successive top-10 finish in the major he craves in order to complete the career grand slam but he appears no closer to winning. Close shaves and frustrating flirtations don’t mean much to a player desperate to add to his haul of four major titles. Since 2010, McIlroy has scribbled 15 double-bogeys down on his Augusta cards. The sloppiness has been costly, so too has the failure to capitalise on the holes where he should prosper. This was another week of what ifs, maybes and might have beens for McIlroy. As Garcia proved, though, golf remains a game of why nots, perhaps and wait and sees. Time is very much on McIlroy’s side

MOTHER NATURE SPARES US THE PAR 3 PALAVER

The traditional, eve of Masters Par-3 contest, which dates back to 1960, used to be an intriguing, enjoyable spectacle but in recent years it’s become a celebrity-infused kindergarten where hits and giggles are interspersed with unwatchable, fawning footage of a golfer’s cute toddler trying to hole out from six inches. It now provokes more gushing awws than a picture of a puppy gently pawing at the nose of a baby seal. Kids here, wives there, famous friends everywhere? It’s a grinning mishmash of white caddie outfits and even whiter tooth enamel. Mercifully, a storm forced its abandonment last Wednesday. What a misery guts I am eh?