Masters Notebook : Victory at Augusta Is Strange’s Top Priority

Curtis Strange was asked if he remembered 1985.

“Oh, stop it,” he said. “Would you? I mean, really.”

His indignation was strictly for laughs.

Curtis Strange has been here before. The 1985 Masters was all his. He owned it. He had a four-shot lead with nine holes to play.

Then he went into the water twice, on the 13th and 15th holes. Bernhard Langer won the tournament.

“Obviously, I have thought about it,” said Strange, after his 70 Friday had given him the 36-hole lead in the Masters.

“It’s a tournament I would like to win. It’s probably the most important tournament to me. I’d love dearly to win this tournament some day.

“When there’s a tournament you blow, you want to come back and win it.”

By blowing the tournament, Strange lost some money and prestige, but won a lot of new admirers for the grace and humor with which he accepted what had happened. Known for years for grumpy and often rude behavior, Strange showed an attractive new side of himself.

Jack Nicklaus had taken him aside after the tournament and said, “This’ll either ruin you or make you a better player.” Strange knew what he meant. People would be watching how he handled this setback.

By being gracious, Strange found himself deluged for weeks thereafter with notes of sympathy and good wishes.

“People saw a sensitive side to me that they never knew I had,” he said. “It broke some stereotypes people had had about me.”

Weeks later, in Bristol, Va., Strange gave a speech to an audience of about 250, then asked if there were any questions. No one raised a hand.

“How many of you saw the last round of the Masters?” Strange asked.

Many hands went up.

“And you don’t have any questions?” he asked.

After taking the second-round lead Friday, Strange was asked about the 13th hole, where this time he faced a similar shot to the one in 1985 and with this one cleared the creek. He was asked how alike the two shots were.

“This is Friday,” was Strange’s answer. “That was Sunday.”

On the way to a 71, which leaves him three strokes behind Strange, Seve Ballesteros hit his tee shot on No. 8 into the second fairway.

“I’ve been playing here 11 years,” Ballesteros said. “I thought maybe that was a good way to play the hole, from the second fairway.”

As Ballesteros was going one way on the second fairway, he passed John Cook, who was going the other. Ballesteros said Cook gave him a double-take.

“Go ahead,” Ballesteros said, “I have plenty of time.”

Ballesteros didn’t want to talk about his misadventures in the final round last year, when he had a four-shot lead over Jack Nicklaus with five holes to go and lost to him by two strokes.

“I don’t remember anything from last year,” Ballesteros said, mischievously. “My memory is very short. What happened last year?”

A reporter suggested that Ballesteros had blocked out the ordeal.

“I don’t have to block it out because I don’t remember anything,” Ballesteros said.

“You were the leader.” another reporter said.

“Oh yeah?” Ballesteros said.

Ballesteros also was reluctant to discuss his 30th birthday, which was Thursday.

Asked about the group of fans that was singing “Happy Birthday” to him as he approached the 18th green Thursday, he said: “I might have heard that. But I have the same problem as Marvin Hagler. I really don’t remember when I was born.”

Not only did Cook have to contend with Ballesteros going the wrong way on the second fairway Friday, he almost got stung by a bee on the fourth green.

“I don’t think he stung me,” Cook said. “But it hit me right in the throat. Then it just stayed there looking at me like, ‘I got you.’ It didn’t sting me, but it stunned me.”

Green being the preferred color at Augusta National, the concessionaires serve sandwiches wrapped in green paper and soft drinks in green cups. Trying to bring food or drink onto the course that comes in a different color is considered a breach of etiquette.

When one patron Thursday bought a white styrofoam cup filled with coffee at a restaurant across the street from the course and tried to bring it through the gate at Augusta National, he was stopped by a security guard. The guard gave him a green cup and told him to pour the coffee into it before the could enter.

Masters Notes

Johnny Miller killed a water moccasin Friday by Rae’s Creek on the 13th hole. He fell one short of Hubert Green’s tournament record of two snakes on one hole. . . . Fierce San Francisco 49ers fan Roger Maltbie was asked if in his wildest dreams he imagines himself to be quarterback Joe Montana. “In my wildest dreams, I’m Eddie DeBartolo Jr.,” Maltbie said. “He pays Joe Montana.” . . . Among those missing the cut was Scott Verplank, who on Thursday had eagled the tournament’s first hole.