A Masters Story With an A-Mize-ing Ending : Mize’s Chip Sinks Norman on 74th Hole

It took a 140-foot chip shot from the thick rye grass to do it, but the man once ridiculed as “Larry D. Mize,” as in demise, because of his failure to win when he had chances, is the 1987 Masters champion.

All he had to do in Sunday’s final round was overtake four of the game’s most esteemed players, Greg Norman, Seve Ballesteros, Ben Crenshaw and Bernhard Langer, all major tournament winners.

All he had to do was beat the best of them, Norman and Ballesteros, in a sudden-death playoff.

All he had to do was pitch and run his sand-wedge shot into the cup from 50 feet to the right of the green on the second playoff hole, the par-4 11th, for a birdie and the first Masters championship ever for a son of Augusta.

Mize, 28, was born in Augusta and spent most of his formative years here. When he was 14 and 15, he earned his way into Augusta National Golf Club for the Masters by changing the numbers on the scoreboard at the third hole. He said he dreamed then of winning the tournament. But never in his wildest dreams did he expect to win it like this.

Nor did Norman expect to lose it like this.

“I didn’t think it would be at all possible when I saw Larry hit his approach to the right,” said Norman, who was standing over a 30-foot putt for a birdie while Mize was preparing to chip.

Ballesteros, tears in his eyes, was on his way back to the clubhouse after missing a five-foot par putt on the first playoff hole.

Like Mize and Norman, Ballesteros finished 72 holes at 285, three-under par, and one shot ahead of Crenshaw, Roger Maltbie and Jodie Mudd. Five other players, including former champions Jack Nicklaus, Tom Watson and Langer, finished another three shots behind at one-over par.

“I had exactly the same putt I had earlier in the day on 11,” Norman said. “I thought there was no way I could fail to get down in two from there. I thought Larry would have to struggle to get down in two from where he was.

“I just couldn’t believe it went in.”

If Norman sounded like a man twice-struck, who could blame him? For the second time in as many major tournaments, victory had been snatched from the jaws of the Shark.

In the PGA Championship last August at Inverness in Toledo, Ohio, Norman lost when Bob Tway chipped in from a bunker on the final hole.

“This was a harder shot than Bob Tway’s,” Norman said. “His shot was coming out of the bunker, and you can control that better. Larry’s shot was the hardest shot in golf to make.”

What was a straight shooter like Mize doing in a place like that? Ben Hogan always said that on Sunday it was best to play the 455-yard No. 11 to the right, the alternative being Rae’s Creek to the left. But Hogan meant five feet to the right of the green, where it was simple to get up and down for a safe par, not 50.

Mize’s middle name is Hogan, but he wasn’t aware of the great one’s advice. He wasn’t even named for that Hogan but for his great-grandmother.

“I was disgusted with my second shot,” Mize said of his errant 5-iron shot. “I was just trying to put it to the right of the pin. Of course, I didn’t want to put it that far to the right.”

But when Mize analyzed his shot, he was confident he could at least place the ball close to the hole.

“It helped a little bit that it was on the same line that I had when I made a 20-footer for par earlier in the round,” he said.

“My concern was that I might leave it in the fringe. So I took my sand wedge out and pitched it low. If you pitch it high, the rye grass will stop it. I just wanted to get it up there on the green and see what happened.”

What happened was that the ball hit in the rye grass three times, bounced onto the edge of the green, rolled 90 feet, hit the pin and disappeared into the cup.

Mize leaped and leaped again.

Then he covered his eyes as if he couldn’t believe what he had just seen.

“He would probably be able to stand there for three days and never make that shot again,” Norman said.

Norman was shaken, but his caddy, Pete Bender, reminded him that he wasn’t finished.

Oh, but he was. His 30-foot putt rolled past the hole to the left.

With the championship, Mize won $162,000, a lifetime exemption for the Masters, a 10-year exemption for PGA tour events and, of course, the traditional green jacket that he received from last year’s champion, Nicklaus.

Even though Mize has won only one other tournament, the 1983 Danny Thomas-Memphis Classic, in six years on the tour, his winner’s share here gives him more than $1 million in career earnings.

Until Sunday, he was best known for the tournaments he had lost, most notably the 1986 Tournament Players Championship, in which he shot 76 on the final day and finished second by one shot to John Mahaffey. In his only playoff before Sunday, he lost last year’s Kemper Open on the sixth hole of sudden-death to Norman.

“When the pressure was on, I played some bad golf, and I got some bad breaks,” he said. “I’m not making excuses. I admit I played some bad golf.”

But when the pressure was on this time, there was no demise for Mize.

He opened Thursday with a two-under par 70, one shot behind leader John Cook, and remained in contention with even-par 72s the next two rounds, even though he finished No. 18 Saturday with a limp because of bursitis in his left hip.

When Mize teed off Sunday, having taken three anti-inflammatory pills within the last 12 hours, he was two shots behind the co-leaders, Maltbie and Crenshaw, one behind Norman and Langer and tied with Ballesteros.

Langer was the first to fade. One shot behind the leader, Maltbie, through nine holes, Langer bogeyed four holes on the back nine and finished with a 76.

Maltbie was next. He lost the lead with bogeys on 10 and 11 and bogeyed again on 14. A birdie on 17 enabled him to finish at 74.

It was at 17 where Crenshaw stumbled en route to his 74. He had managed to hang on to a share of the lead through the first seven holes of the back nine with his uncanny par-saving putting. But when he missed from six feet on 17, he was one shot behind Norman, Ballesteros and Mize with one hole to play.

Ballesteros birdied 17 to move into a tie for the lead at three-under, while Mize had did it on 18 with an eight-foot putt. Both shot 71 Sunday.

They were escorted to the Bobby Jones Cabin next to the 10th fairway, where they watched on television as Norman almost won the tournament. That’s the same room where Nicklaus watched last year as Norman made a late charge, falling one shot short with a bogey on 18.

Norman was three-over through 11 holes Sunday and three shots out of the lead. But he birdied 12, 13 and 15 to move into a tie for the lead, then fell back again when he bogeyed 16. But with a 35-foot birdie putt on 17, he again was tied.

His 22-foot birdie putt on 18 looked like the winner.

“My mouth dropped open and something came out,” Mize said.

“What was that, Larry?” Ballesteros asked.

Norman was ready to celebrate.

Then the putt died on the lip of the cup.

“I couldn’t believe it missed,” said Norman, who finished at 72.

When Crenshaw’s 20-foot putt for a birdie and a share of the lead on 18 rolled past the hole, the three leaders gathered on No. 10 to break the tie.

There were Ballesteros, twice a winner here and twice a winner at the British Open, Norman, the 1986 British Open champion, and Mize.

“I was pretty nervous standing there with them two boys,” Mize said.

But he made the best approach on the par-4, 485-yard 10th, hitting to within 10 feet of the hole. Instead of winning it there, however, he left the putt short. Norman also parred, while Ballesteros bogeyed.

Norman said he was surprised that Ballesteros was eliminated so quickly.

“Of all the people in the world in head-to-head competition, Seve’s probably the toughest,” Norman said.

Thus, the stage was set for one of the most dramatic finishes in this fabled tournament’s history. Somewhere out there on the course, a young scoreboard operator was dreaming.