MASTERS NOTEBOOK : They Have Passports to Success at Augusta

Foreign players have won four of the last seven Masters championships, which comes as no surprise to Britain’s Nick Faldo, the defending champion.

“We’ve matured,” Faldo said, referring to himself, Seve Ballesteros, Sandy Lyle, Bernhard Langer, Ian Woosnam and Greg Norman. “We’ve been relatively the same group since the early 1980s.

“That’s why we’ve advanced. The same six guys. And that’s why we have an advantage over the U.S. tour. You’re losing more guys than you’re replacing. Jack (Nicklaus) has gone to the seniors, and you’ve lost people like Hale Irwin, Johnny Miller and Tom Weiskopf. You’ve lost a lot of your superstar names.”

Faldo said his game is in fine shape. He shot a final-round 64 Sunday in a tournament in Houston. He was out of contention, though, finishing in a tie for 15th.

Asked to recall his feelings when Scott Hoch missed a two-foot putt that would have beaten him in the first playoff hole of last year’s Masters, Faldo said:

“I’ve said it a million times: ‘I could still win this tournament.’ It was no gimme putt. In his mind he had that to win. It was a lot of pressure.”

Hoch said the pivotal hole for him wasn’t the 10th in the playoff, but the 17th before the playoff, where he got a bogey, forcing the sudden-death showdown with Faldo.

As for the two-foot putt he missed on No. 10 in the playoff, Hoch said:

“I knew what I wanted to do and hit it the right speed. But I didn’t line up my putter to the intended line. It would be easier to say that I had the yips, but that wasn’t the cause.”

Faldo won the tournament on the next hole with a 25-foot birdie putt.

“The one he made to win can be made if you get a little lucky and, obviously under those conditions (darkness, rain), you are a little bit lucky,” Hoch said. “I was definitely more amazed at the putt I missed than the one he made.”

Cruel reminder department: Hoch said that while he was playing blackjack in Las Vegas, a man came up to him and said, “Oh, you’re the one who screwed up the Masters.”

Said Hoch: “I thought it was kind of funny.”

Most of the players say that the course is in excellent shape and, if doesn’t rain as it did last year, the sun will dry out the greens, making them faster than they are now.

Fuzzy Zoeller won the Masters in a playoff in 1979, the last player to win here in his first appearance in the tournament.

Asked if Robert Gamez, a tour rookie, has a reasonable chance to win, Curtis Strange said:

“If Robert is playing well, he certainly can win here. That can overshadow any effect inexperience would have on him. But these greens . . . there is some local knowledge out there.”

Gamez won the Nestle Invitational March 25 at Orlando, Fla. by holing a 176-yard, seven-iron shot on the final hole for an eagle.

Earlier, he had won the Tucson Open in his pro debut. However, he has missed three cuts this year and soared to an 11 on the infamous 17th hole, the island green, at the Players Championship at Ponte Vedra, Fla.

Of his 11, the apparently unflappable Gamez said, “No big deal.”

Hord Hardin, chairman of the Augusta National Golf club, was asked if he was upset when Nicklaus ranked the Masters fourth among the major tournaments in a magazine article.

The other majors are the U.S. Open, British Open and PGA Championship.

“I don’t think I’d rate my country’s championship less than first,” Hardin said. “But I was a little surprised that we got all the way down to fourth.”

Hardin added that Ken Green, who has been critical of the Masters and its perceived stuffy tradition, doesn’t rate the tournament very high.

“But then he doesn’t even know how to get a haircut,” Hardin said, needling Green.

As for Nicklaus, Hardin said: “Maybe he’s a lot smarter than all the rest of us. If you listened to him, you would think that.”

The Gulfstream II-B jet carrying Nicklaus, wife Barbara, son Jack II and grandson Jack III from West Palm Beach, Fla., to Augusta on Tuesday had engine-pressure problems that aborted takeoff.

According to the Atlanta Journal: “Nicklaus brushed it off as routine, stunned that it would be interpreted otherwise.”

Amateur entry Christopher Patton, who played in college for Clemson, won the U.S. Amateur at Merion, the same place Masters founder Bob Jones capped his 1930 Grand Slam.

At the suggestion that he might be walking in Jones’ footsteps, a respectful Patton said: “I don’t think I could walk in those shoes, sir. That’s way over my head.”

Incidentally, Patton checks in at a reported 305 pounds.

If Greg Norman is the Shark, and Jack Nicklaus is the Bear, and Craig Stadler is the Walrus, what does that make Patton?

Why they call them threesomes and twosomes:

Of the 85 entries in the Masters field, there are three Greens (Hubert, Ken and amateur Daniel), two Byrums (Curt and Tom), two Simpsons (Scott and Tim) . . . and a Couples (Fred).

For the record, there’s also a Lye (Mark) and a Lyle (Sandy). The Player to be named later, in keeping with tradition, is Gary.

Oh, and a note about Australia’s Peter Senior: He’s 30.

Times staff writer Mike Downey contributed to this story.