Vijay’s Day: Masterful

All hail Vijay Singh, the newest Masters champion, the first player from Fiji to win at Augusta National. Actually, he’s the first player from Fiji to play at Augusta National, so maybe he had an advantage.

Do you think that Bobby Jones ever wondered if the day would come when somebody from Fiji would win his tournament?

You would have to say no, because Fiji was a British Colony until 1970, when Singh was 7.

So on the occasion of Sunday’s final round of the Masters, Singh managed to put Fiji on the map. Yes, it was already there, but now it’s really there, which is what happens when someone wins the most famous golf tournament in the world.

It’s been a long, strange journey to the top for the 37-year-old son of an airline mechanic, who always has been known as one of the game’s hardest workers and least-revealing personalities.

Singh has won golf tournaments before. Eight of them, in fact. He has even won a major before. He came through at the PGA Championship in 1998 at Sahalee, a tree-lined layout in suburban Seattle.

But this particular tree-lined layout in Northeast Georgia is far removed from the one in Northwestern Washington, in geography and substance.

The fact is, you win one major, all right, that’s nice, let’s see you do it again. Now you win two majors and the second is the Masters, well, that’s an entirely different story.

What happened Sunday to Singh is that he put himself in a different league. This is the station where the great players arrive, full of power and respect, with the weight of history pushing them along.

All that aside, there is only one question: Vijay Singh?

Look, you’re just going to have to hand it to the guy. It’s not as if this guy from Laukota, Fiji, just showed up, knocked the ball around the place, sneaked into the closet at the Butler Cabin when no one was looking and made off with a green jacket.

As usual, Singh worked for it. He led the last 25 holes. No one has hit more greens since they started keeping statistics here. He began the last round with a three-shot lead and won by three shots. He stood up to every challenge, even if there were only a few, and finished with a birdie on the last hole.

Those who survey Singh’s game point out that while he is powerful off the tee, strikes the ball as well as anyone and hits irons better than most, he is an average putter.

That may be true, but it is a testament to the accuracy of Singh’s iron play that he rarely put himself too far from the hole. He did have three three-putts, one more than the last seven Masters champions combined.

Singh was one of 35 international players in the field of 95, the largest number of international players in the 64 years of the Masters. If you look at it that way, maybe one of them was due.

But Vijay Singh, Masters champion?

The likelihood of that probably seemed small in 1983 when Singh was at his lowest. Playing in Jakarta in the Indonesian Open, Singh was accused of changing his score before signing his scorecard. Singh said he didn’t, that the marker was the one who changed it.

Singh paid a heavy price anyway. He received a two-year ban from the Asian Tour and wound up in exile in Borneo, where he held a series of club pro jobs. Singh often found himself alone on the driving range in the afternoons when it was too hot for the members, so he spent the time banging balls until his hands hurt.

Singh doesn’t enjoy reliving the hurt from that episode. At this stage, it seems like old news. And now he has something spectacular in his life to push it even farther away.

Not long after Singh finished the 64th Masters with his 16th and last birdie, he walked into the Butler Cabin. In the traditional ceremony, Jose Maria Olazabal helped the new Masters champion slip on his green jacket.

“It feels good,” Singh said.

After what he has been through, it should.