Tiger Woods’ roar is back at Augusta but Ian Poulter is no passenger | Andy Bull
As the crowd’s fervour over Woods ebbed and flowed, ‘some guy in a visor’ was also doing brilliant things
Pampas, the 7th hole, sits in the heart of Augusta National. From the back of the green there, beneath the big leaderboard, one can see some of what is going on on all of the four holes that surround it: the 17th away to the left, the 3rd, 2nd and 8th fanning out uphill to the right. It is centre stage. It was 2.50pm when Tiger Woods walked on to the fairway there, the breeze was still and the light bright, the sun out from between the clouds. Woods had flushed his drive right down the middle, 300-and-some yards, and had another 150 or so to go. He pulled out his wedge and set himself over the ball.
The crowd were packed several rows deep either side, thicker still around the green, and at the back everyone was bobbing and weaving to try to find a clean line of sight between everyone else’s heads, necks and shoulders. Some were popping up on tip-toes, others searching for a scrap of higher ground, a hump, a ridge, a root, anything that might give them a precious extra inch and a fleeting glimpse of Woods.