US Masters / Bill Elliott / 12 April 2009 / Leave a comment

Bill Elliott tells us how the three at the top of the leaderboard were all extremely unlikely candidates to be in that position and why there may yet be a few surprises in store for everyone.

Well, it's the Masters but not as we know it. Certainly not how we thought it would be panning out at this stage.

After a lifetime spent staring at Augusta leaderboards I am struggling to recall one as unexpected as the list of names staring back at me this morning. Okay, the smart people would say that Angel Cabrera is a class golfer, a US Open winner and why wouldn't he be there.

I'll tell you why...Cabrera has been playing like a dog for much of this year, indeed for much of the last two years. This is all relative of course but to these tired old eyes he looked like a man who had climbed a big mountain once and didn't fancy doing it again.

Now here he is, roped and ready to take on the sharpest slopes at Augusta and any sensible person's idea of the winner today. How, why, does this happen? I've no idea. That's the craziness, the beauty, the core attraction of big-time sport. If we could actually predict this stuff accurately all the time then we wouldn't bother turning up.

It's the same with Kenny Perry and Chad Campbell. Perry, now 48 for goodness sake, has a swing so ugly he needs to throw sack over it at night.

Campbell is a jittery bloke, technically skilled but emotionally unsuitable for the game's most jarring moments. Yet here these three men are, up there smiling while the rest try to plot some kind of way to rope them back in.

Is this possible? Of course it is. First of all Augusta on a Sunday throws up the sort of potential pratfalls normally reserved for reruns of the Benny Hill Show. Secondly, nothing like this afternoon exposes a man's nerve-endings better than this Masters final round. Forget the beauty of this place and think instead of broken glass and rusty razor blades set on end.

So where do we go from here? Well, Carbrera and Jim Furyk apart, I could make a fairly logical case why everybody else on this morning's leaderboard will not figure in a few hours time as you all roll out the Horlicks, cork the wine and prepare for bed. Except I won't because this time anything really is possible here.

What we do know is that the Europeans are unlikely to figure. There are two exceptions to this - Lee Westwood and Ian Poulter. Each of the Englishmen is on four under par. Not great but not bad either and so there must be a wee chance of one of them posting, say, a 68 early doors that just might send a shiver through that chorus line up ahead of them.

Tiger Woods, naturally, insists he still has a chance but then he would, wouldn't he. And I suppose he does. But it's not much of one. Neither is Phil Mickelson in there really punching. For The Great Lollop it still remains at least slightly possible that he could impact on the drama tonight but, again, it would take something exceptional for that to happen.

So after three days of high octane golf, of late night tornados and early morning drinking what do I know about this Masters and what is now going to happen? I'd like to tell you something really clever at this point but I can't.

The truth is that no-one knows anything about Augusta 2009. Except prepare to be surprised. And this despite the fact that the winner almost always comes out of the final group. Mind you, Angel Cabrera loves that thought. Good luck.