AUGUSTA, Ga. — For three days, the 80th Masters lacked almost everything the tournament is known for. There had been no lead changes through 54 holes. Not enough drama. Very few roars.
Boy, did Sunday make up for that.
Midway through his final round, Jordan Spieth seemed destined to become the fourth back-to-back champion in Masters history, building a five-shot lead with nine holes to play on the strength of four straight birdies. Those pushed drives and loose approach shots from late afternoon on Friday and Saturday? Mere footnotes, with Spieth’s putter saving him time and again.
Spieth stood on the 10th tee and looked down the massive hill, unaware of the fate that awaited him at the bottom over the next demoralizing hour. The back nine at Augusta National Golf Club, so often the deciding Sunday stretch at the Masters, would fill the role, but in a manner that nobody could have predicted.
Not even Danny Willett, a 28-year-old Englishman who thought for the longest time that he wouldn’t even be here. A baby was due, and Willett was firm and vocal about his priorities. The birth of his son, not playing in the Masters, would win out.
But Zachariah Willett arrived early, on March 30, allowing his father to hop a flight and play. So there he was Sunday afternoon, making no bogeys, shooting a 5-under-par 67, and somehow winning the Masters by three shots over a stumbling Spieth for his first major championship, on the day that his wife, Nicole, celebrated her 28th birthday, and the day that their son was initially due.
“Very surreal day,’’ Willett said. “It all happened very, very quick.’’
Willett won, but this Masters, just like a few before it, will best be remembered for what happened to a player who didn’t win. Spieth’s collapse was sudden and surprising. Staked to that five-shot lead after shooting a front-nine 32 that pushed him to 7 under, he bogeyed the 10th hole, bogeyed the 11th, then rinsed two balls into Rae’s Creek at the 12th, making a quadruple-bogey 7. It took Spieth 11 minutes to play the 12th hole, and when he was finished with it, the lead was gone and he trailed Willett by three shots. Birdies by Willett at Nos. 13 and 14 had drawn him closer, but Spieth’s splash party at the 12th marked the first time anyone else had led all week. On one hole, Spieth went from leading to a tie for fourth.
“I knew the lead was five with nine holes to play. And I knew that those two bogeys weren’t going to hurt me. But I didn’t take that extra deep breath and really focus on my line on 12. Instead I went up and I just put a quick swing on it,’’ Spieth said. “It was really one swing. [At] 10 and 11, you can take bogeys there. I was still 2 under for the [round] with a couple of par-5s left. My goal for the day was 4 under, so we were still right on pace.
“[Caddie] Michael [Greller] said, ‘Hit it right here, hit it right here.’ And I remember getting over the ball thinking, ‘I’m going to go ahead and hit a little cut to the hole.’ That’s what I did in 2014, and it cost me the tournament then, too.’’
Spieth was chasing the lead two years ago when he found Rae’s Creek. He was out front this year, and had held the outright lead for seven straight rounds at the Masters.
But there had been ominous signs late in his second and third rounds. It was so serious that Cameron McCormick, Spieth’s teacher in Dallas who had been here during practice days, flew back in time to work with his pupil Sunday. They were on site 3½ hours before Spieth’s 2:45 p.m. tee time, trying to fix what had crept into his game here: a miss to the right that surfaced again Sunday, at the moment Spieth could least afford it.
“Weak swings three holes in a row,’’ Spieth said. “That ball flight is one that’s come up quite a bit for me this week. A very tough 30 minutes for me that hopefully I never experience again.’’
Once he got the lead, Willett did nothing that showed he would give it back. He birdied the 16th hole, and when Lee Westwood three-putted for bogey in the same group, it increased Willett’s lead from one to three. Willett made a pair of pars coming in — chipping close from behind the 17th green — forcing someone to catch him. Nobody could.
Willett becomes the first Brit to win the Masters since Nick Faldo, who benefited from another leader’s freefall to overtake Greg Norman (six-shot lead with 18 holes to play) in 1996. Westwood shot 69 and finished joint second with Spieth, who shot 73, his third straight over-par round in the Masters, after he had started his career with nine consecutive scores of par or better.
Paul Casey (67), J.B. Holmes (68), and Dustin Johnson (71) tied for fourth at 1 under, leaving six players under par in the end.
Holmes was involved in the day’s strangest shot. His ball was 3 feet above the 16th hole when Louis Oosthuizen, playing with Holmes, hit his tee shot. Oosthuizen’s ball ricocheted off Holmes’s golf ball and rolled into the hole, an unlikely hole-in-one and the third at No. 16 on the day.
The roars had finally returned to the Masters. But so had some moans and groans, prompted by Spieth’s unexpected implosion.
Willett was the beneficiary, and making no apologies.
“You do something special, and it doesn’t sink in quite what you’ve achieved,’’ said Willett, who had four wins on the European Tour to his credit. “I’ve won a couple of golf tournaments around the world, but this is just a different league. It’s a major. It’s the Masters.’’
It’s one he’ll never forget. Neither will Spieth. Their memories won’t be the same, though.
Michael Whitmer can be reached at mwhitmer@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter@GlobeWhitmer.
