New dad Willett now looking for another major addition

The 28-year-old from Sheffield, who has climbed to 12th in the world rankings on the back of three wins in the last 16 months, tees off in the third last group in the year’s opening major.

He does so as a genuine contender, given his consistent play and rapid rise over the last year, which has been highlighted not only by that trio of wins in South Africa, Switzerland and Dubai, but also a hat-trick of top-three finishes in World Golf Championship events over the same time frame.

Willett is a near-certainty now to make his Ryder Cup debut at Hazeltine, Minnesota, in September, but his appearance among the Azaleas this week had been in doubt, given his wife Nicole was due to give birth to their first child.

The former Yorkshire Amateur champion had said he would miss the most iconic major to be there for the birth of his first child, but Zachariah James arrived last week and Willett hopped on a plane and landed in Georgia on Monday to complete his preparations.

Willett finished tied 38th on his Masters debut last year, having shot three rounds of 71, but he showed his major championship credentials with a sustained run at the Open Championship at St Andrews last year, when he finished tied sixth. Willett is joined at Augusta by his fellow Sheffielder Matt Fitzpatrick, 22, who himself is playing in the tournament for a second time.

Fitzpatrick was a world-leading amateur when he debuted there in 2014, having won the US Amateur the year before. Now in his second season as a professional on the European Tour, Fitzpatrick has been unable to replicate the consistent form that saw him land a maiden win at Woburn last October among a multitude of top-10 finishes.

In eight starts this season, he has yet to breach the top 15.

The only Englishman above Willett in the world rankings, Justin Rose, shot 14 under par in two majors and won neither last year, but would gladly accept the same score in this week’s Masters.

“For the next 10 years, absolutely. I sure would,” joked Rose, the 2013 US Open champion.

Despite being a combined 34 under par for the majors in 2015, the fourth best total in history, Rose finished four shots behind Jordan Spieth at Augusta National, missed the play-off in the Open at St Andrews by the same margin and was six shots adrift of Jason Day at the US PGA.

Rose’s total of 274 has only been bettered six times in Masters history, but the 35-year-old took great confidence from the fact that it took a stunning performance from Spieth to prevent him becoming the first European player to win a green jacket and US Open.

“The Masters is a tournament as a young kid I watched probably more than any of the others,” said Rose. “The fact it came on late at night and you were able bribe your parents to stay up was probably part of the attraction. It’s always had something special.

“To back up a US Open win with a Masters would be just incredible. To win here, it’s a venue that we come back year on year, you begin to develop that relationship with the course, the venue, the feel, the tournament. And it’s somewhere I feel very, very comfortable.”