You don’t have to like golf – although it obviously helps if you do – to feel that Sergio García’s victory in the US Masters is a prime case of someone winning a glittering prize that they thoroughly deserve. Mr García has been one of the world’s best golfers for 20 years. But his career had reached the point where he was too regularly figuring in those “best golfer never to win a major” debates. Now, with a timely birdie at Augusta on the 73rd hole, that’s gone forever.
Lots of activities have a similar “best never to win” category. In Formula One, Sir Stirling Moss has long been the best driver never to be world champion. Ken Rosewall, Monica Seles and Ivan Lendl lead the field as the best tennis players never to win Wimbledon, and Paula Radcliffe reigns supreme as Britain’s best runner who never won Olympic gold. Is Cary Grant the best actor never to have won an Oscar? Or should that be Marilyn Monroe or Edward G Robinson? In the “best prime minister we never had” rivalry, Barbara Castle and Roy Jenkins jostle Joe Chamberlain and RA Butler. Best president the US never had? The list includes Alexander Hamilton, Henry Clay, Bobby Kennedy and Hillary Clinton.
In life, as in sport and politics, not all will have prizes. Commiserations to Justin Rose, the runner-up. But there should be universal pleasure that Mr García has at last won a title of which he is so obviously worthy.
