CADDIE'S ROLE:Not even Tiger's reintroduction to the game could shake the sense of order

LAST WEEK saw the exposure of two media recluses who finally decided to emerge from their lairs and use the media for public relations reparations. It is interesting no matter how media-shy wealthy and famous people are, there will probably be some point in their existences that rekindles their appreciation for media attention.

Tiger faced his balloted “friends” in the media theatre at Augusta Georgia last Monday in a gentle reintroduction to the world of words and explanations for 36 minutes. I would imagine he left feeling quite content with himself that the road to media acceptance was well under way.

The other media-shy billionaire who avoided unwanted exposure to date is Seán Quinn. I found it quite a coincidence that such a traditionally taciturn figure suddenly discovered the worth of having a voice in the same week.

Tiger was of course reopening previously narrow channels of communication with the world, Seán Quinn seemed like a desperate man backed into a corner and willing to open any window of exposure in order to save his insurance business. Tiger would appear to have ended his week on a far higher note than Seán Quinn did.

I had become comfortable with the idea of planning my evenings around golf even though I wasn’t working last week. By devoting my night time from Thursday last to watching the Masters on television, Sunday left me cold turkey for my fix of golf as I boarded a flight to China, bound for my next tour event. Dublin to Shanghai via Amsterdam left me travelling through, and to, the most unlikely places to get any information about the final showdown at Augusta. Not even the esteemed Masters gets a mention on a KLM flight, where golf is of little importance. Such are the disruptions of travel, sometimes you miss out on the best sporting showdowns.

Given the status of the first Major of the year there was an excess of reporting on it and in particular on the three Irish participants. As ever, the difficulty of making worthy predictions is exposed as is the futility of such an exercise. Naturally the question of how the Irish lads were going to perform was raised and it had to be answered.

Unfortunately I heard Graeme McDowell suggest this year was his best chance of winning the event if his preparation was anything to go by. He missed the cut. Pádraig Harrington was as positive as ever about his hopes.

The addition of a spirit level to his preparatory aides in an effort to help him identify the more subtle slope of the very slopey Augusta National greens seemed to herald improved putting statistics for the assiduous Dubliner. The fact he had shot 77 in his final round in Houston the previous Sunday would have suggested there were other issues but an upbeat nature was not going to expose them. Pádraig too missed the cut.

Rory McIlroy admitted he felt he was swinging well but not scoring and hopefully he could change this lack of form around in this year’s Masters. It is sometimes easy for a young, extremely talented player to burst on to the international scene and be oblivious to the difficulty of performing at such a high level on tour each week.

It has become less easy for the youthful golfing genius. This slight blip in his rapid rise up the world rankings may give him time to reflect and patiently rediscover his own talent and move forward again. Rory also missed the cut.

So the rare foreign excursions of the Irish media in this new era of recession reporting left them bereft of home interest last weekend and so they had to concentrate on Phil, Tiger and Lee Westwood, the tiresome predictions of earlier in the week hopefully forgotten, leaving them time to concentrate on the real contenders.

I enjoyed the thoughtful questions Shane O’Donoghue posed to his interviewees. Tom Watson, flanked by his son and caddie Michael, gave the most insightful couple of comments I heard from anyone last week about the unique nature of Augusta. He told us the wind is so unpredictable on the course that making club decisions becomes more difficult than most other courses. He also mentioned you are constantly faced with side and downhill lies which you can never appreciate unless you actually play the course.

These two factors, according to the 60-year-old year legend, made the course so uniquely challenging.

The standard chat was strictly about the superficial details of the players’ rounds without much detail about the rare conundrums the course forces upon the unsuspecting newcomers.

So a festival of exceptional golf, unparalleled by any other third round in broadcasters’ memories, entertained us all last Saturday. Phil Mickelson came out of Amen Corner with a barrage of eagles and a birdie, and ended up on top of the leaderboard and five-under par for three holes.

The back nine enthralled us almost as much as the laconic Peter Alliss, who even at 79 years of age is always more fluid of verse later in the day. As Mickelson sliced his approach in to the crowd on the 18th green Alliss remarked, “Blimey O’Reilly, I think I heard a cranium crack”.

Of course the Masters is as much about tradition and status quo as it is about the golf. Not even Tiger’s reintroduction to the media and the golfing public could shake the unflappable green -jacketed gentlemen’s celebration of golf and sense of order last week.

It was after all the 74th Masters where nobody is bigger than the event itself and its innate sense of the world.