You’re never safe — certainly not when you’re nervous, and apparently not even when you’re calm: On the 10th green of a playoff with Nick Faldo, Hoch missed a 2-footer to win the Masters, and lost the playoff on the following hole.
Later, Hoch expounded on the nightmare: “I was so at ease. I just knew the way things had transpired all week, especially that day, that the tournament was mine. I took it for granted. Standing over that putt, I didn’t feel a thing. Nothing. It was like I was out there during a practice round. Why, I don’t know. And I’ve never felt like that since. That’s why, when the putt missed, it was more like,
wait a minute — destiny doesn’t happen like this. . . . I wasn’t thinking. My mind was doing things it shouldn’t have been. It should’ve been strictly on that putt, nothing else. Then it was like, ‘Who am I going to go on with, Bryant Gumbel or the other guy tomorrow morning?’ That kind of stuff. Then it was the biggest surprise in the world to me when it didn’t go in. I’d been saying to myself, ‘This is what it all comes down to — all the hardship and heartache all comes to this moment. Finally.’ Then it crashed down on me.”
