Sudden death a tough loss to swallow at a major

<p>Len Mattiace spent four hours crafting one of the best closing rounds at the Masters, charging through the beefed up back nine at Augusta National for a 65 that put him into a playoff with Mike Weir.</p><p>All it took was a split second for him to realize his hopes for a green jacket were all but gone.</p><p>With one bad swing, Mattiace went from the middle of the 10th fairway to behind a pine tree left of the green. He wound up with a double bogey, a swift, sudden end to a major championship.</p><p>Too bad this wasn't the U.S. Open. He might have had 17 more holes to overcome his mistake. If it had been the British Open or the PGA Championship, Mattiace would have had at least two more holes to recover.</p><p>"Ideally, you'd like to think the more holes (in a playoff), the better," Mattiace said. "But that's the way it is at Augusta. And you know that going in."</p><p>The Masters got its first sudden-death playoff winner 25 years ago when Fuzzy Zoeller made a birdie on the second extra hole (No. 11) to beat Ed Sneed and Tom Watson.</p><p>The fifth and most recent happened last year. It was the first time a Masters playoff ended after only one extra hole, and Weir became the first player to win a sudden-death playoff at Augusta with a bogey.</p><p>"For me, sudden death worked out pretty well last year," Weir said. "And I think if you ask the players, they prefer it that way. Most players like to determine the champion on that final day and get it over with."</p><p>All four majors used to be decided by 18-hole playoffs in case of a tie, which many consider to be the purest and most equitable method to determine a winner.</p><p>The U.S. Open is the only major that still uses 18 holes of stroke play.</p><p>The British Open changed to a four-hole aggregate playoff some 15 years ago. The PGA Championship, the first major to be decided by a sudden-death playoff in 1977, recently switched to a three-hole playoff.</p><p>The Masters is the only major decided by a format that is often unpredictable, usually dramatic, always packed with incredible tension and hardly ever allows for the slightest mistake.</p><p>Is that the best day to crown a major champion?</p><p>"It made me sick, just the difficulty that Lenny went through," Scott Hoch said. "But that's what can happen. Anyone can get lucky on one hole, or anyone can get unlucky."</p><p>Hoch falls into the second category. He was 30 inches away from winning the Masters in 1989, but he lipped out his par putt on No. 10, and Nick Faldo beat him a birdie at No. 11.</p><p>Larry Mize falls into the first category.</p><p>The '87 Masters came down to Mize and Greg Norman, and the Shark seemingly had the advantage when Mize hit his approach well to the right of the 11th green. His 140-foot chip was gaining steam when it dropped for birdie, the most spectacular conclusion to any major.</p><p>Norman, the only player to lose all four majors in a playoff, would like to see the formats change.</p><p>"If it's a major, it should be an 18-hole playoff, simple as that," Norman said. "You can go out there and perform well over 72 holes, then hit one bad shot, and lose a tournament. That's not fair."</p><p>Norman no longer qualifies to play in the Masters, and Augusta National officials aren't prone to take advice.</p><p>"I think a sudden-death playoff is fair," club chairman Hootie Johnson said. "The golfers play for four days to decide a winner. That should be enough. I also think there is a lot of excitement in a sudden-death format."</p><p>The three- and four-hole playoffs work because of the extra daylight _ the PGA Championship is played in the middle of summer, and there are places in Britain where it doesn't get dark until 10 p.m.</p><p>The Masters doesn't have that luxury, played on the second Sunday of Daylight Savings Time. It's a minor miracle that none of the five sudden-death playoffs have gone past the 11th hole, and Hoch recalls there not being enough light to go an additional hole in 1989 had Faldo not made his putt.</p><p>Faldo won the next year in a playoff with a par on No. 11 after Raymond Floyd hit into the water. The only playoff Faldo lost in a major was the 1988 U.S. Open to Curtis Strange over 18 holes at The Country Club.</p><p>Still, sudden death is his least favorite playoff format for a major.</p><p>"Sudden death is very serious, isn't it?" Faldo said. "I'm fortunate. I've come out on the right side of it. You've done an awful lot of good stuff for 72 holes to go home without a major. It's a tough one. The real thing should be to play 18 the next day."</p><p>Mark O'Meara prefers the four-hole playoff, which is how he won the '98 British Open. But he says his Masters victory earlier that year was not much different from sudden death. He was in a three-way tie coming to the 18th hole with Fred Couples in the final group, and with David Duval, who had finished earlier.</p><p>Couples missed the green and scrambled for par. O'Meara holed a 20-foot birdie putt to win.</p><p>"A lot of things can happen on one hole in a playoff," O'Meara said. "But a lot of things can happen on the 72nd hole, too. The guy who hits the quality shots under the pressure usually wins."</p>

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