Willett has enjoyed year as Masters champion

Danny Willett knew last April that his life was going to change. He just wasn’t sure how. Winning the Masters does that.

But the first-time major championship winner certainly has enjoyed his time as the Masters champion. Willett talked about the past year Tuesday when he took part in the champion’s teleconference in preparation for this year’s tournament, which tees off April 6.

“It’s obviously been a great honor to be named as Masters champion for the year. It would be even nicer to keep that going for another year and obviously to maybe slip on a green jacket again at some point in my life,” Willett said. “But no, the experience has been fantastic. The welcome that you get at home, we didn’t quite realize the impact it had made in the British press. When we arrived home, it was manic, really. You don’t realize what you’ve achieved until you kind of see the reactions.

“The year as a whole, it really has been an honor that when you reflect on, you had some up-and-downs in the last 12 months, but when I get back to Augusta in a few weeks time there and you host the Champions Dinner on the Tuesday, you’re going to be in a room there with guys that have slipped on the green jacket, and then I think you realize then how great of an achievement it actually was.”

Willett won in one of the most dramatic and surprising final rounds in Masters history. He ended up with a three-stroke victory over Jordan Spieth and Lee Westwood. Spieth was trying to win the tournament for the second straight year but blew a five-shot lead during the final round.

Willett shot a bogey-free 5-under-par 67 to finish at 5 under and become the first European player to win the tournament since 1999 and the first English player to win it since 1996.

“We knew we had to do some chasing. We were three shots back. We knew we were within touching distance,” Willett said of his thought process entering the final round. “Obviously after nine holes, Jordan had extended the lead to five, but we were playing some good golf, and me and (caddie Jonathan Stewart) just kept saying, ‘This is a situation that you practice for, the back nine, the back nine on Sunday at a major, that’s kind of what it’s all about.’

“It was a great final round. We have shot better final rounds in our life, but under the circumstances, bogey-free round Augusta, pretty tricky Augusta, that week is right up there, one of the best rounds I’ll have played.”

Living up to that round proved difficult for Willett to match through the rest of last season as he struggled to keep up that same level of play. He finally decided not to try as he moved forward.

“I think people put expectations on it, and people see you win, just like yourself. You see yourself win one of the best golf tournaments in the world. You feel like you should be able to do that every week, but unfortunately this isn’t a game that you can do that,” Willett said. “You look at Tiger (Woods) in the height of his career, I think he was on like a 35 percent win record in his decade of dominance, and even that’s unheard of. So I think to be able to compare every week to Augusta ... if I’m going to compare every week to that week, I’m going to be pretty disappointed because I don’t think you can recreate that week.

“I don’t think you can recreate what happened, how it happened, everything that goes along with it.”

This story was originally published March 14, 2017 at 1:47 PM with the headline "Willett has enjoyed year as Masters champion."