Five great Masters finales

All very reassuring. But as predictable as the stage might be, the drama is anything but. The closing holes of the year's first Major routinely produce swings of fortune and misfortune that live long in the memory. These are just a few of the best from recent times.

1986

Jack Nicklaus was 46 years old. He hadn't won a Major since 1980 and he hadn't won a US Tour event of any sort for almost two years. Heading to Augusta, he had won just $4404 that year, and was 160th on the PGA money list. But he was still Jack Nicklaus.

After three rounds, he was tied for ninth, four shots back from leader Greg Norman. Nicklaus made his move with birdies at 9, 10 and 11, but fell back with a bogey at 12. Then came the real charge. He eagled the 15th, the hole where his closest rival, Seve Ballesteros, would find water a few minutes later.

Suddenly, the entire sporting world was willing Nicklaus along. Birdies at 16 and 17 followed, and a steady par at the last gave him a round of 65. He had covered the back nine in 30. Norman and Tom Kite pushed to within one shot, but neither could match the great man. Golf's grand old man had his 18th Major.

1987

When the 1987 tournament went to a play-off, it looked like a two-horse race. Sure, there were actually three players in it, but the description still stood as two of them were called Seve Ballesteros and Greg Norman. The other, for what it was worth, was a journeyman pro with just one minor Tour win – four years earlier – on his record. His name was Larry Mize.

At least he had the crowd on his side. Mize was an Augusta native who had worked one of the scoreboards as a schoolboy. When Ballesteros three-putted the first extra hole, the 10th, Mize had a 10-foot putt to win, but missed by inches.

At the next, he left his approach 25 yards off the green, while Norman safely found the putting surface. Augusta's 11th is one of the hardest holes in golf, but Mize pulled off his miracle shot, chipping in from more than 100 feet. Norman could not hole his putt, and Mize was the improbable, but hugely popular, champion.

1988

Sandy Lyle was generally reckoned to have been the best golfer on earth in 1987. He was also generally reckoned to be one of the flakiest. He was no choker, but there was an impression he lacked the killer instinct of a Ballesteros or a Langer. He had won the 1985 Open at Sandwich, but still the doubts remained.

And they only grew when he surrendered his final-round lead with a double bogey at the 12th. Neither could he make birdie at either of the par-5s, the 13th and 15th. But a birdie at 16 brought him back into contention and when he came to the 18th he knew that another would almost certainly bring victory.

The game seemed to be up when he put his tee shot into a fairway bunker. But with an astonishing mixture of power and precision, he hit his 7-iron approach from the sand to within six feet, then holed out with a single putt. The bunker shot is often hailed as the greatest in golf history.

1997

Astonishingly, there were some in the game who still harboured doubts about Tiger Woods when the then 21-year-old teed it up in his first professional Major. A three-time US Amateur champion, he had also won three titles since joining the paid ranks six months earlier, but the sceptics suggested he still had to prove himself in the big league.

Colin Montgomerie was one of them. Paired with Woods in the penultimate round, the hugely experienced Montgomerie suggested that the young American might wilt under a level of pressure he had never met before. As it happened, it was Montgomerie who wilted. Woods shot 65, Montgomerie 74.

The final round was a victory parade, Woods winning with a record score of 18-under-par 270 and by a record margin of 12 strokes. In a place that was once the cradle of segregation, the first win by a black player was also a resonant moment.

2004

In any other era, Phil Mickelson would have been the dominant force in the game. Inconveniently, he came to prominence just before the emergence of Woods, who promptly became the most feted and successful golfer on the planet. However, Woods had eased off to rebuild his swing in 2003, when he failed to win a Major, and Mickelson's moment had come.

After three rounds, Mickelson shared the lead with Chris DiMarco, but DiMarco faded quickly as the last round got under way. However, Ernie Els moved up to fill the gap, posting eagles at the eighth and 13th holes on his way to a round of 67, the lowest of the week. On 280, Els held the clubhouse lead as Mickelson came to the last, needing a birdie to win.

A play-off looked likely when Mickelson's second shot finished 20 feet from the flag. But the American lined it up carefully, drew back his putter and sent it on its snaking way into the hole. It was the first of his four Majors to date, three of them won at Augusta.

Alasdair Reid