Mark O’Meara’s ‘awkward’ green-jacket moment with Tiger Woods

The inexperienced jacket ceremony is without doubt one of the Masters’ most beloved traditions: The prior 12 months’s champion sticks round for the weekend, no matter whether or not or not he makes the reduce, to current the following Masters champion with his inexperienced jacket.

It’s a state of affairs that may be rife with awkwardness. Sometimes there’s apparent stiffness or nervousness on the a part of the members, leading to a missed handshake (see Bubba Watson, 2012), lingering pressure from a back-nine implosion (see Jordan Spieth, 2016) or just not understanding what to say as soon as the jacket is on (see Patrick Reed and Tiger Woods, 2019). Subtle variations in top also can make it troublesome to make sure a seamless slide over the arm and shoulder. But the inexperienced jacket ceremony is mostly a feel-good affair, with the customarily euphoric new champion receiving a congratulatory handshake or hug from his predecessor as soon as the jacket is on.

Former Masters champion Mark O’Meara not too long ago recounted his personal awkward inexperienced jacket encounter to GOLF.com.

After successful his first main championship at Augusta National in 1998, O’Meara had the respect of receiving the jacket from his then-close pal, Tiger Woods, who gained the Masters in memorable style in 1997.

“I’ve got Tiger Woods — who is kind of like my little brother — putting the green jacket on me at 41 years of age,” O’Meara instructed GOLF.com. “Tiger’s a little bit taller than I am, and he had it up, and I couldn’t get my left arm into the jacket. And it was kind of an awkward situation, and finally, I turn around and looked at Tiger, and I’m like, ‘Hey, you gotta lower the jacket.’ And so he did, and I got my arms in there and he gave me a hug.”

O’Meara stated after they reduce to a business, he requested Tiger what that issue was all about.

“‘M.O.,’ [Woods] goes. ‘How would I know how to put a sport coat on anybody? I’ve never put a jacket on anybody!’” O’Meara stated with amusing. “So it was kind of an awkward, but a funny scene.”

With 5 jackets now in Woods’ closet, right here’s hoping his method has improved since ’97.

Turns out, O’Meara isn’t the one former Masters champion with a Tiger story value listening to. Check out the video above to listen to Gary Player, Trevor Immelman, Larry Mize and Mike Weir element their favourite reminiscences with the Big Cat.

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