Rock bottom usually came on a long-haul flight with the sort of double entendre Danny Willet would care to forget. For months, even years, the 2016 Masters champion would spend thousands of pounds on plane tickets, physios, MRI scans and medication, still not knowing whether his back would hold up by the time he landed. The pain would veer between shoots and aches; his mood from anger to despair as he plummeted from golf’s pinnacle down to as low as No 462 in the world rankings. “It’s a pretty vicious cycle,” he says, ahead of his return to Augusta this week. “I wouldn’t quite say it got to the stage where I wanted to give up, but it was just the complete non-enjoyment of playing the game. The difficult thing is not knowing. The pain and lack of enjoyment become so intertwined that you don’t know which is which.”
It feels like a short lifetime since Willett became the second Englishman to win the Masters, seizing on Jordan Spieth’s sodden self-implosion around Amen Corner. He was still somewhat of an unknown quantity in the US, despite plenty of success on the European Tour, and was propelled into the world’s top 10 while also being unfairly derided as a fluke. The criticism failed to prick beneath his thick skin, but Willett admits the storm of newfound attention became overwhelming. “Things went a little crazy,” he says. “The challenges didn’t quite sit right, I didn’t know how to overcome them.”
Willett’s form waned as the pain grew. He didn’t reveal its depth in public nor hide behind it when he missed the cut as defending champion, but he was devouring cocktails of paracetamol, ibuprofen and co-codamol just to get through practice. At home, he struggled to bend down to pick up his children. “I was a nightmare to be around because of the frustration,” he says. “You’re working so hard but your body won’t let you do something. You either miss the cut or pull out of events and come home grumpy. My wife, Nicole, got me through the bad and indifferent days.”
His maiden Ryder Cup experience in 2016 was disastrous, with Willett pulled from the first morning’s play after an article in which his brother called American fans a “baying mob of imbeciles” provoked an outcry. Once Europe’s drubbing was complete, Willett summarised what was supposed to be a career dream in just two words: “really s***”.
The pain in his back and the flaws in his swing seemed to ingrain in tandem, dancing to the tune of his downfall. By August 2017, after finishing last at the WGC Bridgestone Invitational with an aggregate score of 21 over par, Willett decided to he needed to make a fresh start. He split with caddie Jonathan Smart after an on-course row and began working with Sean Foley, once the coach of Tiger Woods.
They set about reconstructing Willett’s swing, and although his form didn’t immediately improve, the pain slowly began to subside. “Then you can finally see a bit of light at the end of the tunnel,” he says. “You can actually enjoy practising and come how without taking more painkillers. It’s a whole weight off your shoulders and you can try and get better.”
Almost 1,000 days separated Willett’s victory at Augusta and his next at the season-ending DP World Tour Championship in 2018. “Everyone gets emotional after a win, but it’s not happiness, it’s more relief,” he says. “That you’re still able to do it, that what you can do is good enough. It’s just out-and-out bullishness and perseverance that gets you through the bad times.”
Willett has won twice since Dubai and made the cut at Augusta in 2020 for the first time since his victory. More importantly, he can’t even remember the last time he had to carry painkillers in his golf bag. But even knowing the hollowing comedown that followed such a momentous high, he insists he wouldn’t hesitate to endure it all again. “If someone says you’re going to win another major, I’d take it,” he says. “The ultimate high you get from that experience is completely unmatched, completely unrivalled in anything I’ve ever done. I would go to the ends of the earth to win another major, so I hope that one day I get the chance and I could use my experience to do a few things differently and overcome the challenges quicker and better.”
He is still only 34, but the coarseness of his fall has left him wisened and Willett believes he is able to reap more joy than ever from the simple act of playing. It is a fragile but fulfilling feeling in a sport destined to madden even its best, especially when reinforced by the knowledge that heights once touched are never necessarily out of reach again. “Knowing what I can achieve and how good things can be, you’ve got to keep that belief in the back of your head that no matter how bad things are, a win is only ever a week away,” he says.
This week may still feel like a far-fetched prospect, but the guarantee of the Green Jacket Willet will wear to Tuesday’s Champions’ Dinner means it will hardly be his last chance. And after fearing injuries might have robbed him of them all, simply being able to walk the grounds where he wrote himself into history pain-free is the greatest feeling to savour. “I will play this game until I stop thoroughly enjoying it,” he says. “I’d like to play forever if my body allows me because ultimately when I was 12 and got into the game, I did it because I loved it.”
