Danny Willett returned to England yesterday promising to take his shock Masters title win in his stride as he arrived at Manchester Airport to the glare of television cameras.
Few outside of golf had heard of the 28-year-old Yorkshireman before his victory at Augusta National last week saw him claim the first major title of his career.
But all that changed when Willett held his nerve on Sunday following leader Jordan Spieth’s final-round collapse to become the first Englishman to win the Masters in 20 years.
“It’s a nice way to get back into the airport,” a smiling Willett said ahead of the short final leg of his journey home to Sheffield to see wife Nicole and new baby son Zachariah, who was born shortly before the start of last week’s Masters.
Willett, wearing the green jacket given to Masters’ winners, added: “It’s been pretty big in America but until you get home I don’t think you can quite realise the scale of what’s going on.”
“Hopefully we just take it in our stride and enjoy what we’ve done,” said the new world number nine. “We’ve had a lot of encouraging messages from really nice people around the world offering advice if I need it so we’ve got a lot of good people on our side. I think we’ll be all right.”
Willett thought he would have to miss the Masters, because he wanted to be present for the birth of his son, which he thought would be on April 10 -- the day of the final round at Augusta.
But Zachariah was born on March 29 instead and that meant Willett could be present at his birth before flying to the United States.
Fame was thrust upon Willett last week and he admitted: “It’s still a bit crazy, everything’s still up in the air but I think it’ll start slowly sinking in,” he said. “I’ve got a couple of hours left then hopefully we’ll be able to go home and lock the door.
“I’m looking forward to spending time with Nic and little man and just enjoying what we’ve just done. Watching it over, seeing the reruns, and going back to being a dad. Got to change some nappies.”
Willett said the important thing now for his career was that he and his management team did not radically alter an approach to golf that has seen him rise from outside the top 100 at the end of 2013 to a place inside the top 10 and four professional titles.
“We’ll just keep doing the things we’ve been doing, ticking the boxes we said we’d do day by day and making sure we’re trying to get better every time we go out and work,” he explained.
“That’s all you can do. If along the way fortunately you play some good golf and win some more tournaments then fantastic but we’re just going to keep doing all the things we have been doing and hope things continue.”