Paul Casey is comfortably the least known of the five illustrious English golfers now in their 40s who have graced the biggest stages for the past 20 years.
During that time, there have been plenty of interviews with Lee Westwood, Justin Rose, Ian Poulter and Luke Donald. Casey? You’d struggle to locate more than a handful.
Now 44, he’s playing some of the best golf of his career and coming closer to winning the biggest prizes than at any time since he first turned pro.
Paul Casey is playing some of the best golf of his career and has five top-10 finishes at Augusta
In 2020, it took one of the great shots in USPGA Championship history from Collin Morikawa to beat him. Last month, at the Players Championship, he was the leading British hope once more, where it all came down to an atrocious piece of luck and some inspired putting from eventual winner, Cameron Smith.
Now it’s the Masters, the major where Casey has compiled five top-10 finishes, including his rookie showing in 2004. He was out in the penultimate group on Sunday and, in his own words, ‘had a chance to do a Fuzzy Zoeller,’ the only man to win on his debut, before a final-round 74 scuppered his hopes.
‘Even now, I feel like the kid in the candy store going to Augusta,’ he said. ‘It’s always felt like the major that most suits my game. I just hope in the years left to me, with what I know now, I can give myself one more chance to win.’
Away from the course he’s another car nut but, unlike Poulter and the prized Ferraris he collects as an investment, Casey’s gathering of Porsches are all driven hard by their owner.
The 44-year-old narrowly missed out at the Players Championship and USPGA Championship
When he’s at home in Arizona, where he lives with his wife, former TV presenter Pollyanna Woodward and their two children, he will often drop the kids off at school and then head on over to the race track. Sometimes he’ll stay there for a couple of hours and sometimes he’ll be there all day. ‘I always find it interesting the way golfers relax,’ he explained. ‘You’ve got the painters or the readers like Luke Donald, but if I went down that route, I’d find my mind drifting and thinking about the day job.
‘I’ve always had to do something that requires total involvement. It used to be snowboarding but I had to give that up after a few injuries. Then it was cycling, which I still do occasionally. Now it’s mostly driving a car fast. It’s not the danger element that draws me in, it’s the fact in all three things you can’t afford to think about anything else.’
Casey is good company. He has an insatiable curiosity and loves to chew the fat off the record. Ask him about the extraordinary fact that England’s famous five, with well over 300 majors between them, have got only Rose’s 2013 US Open win to show for their efforts, and he gives a thoughtful response.
‘When you think we’ve got three former world No 1s in the group you mention, you’d have thought there would have been one or two more majors at least,’ he began.
‘We have to accept our sport is measured in majors. Should we have won more? Should have is a very difficult thing to say.
The Englishman greets Tiger Woods during Monday’s practice round at Augusta
‘There was a time for all five of us during the Tiger era when they were just so hard to win. And it wasn’t just Tiger, you had Ernie Els and Phil Mickelson as well.
‘Now, the older I get it’s just such an eye-opener when you see the younger guys like Morikawa, Scottie Scheffler, John Rahm and Viktor Hovland, and how well-equipped they are at the age they are. They might be more well-equipped than I am even now.
‘My ball-striking has always been great but with these guys it’s all-round: mentally, emotionally, as well as having great golf games. B***ards!’ With that, he roars with laughter, before turning to his own rollercoaster career, one where he lost his way during what should have been his prime years, before recovering to make it all the way back into the world’s top 10.
‘I did have some rough years looking back,’ he conceded. ‘In 2009 I won three times but then suffered a rib injury that wiped out the rest of that year and really impacted how I swung the club.
‘Then in 2010 I got divorced and then I dislocated my shoulder and lost my PGA Tour card. So for about four years there it was just awful both on the course and off it and I had to battle simply to get my card back.
‘It is satisfying to come back and play as well as I have. It’s hard to explain to people because you’re judged by the trophies you win, and they say what’s so great about what he’s done when he was once ranked in the top three in the world. But it is pleasing.
‘I’m enjoying this phase of my career perhaps more than any other. I like taking on these young guys and I want to play in another Ryder Cup.
‘Paris in 2018 would have been a nice way to bow out but I got into the last team and then played Dustin Johnson in four matches and lost all four. That’s why I want to be in Rome. There’s a bit of unfinished business there.’
Speaking of injuries, Casey has not competed since the Players after a back spasm forced his withdrawal from the WGC-Match Play Championship a fortnight ago without playing a game.
Now moving freely again, he’s aware that, as far as majors are concerned, he’s propping up the bar in the last chance saloon. With Donald and Poulter not here, and Rose and Westwood outside the world’s top 50, he might soon be the last of the five standing.
‘I know my window of opportunity is closing fast,’ he acknowledged. ‘But I look at the PGA against Collin, where I did everything right but he chipped in at the 14th and drove the par four 16th to beat me by a shot.
‘Don’t give up on me just yet. I still think I can win one.’
