Like anyone who wants to remain in any way close to the Woods' inner circle, Feherty has not been willing to divulge too many details of his private dealings with the world number one and defending champion.

However, he has told one story against himself. Apparently, Woods approached him on one occasion and asked him if he knew what a black man flying a plane was called.

Feherty hesitated, and then admitted he couldn't think of an answer.

"A pilot, you f**king racist, " came the reply.

? ? ? They love anniversaries at The Masters. Ten years since Greg Norman's dramatic final-round collapse, and 20 years since Jack Nicklaus's monumental victory, but one episode from Augusta's past has not surprisingly slipped through the net this week.

Thirty years ago, three local kids were spotted by a security guard fishing in Rae's Creek, and when the guard approached for a closer inspection, he noticed that the kids had a gun, which, it was later claimed, was for warding off snakes.

Anyway, the message was relayed to the club's chief of security, one Charlie Young, who armed himself with a shotgun and went to confront the trespassers. Quite what happened next is still a matter of debate, but suffice to say, Young's gun went off and all three kids were wounded.

Their families sued the club, and later received an out-of-court settlement while Young was not prosecuted.

However, he was subsequently sacked by Augusta National when it emerged that he had sold the pistol which the club's legendary chairman, Clifford Roberts, had used to commit suicide.

? ? ? On the subject of guns, the lack of coverage here regarding the Tom Lehman shooting incident has been a major surprise. You'll recall that America's Ryder Cup captain was driving to Augusta airport earlier in the week to collect his wife and four children when another driver, full of Jack Daniel's according to Lehman, randomly fired a bullet into his car.

No one was hurt, the shooter was subsequently arrested, but for Lehman, who said that his three-year-old son would normally have been sitting in the seat struck by the bullet, it must have been a frightening experience.

Yet, the incident was reduced to just a few paragraphs in the local newspapers. Take it that most of the overseas visitors are already thinking about an alternative route to the airport tomorrow.

? ? ? Widely regarded some years ago as the Great White Hope of American golf, Charles Howell III has clearly not been inspired by the expectation heaped on him.

Born and raised only five miles from Augusta National, there is even more pressure on him when he tees it up at The Masters. Recalling his first appearance in 2002, he said: "Parts of my body shook that I didn't even know could shake."

He managed to shoot a 79 around the course when he was just an 11-year-old, but local knowledge doesn't appear to be bringing him any joy now. He missed the cut last year, and this time carded rounds of 80 and 84 to finish dead last of the 90 competitors.

? ? ? What with Ernie Els missing the second half of last season after injuring his knee in what was initially referred to as a "boating accident" but which involved him being dragged in an inflated tube behind a speed boat, there was more talk about risky pastimes when Chris DiMarco pulled out of the Players Championship following a skiing accident.

"Golf is my job, but I'm going to live my life, " said DiMarco refreshingly. "It was a very flukey thing, I could've walked out of my garage, tripped over my kid's baseball helmet and banged up my knee. I'm going to keep skiing." After all, Tiger Woods goes scuba diving, but hasn't yet said whether he has seen Open Water or not.

? ? ? Players from the same country tend to play practice rounds together, and to eat together on the road, and the Aussies are no different. That is until recently because a catfight has broken out between Mark Hensby on the one side, and Robert Allenby and Stuart Appleby on the other. Last year, Hensby controversially said that he didn't think Greg Norman's contribution to Australian golf was all that it had been cracked up to be, a remark which had both Allenby and Appleby up in arms. Both players tore into Hensby who insisting neither Allenby nor Appleby had bothered to find out exactly what he had said.

Appleby, it seems, was prepared to forgive and forget, but Allenby is still on the warpath judging by his comments earlier in the week.

"He [Hensby] is a w****r, and that's the bottom line. On the record, he is a w****r, and you [the media] can do what you like with it."

Ain't no war like civil war.

? ? ? They've bridges for Ben Hogan, Byron Nelson and Gene Sarazen, and water fountains dedicated to Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus, but soon they might be considering some memorial to Jeff Sluman at the fourth.

Sluman's hole-in-one from 213 yards in 1992 is the only ace at the fourth in the history of The Masters, and with the hole now lengthened to 240 yards, that record is looking better and better.