Why in the blessed name of Arron Oberholser did he do it? Or rather, why did he not do it? Why did our P not stand up to that six foot putt, knock it manfully into the requisite cavity and then head back to the óstán for a pre-codladh cackle.

Why , alone of all the golfers battling with falling darkness on Saturday night, did our Pádraig Harrington choose to mark his ball and defer the draino until Phoebe's chariot had pressed its wheels on the Georgian morning dew?

Yes indeed, as the rest of the Irish population mulled over such cerebrally-challenging matters as how many Gardai does it take to protect 1916-21 gewgaws from Sinn Fein gobdaws or the questionable morality of the Holy Thursday clerical liplock on Ros na Rún, there was only one question, nay one interrogative, on the lips of all post-Augusta Irish golfers: why?

Why in anam De didn't P do it. Or rather, why did he not do it? We who are mere scrubbers in the Royal and Ancient craft of driving a dimpled circular objects over myriad distances across variegated tracks could only stop in our tracks and ask the overwhelming question.

We know what we would have done if we had faced an ugly six-footer or, indeed, a Kelly Osborne - a nasty five footer).

We would have acted like the proper golf wussies we are: by grabbing our bellyputter, gripping the leather with our trademark manover- board survival grip and prayed and squirmed as the ball wobbled and bobbed holewards.

If it rattled the interior and stayed below ground we would have gone home and battened on a nice steak with aromatically fried onions and mouthwatering mushrooms.

For, as the commentators never tire of reminding us, succulent is the steak eaten by the man who drained the last putt before his supper.

Had we missed we would have poured lashings of YR sauce onto the bovine protein in order to impart some form of flavour.

But that's what we'd do.

Get the bloody thing out of the way. And worry about the drive in the morning.

For the average golfer likes to play briskly - all the better not to have to dwell on a shot, linger over a putt or overread a line. For us, first tee trauma is trauma enough.

Now it is an axiomatic truth that our great golfing pros are not burdened by the doubts and fears of the average balata-basher. And even when they are beset by tiny little doubts they tend to cosy up to their obscenely overpaid life coaches and brainscramblers who fill them with a total belief in the infallibility of their game.

Perhaps it was this faith in his short game - or rather his putting psychologist - which convinced P that he would let the putt settle down for the night, catch some sleep and then face the six footer in the morning when Aurora's oblique shafts were lancing through the Augusta pines.

And the upshot was that he spent Saturday night mentally measuring the distance from marker to hole, fretting over his Gunther chain, worrying over the nap of the greens, consulting his theodolite, and fearing that in the event of an earthquake his marker would slip into Rae's Creek. Or Gary Player's evergaping mouth.

And as the night wore on his bed of rest became a bunk of worry. And as he tossed and turned more than that poor geezer in Soft Cell's 'Tainted Love' poor P began to imagine even worse scenarios - seriously scary stuff like having David Duval as your foursome partner, Freddie Couples as your short putts guru or gabbling Gary Player as your aisle seat companion on a long haul flight to Terra del Fuego. Then in the morning poor P woke up in a sweat the likes of which he hasn't experienced since he went on that cholesterol-lowering diet and became a flatbelly. He pulled back his brocaded curtains and almost needed one of those adult nappies used on Chinese trains.

For outside in the pre-dawn darkness he saw Beebman Ken Browne in the company of the pre-dawn greencutters and poor collywobbled P learned of the Blair Witch horror world of the bikini wax, the tight cut and? the double freakies.

And it suddenly occurred to him that these geezers might be cutting the greens tighter than an Italian election and that the six foot putt might be his coffin length nemesis.

And thus it came to pass that quite early that morning P Harrington (the man who had made the greatest comeback since Hole 7 in recent Masters history) found himself standing over the sixfooter and had his doubts.

Big doubts. He steered his ball holewards and watched in slow motion horror as it spun over the cellophane bridge and raced off at F1 speed towards the first tee.

It did stop, about 12 feet past, but even Wayne Rooney wouldn't have bet on him sinking the comebacker.

And so, with the inevitability of a Grecian tragedy, he rolled the rock towards the dark cylinder and it stayed defiantly above ground.

Thus began the unravelling of P's Master ambitions, the beginning of a streak of putting that would have prompted Tiger to use the sp*z word and the leaking of more shots than a colander at a Sinn Fein vodka party.

Padraig did manage, however, to finish ahead of the imploding Rocco Mediate and the hapless Sergio Garcia.

But his Deferred Putt is already the stuff of legend and guarantees him a place in the Fortean Times Encyclopaedia of Bizarre Golfing Moments and Mysteries.

It joins such mysteries as:

(a) where was Sam Torrance when Tom Lehman was shot at? (b) when did Gary Player begin ráiméising like an Irish seanchaí on speed? (c) how does Peter Alliss climb up into the commentary box?

(d) how come it is always the butterfly wearing hobnailed boots who alights in the adjoining meadow as one in just bending over a crucial putt in the Pierce Purcell?

The other great talking point of this year's Masters was the number of ?waterballs' (as the Yanks dub them) that occurred over the four days. Such was the regularity with which the balls plopped, rolled and splashed into the drink that some people have suggested that instead of taking two drivers in their bags the pros would have been better off taking two divers on the bag.

No doubt there are in the neo-Heath Robinson world of hi-tech golf gadgetry learned boffins devising aquarepulsing clubs ?guaranteed to minimise the risk of ball immersion'.

I can suggest a much better implement - courtesy of the brother.

You see the brother, a poor hacker in the high handicap zone, had begun to notice of late that a lot of his Titleist ProV1s (well recycled driving range Penfolds ) were suffering from chronic aqua-suicidal tendencies. They tended to end up in myriad water hazards - lakes, ponds, carpark fountains, administration office watercoolers.

So he, ahem, splashed out on a ball retriever. Since then he has not had the slightest occasion to use it!

So forget all those 62 degree lob wedges, the draw and cut double drivers, the rescue baffies - and invest in a ball retriever.

And for P's sake don't leave any balls on the green overnight.