Phil Mickelson returns to Augusta with only one bad memory from last year. On the 18th tee in round three, he was disturbed on his backswing by a click which came from a photographers' tower, leading to a dropped shot.

Augusta's blazers went in pursuit of the culprit, and when no one admitted liability at the end of an apparently exhaustive search, it was decided all snappers would be banned from the tower at the 18th tee for the duration of the final round.

So, imagine Mickelson's surprise on flicking through this year's official Masters programme when he found a sumptuous image across two pages of that very drive.

According to the ultra-reliable Doug Ferguson of the Associated Press, there is no credit on the picture and, mysteriously, no one is any the wiser as to the photographer's identity.

Strange that.

GARCIA'S GOBFUL EARNS HIM AN EARFUL

Sergio Garcia hasn't been doing himself any favours of late. If some of the reaction to his spit into the hole following a three-putt on the 13th green during the CA Championship at Doral has been a little hysterical, what did he think an unseemly gob was going to achieve with an army of cameras trained on him?

Garcia's response was to refer to the breach of etiquette as "nothing to it, no big deal", and it's not as if he has suddenly become the Frank Rijkaard of golf, but had he given any consideration to the players in the match behind who, for all we know, had to wipe the Spaniard's saliva off their balls when they retrieved them from the hole?

Garcia is likely to face a fine, and maybe Jim Furyk had something at the 2002 Ryder Cup when he referred to the Europe team as "11 gentlemen and one little boy".

WHATEVER THE TRIP, HE SHOOTS FROM THE LIP

Some players remain sensitive to the sharp tongue of broadcaster David Feherty, however, it seems there are no holds barred when Feherty is given the mike at the Tavistock Cup which involves two days of competition between the elite golfing residents of Isleworth and Lake Nona in Orlando.

As the teams were being introduced, he suggested it was a "considerable achievement that Mark O'Meara, given his age, can remember his team" while adding it was nice to see Ernie Els "sober enough to remember his".

NORMAN STILL STORMING OVER 1987

Twenty years after Greg Norman's dramatic and improbable Masters play-off defeat by Larry Mize, his 1987 Augusta memories remain as gut-wrenching as ever. "I didn't think Larry would get down in two, " Norman said of Mize's chip at the 11th green, "and I was right, he got down in one. . . That was destiny saying you aren't going to win this."