Remember Danny Willett?

Y’all remember Danny Willlet? Danny Willlet, the Englishman from Sheffield, UK, who was considered the enemy of the people at Augusta National in 2016. Before all that though, Willlet played college golf at Jacksonville State up in Alabama. He won the English Amateur in 2007, and hit World amateur number one before turning pro in 2008. By the early 2010s, he was crushing it on the European Tour. He won the BMW International in 2012, the Nedbank in 2014. In 2015, he won the Omega European Masters and the Dubai Desert Classic in February of 2016. But his career-defining moment came just two months later at the 2016 Masters tournament at Augusta National. Speed obviously had a five shot lead going into the final round till the infamous 12th hole where he took a quadruple bogey 7. Danny Will obviously sees the moment with a bogey free 67 to be the first Brit to win the Masters since Nick Faldo in 1996. And to top it all off, his wife had given birth to their first son just 12 days earlier. Despite Danny Willlet winning the Masters, it’s always been in the shadow of Jordan Spie’s collapse. I think a lot of people actually remember Jordan Speed losing the Masters more than Danny Willlet actually winning it. Regardless, his win launched him into the mainstream conversation in the golf world at that time. He reached number nine in the official World Golf Rank. He signed big sponsorships with Callaway and Omega and made his Rder Cup debut that fall. Controversy did find him at the 2016 Rder Cup where his brother wrote a scathing column trashing the American fans. Danny did apologize for it, but he added some sarcastic tweets of his own which didn’t land well. It did eventually blow over, but it didn’t help him when he was 0 and3 in his matches during that year. Unfortunately, the high life after winning the Green Jacket was very shortlived for Danny Willie. He said that it was very hard to live up to that kind of play in his career, but back injuries led to inconsistencies and he slid outside the top 100 in 2017. He did fight back though, winning the DP World Tour Championships in 2018 and the BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth in 2019. He got himself all the way back to 29th in the official World Golf ranking at that time. Fast forward to 2025, he actually hit the lowest point in his career since 2009, dropping all the way to 624th back in January after only making four cuts out of all of his events across both tours in 2024. This was due to a left shoulder injury that forced him out of golf for 7 months after the BMW in 2023 all the way to the Masters in 2024. Early this season did show some flashes though, a tie for ninth at the Farmers Insurance Open and a tie 13th of the RBC Canadian Open, even if it is within a sea of cuts. But off the course, Will is settled with his wife Nicole and their two sons. He’s splitting time between UK and Florida, and he’s working with Sean Foley as his golf coach to try to find that spark again and hopefully get better on the BGA tour. Next time you see any of those speed highlights of the 2016 Masters, just remember this guy’s the one who took the green jacket.