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Later Immelman praised Snedeker for being gracious in defeat. Brandt's people huddled around him and the patrons gave him a nice hand. Here was the happy-to-be- here kid, giving it his best shot and coming up short. How endearing.
He came into the press building for his fourth straight formal, recorded session with reporters. He had been funny and light and candid all week. He had talked about the pleasures of Masters week, his joy in people-watching, looking at the way people walk and dress, identifying the overserved and the under-sunblocked.
Now he was fighting tears with every sentence, and then he finally gave up. Applause filled the interview room. (Beyond rare.) An excellent adventure was over. Next year he'll be back for more.
The Aftermath
On Sunday night Wilt went
to the winner's reception, Anderson headed home
to St. Simons Island, Ga., and Jones and Haymes
and Candy and Larry packed up for the trip back
to Nashville. On Monday, Mandy and Brandt drove
to Hilton Head, where he was committed to play.
He was spent, mentally and physically — he had lost eight pounds during the Masters — but he played Hilton Head on a sponsor's exemption when he was a struggling Nationwide player in 2005 and out of loyalty there was no way he would pull out. He had a Tuesday press conference at Harbour Town, during which he asked for a box of Kleenex before he took his first question.
For his Wednesday pro-am he had a gallery of at least 200 people. (Unless you are Tiger Woods, a more common gallery is three.) At breakfast at the Hilton Head Diner on Thursday morning people asked for his picture and he happily (truly happily) obliged. Watson called — Tom Watson! — and told him how impressed he was with his game and his manners and gave him a tip on how to play the second shot on 13, a tip Snedeker wisely wants to keep to himself.
He spent a lot of time trying to figure out what went wrong on Sunday and some time trying to figure out why he was so emotional when it was over. He finally decided that it was a lot of things, but more than anything it was this: Candy.
Candy was the one who took him to play at West Plains, and Candy taught him what to say when a customer came into the shop looking to pawn a boa constrictor. ("We don't take anything you have to feed.") Brandt is close to his father and closer yet to his mother. He describes himself as a "mama's boy."
When he was at Vanderbilt, Candy's heart issues nearly claimed her life. Seeing his mother become suddenly frail, "grew him up," Larry Snedeker recently said of his son. But at the Masters she was able to trudge up and down Augusta's mighty hills, exhausted though she was.
Brandt's mother and father and brother will tell you that Brandt has a personality that impels him to please the people in his life, and there are a lot of them, but especially Candy. And what would please Candy more than seeing her son walk through their Nashville front door with a green jacket on?
"I'm aware," Brandt said last week, "that she's living on borrowed time."
That may be, but at the Masters this year, she had the time of her life: her family and friends together, chasing a dream.
"I heard somebody say, 'Who's that blond boy with the smile?'"
Candy Snedeker recalled the other day. "And I said, 'That's mine.'"
A win wouldn't have changed a thing.
