As one Willett won the Masters, another was mastering Twitter
- Published
As Danny Willett becomes the first Briton in 20 years to win the Masters, it would be easy to assume he's now by far the most famous person in his family. His mum's a mathematician, his dad a vicar and he has three brothers with ordinary jobs.
But his older brother Pete - or PJ - a drama teacher in Solihull, is running Danny close, as his live-tweeting, external throughout the final round captured international attention. PJ joked, drank and swore through the closing stages with a mixture of fraternal fun-poking and unmistakable - if somewhat bemused - pride.
His Twitter feed - the profile reads "Author. Teacher. Inexperienced Father" - had a modest 312 followers on Sunday afternoon. By Monday it was more than 17,000 - and it's still rising.
Pete's wife Sarah got the comedy ball rolling on Saturday, with her tweet urging her brother-in-law to "think of your nephews", external
Having set the tone, here's how the night itself unfolded in the Willett household.
Pete, who has written a book called Will Proles' Rise, began by commenting on then-leader Jordan Spieth's deliberate style of play...
...Before reflecting on past times and future glories:
And offering a few words of brotherly advice:
The protective side of Pete emerges in this tweet - as he warns the current holder Jordan Spieth to "wind his neck in":
Danny's on the home straight and Pete is fairly sure his colleagues at Grace Academy in Solihull will understand if he has a sore head in the morning. He'd put a bet on his brother finishing in the top eight.
Maybe the Champagne is taking its toll, as Pete eggs on his younger brother to swear...
Tense times as Pete worries Spieth may be able to rescue the situation... but "slowpoke" Spieth obliged by failing to get those birdies down the stretch:
Poor pet rat. It turns out the rat, called Skinner, was accidentally set free by Danny - never to be seen again.
By now Skinner's fate is pushed to the back of Pete's mind.
At the par-three 12th hole, Jordan Spieth saw his one-shot lead turn into a three-shot deficit. The defending champion's tee shot went into the water, and then he failed to get his wedge shot from a drop zone onto the green. After another drop, he hit his fifth shot into the back bunker, finishing on a seven.
Pete and his wife were "having a quiet drink and looking forward to Danny hopefully reaching top eight".
Things changed when Spieth's game imploded: "It was chaos. It was unbelievable. Me and my wife had a drink and a couple more drinks. My phone was going crazy."
As well as delighting in Danny's win, Pete was pretty pleased with his own online performance, coming up with a good put-down for disruptive - and spitty - pupils:
Come Monday morning, Pete still had his priorities right...
He made an exception for Chris Evans on Radio 2, where he said he planned to work on a way to stay in the spotlight.
After school, though, there was time for the media.
In the time-honoured fashion of brothers, Pete, who said he's "not brilliant with big shows of emotion" told the BBC when he next sees Danny he'll "probably insult him in some way".
"If he's in a good enough position I might hit him. Then I might give him an embarrassed half-embrace, and it'll all be a bit awkward. Then we'll slap each other's backs a few times".
Or he could let his tweets do the emotional talking for him - maybe this one best sums it up:
- Attribution
- Published11 April 2016
- Attribution
- Published5 April 2016