Date: April 11, 2011
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Australians prove force at Augusta

Australian Open champions Geoff Ogilvy and Adam Scott and former National Squad member Jason Day produced one of Australia&aposs best-ever finishes to the US Masters on Monday. Scott and Day, who both led the major at stages, finished in a tie for second, two shots adrift of South African winner Charl Schwartzel who birdied his final four holes to take the Green Jacket. Ogilvy also went on a birdie blitz, posting red numbers on holes 12-16 and finished in a three-way tie for fourth with Luke Donald and Tiger Woods. It was awesome playing with Jason, Scott said. Incredible. He was a little shaky early on but really held his nerve, and to finish birdie to give himself a chance at the time was huge. Can t say enough about Jason. He’s a really mature golfer for his age. I ve known Adam since I was 15, so we ve been good mates since then and we just had a lot of fun today, said Day, 23. It was really, really good to be in the hunt for the Masters, and obviously to be one of the first Aussies to win the Masters was special, too. Scott shot a 5-under-par 67 Sunday to make the jump from 7-under at the start of the day. Day, meanwhile, shot a 4-under 68 to come from the pack of players who began the final round at 8 under par. “Last year, I kind of started feeling comfortable here, Scott said. I played so well tee to green last year and struggled on the greens still, but I m putting well at the moment and that makes up for a lot of that coming here. Also, the course played very hard for most of the years I ve been here and a lot of guys were over-par. But certainly I think my game s in better shape than it s ever been this year coming into the Masters. Despite neither of them walking away with the green jacket at the conclusion Sunday evening, Day and Scott took some measure of solace in that they didn t give it to Schwartzel. I couldn’t do any more than what I just did today, Day said. And me and Adam played wonderful golf out there. Charl played even better golf.