The last time an Englishman won the Masters, Justin Rose was an impressionable teenager watching events unfold on his living room television.

Today, however, millions of eyes across the nation will be focused on him, as he hopes to end the country’s long drought for a champion at Augusta.

Rose tees off in Georgia this afternoon, bidding to become the first Englishman since Nick Faldo to win a famous green jacket.

It was 1996 when Faldo won the last of his three Masters titles, improbably overturning a six-shot deficit to Greg Norman on the final day.

Rose might have been just 15 at the time, but he revealed that he learned a lot of important lessons on that memorable Sunday night 17 years ago.

“I would have been watching back home, in Fleet, in the front room with the family,” he recalled.

“I was at a very impressionable age, I would have been a plus-two handicap, so really wanting and knowing I was going to be a pro golfer I guess.

“I still remember watching that. Faldo and Norman and Seve were the three guys that I looked up to during my career, and that was just an amazing final day, watching it unfold, watching and trying to learn from, and just beginning to understand how important the mental side of the game was or is.

“That was probably the first time I really recognised that.”

There is plenty of reason to believe Rose could this week win a first major of his career.

The 32-year-old is in the best shape of his career, having risen to number three in the world, and has finished in the top 20 at the Masters on four occasions.

“I feel like it is a course that I can win on,” he said. “I would say I’ve got a good a chance here as any.”