Danny Willett wins the Masters after Jordan Spieth suffers dramatic collapse

Spieth birdied four holes in a row from the sixth to reach the turn with a five-shot lead and seemingly certain to follow Jack Nicklaus, Nick Faldo and Tiger Woods in winning back-to-back titles at Augusta National.

However, the world number two - who had led for seven rounds in succession following his wire-to-wire victory last year - then dropped shots at the 10th and 11th and ran up a quadruple-bogey seven on the 12th after hitting two balls into Rae’s Creek in front of the green.

Willett, who was a doubt to even play the year’s first major before his wife Nicole gave birth to the couple’s first child last week, had birdied the 13th and 14th to reach the top of the leaderboard and another on the 16th helped complete a superb 67.

Dustin Johnson briefly closed within two of the lead with a birdie on the 15th, but double bogeyed the 17th to leave Spieth as the only man capable of preventing Willett from becoming the first English winner of the Masters since 1996 and the first European since 1999.

Birdies on the 13th and 15th kept Spieth’s hopes alive, but when he missed from eight feet for birdie on the 16th and bogeyed the 17th, Willett could celebrate a famous win.

“It’s awesome,” Willett told CBS. “We played great golf today. It’s been a fantastic week. We had to go out and shoot a good score and put a little pressure on and luckily we have done that.”