AUGUSTA – The pressure of playing in the Masters at Augusta National can be 18 holes of shear torture. But Steve Stricker has found a way to keep himself calm whether he likes it or not.

Stricker’s wife, Nicki, serves as his caddie and temperature gauge, making sure her husband doesn’t lose his poise after a bad shot or a bad swing.

“When I’m missing birdie putts, she tells me to hang in there and be patient and that they will fall,” Stricker was saying recently. “That helps. It relaxes you a little bit. It’s good to have her out there because we get along so well. We talk about other things going down the fairway. It’s not necessarily grinding over the next shot right after you hit the last one.”

Stricker entered yesterday’s third round three shots off the lead, managing a 7-under par 137 after 36 holes. Amid a leaderboard that includes Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson, Stricker wasn’t exactly drawing a lot of attention despite his good standing.

Stricker qualified for the Masters after winning the 2001 Match Play Championship, but before that had struggled through lean times since winning the Kemper Open and Western Open in 1996. It was during that stretch where Stricker went from being ranked 13th in the world in 1998 to 113 last season.

He blames a change in equipment and a loss of confidence for his struggles.

“I changed equipment [for financial reasons] and I lost confidence,” Stricker said. “I had a downslide and I couldn’t get out of it. It has affected my confidence even to this point. I’m just not driving the ball well enough yet. It’s getting a little better, but that’s the part that left me in ’97 and I’ve struggled with that part of my game ever since.”

One person, who always has remained supportive was his wife, who has served as his caddie since he turned professional. The daughter of a coach and a golfer in her own right, she can get him to focus on the job at hand when he needs to and relax his mind with talk of what’s for dinner when he needs to relax.

“She’s fairly quiet when it comes to club selection and putting and that kind of stuff,” Stricker said. “Occasionally, I’ll ask her opinion, but more times than not she just gives me support. She knows better than to do that technical stuff with me especially during a round. But she’s good at being able to kick me in the behind when I start talking negatively about my shot or the round or my swing. No other caddie can just lay into me like that and not be afraid of her job.”

His wife wasn’t on the bag for two key tournament in Stricker’s career: the 1998 PGA Championship where he finished second to Vijay Singh and the Match Play Championship this year. Nicki missed the PGA Championship at Sahalee because she was having the couple’s first child. With his emotional support at home, Stricker got emotional during the post-round interview session.

“I was just an emotional time,” Stricker said. “I thought I could have won the tournament and after I didn’t win, I was very disappointed.”

She missed the Match Play in Australia because she didn’t want to be that far from their 2-year old daughter Bobbi Maria.

Stricker was hoping his experience at Sahalee would help him over the final two days of the Masters.

“At the PGA [in ’98)] I hung in there and did all the little things and gave myself a shot of winning,” he said. “It’s a situation I’m not as familiar with as other players. But I’ve been out here long enough to where I should be able to handle it. Knowing the course helps. I’m starting to understand it a little bit better; like where to put the ball and where to hit the shots. I learned to understand you have to be patient and think your way around here.”

Should Stricker find his name on the leaderboard come tomorrow, he doesn’t expect to have stage fright. “The first couple of tournaments when I saw it up there, I’d make a bogey on the next hole,” he said. “Now it’s fun seeing it up there, especially here at the Masters.”

Regardless of the outcome, the Strickers will win as a team or lose as a team.

“Part of the reason she likes to caddie is she gets to feel some of that competitiveness out there caddying,” Stricker said. “It’s a team effort and she’s very competitive. She likes being inside the ropes. She gets just as nervous as I do, but she right there offering me positive advice and trying to keep me upbeat.”