As we stand in the Thames Barrier control room, computer screens tracking the waves out in the North Sea, I ask him about the value of remembering the catastrophe of 1953.
"I don't usually do this for former Malone players, " said Ballymena man Syd, no doubt remembering the time I took a swing at him during an Ulster League match back in the Seventies.
But he felt like the biggest advantage of all those rounds at Augusta was remembering not to let the swirling winds confuse him or change the way he played his approaches into the greens.
Oskar begins his scavenger hunt at the swings of a Central Park playground while remembering a time when his father (Tom Hanks) tried to coax him onto the swings.