Two years ago, Ryan Moore peeked up at the Crow's Nest, where as an amateur he would spend his week at Augusta National.

He contemplated a practice round with Gary Player, and the awe of playing the first two rounds of the Masters with Arnold Palmer.

"It was a week," he would say later, "that I will never forget."

Ryan Moore returns to the Masters on April 7-10, still an amateur, but callused rather than callow, and with a goal that supersedes playing on the weekend.

"I want to do something that's never been done before," he said recently.

He means he wants to win the Masters, not just play in it.

An amateur has never won the Masters. Ken Venturi came close in 1956, losing an eight-stroke lead to Jackie Burke Jr.

Two years ago, invited to play because he had won the national Public Links championship, Moore made the cut at the Masters and ended up tying for 45th.

Eras are different, of course, but as good an amateur as Venturi was, he never came close to doing what Moore, now a UNLV senior from Puyallup, did last year.

Moore, 21, had the best year of amateur golf since Bobby Jones won the grand slam in 1930. He won the NCAA tournament, he won the Players Championship at Sahalee, he won the national Public Links championship for a second time, he won the Western Amateur and he won the U.S. Amateur.

No one had ever won the Public Links and the U.S. Amateur in the same year. No one had repeated as Public Links champion.

In a match against Luke List, Moore won the last four holes in the U.S. Amateur, making birdies on three of them at venerable Wing Foot, hitting seven and eight irons to 460-470 yard holes after splitting the fairways with 300-yard drives.

"He has the ball-striking, the short game and the putting to play well at Augusta," said his father, Mike Moore. "Certainly, he's going into the Masters thinking he can win."

After his amazing summer, Moore just kept going. He won the individual title and helped his American teammates win the World Team Championships in Puerto Rico.

He also won a tournament at the Detroit Country Club to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Arnold Palmer winning the U.S. Amateur. Moore was up against 30 former U.S. Amateur champions, including Phil Mickelson.

He won a collegiate tournament in New Mexico where he came from four strokes back with a final-round 65 to beat Spencer Levine, the low amateur in the U.S. Open.

And to top it off, he entered the Greensboro Open on a sponsor's exemption and finished tied for 24th, the first amateur in 25 years to make the cut. His amateur status cost him $42,320.

Because of his astonishing amateur season, he was granted an invitation to play in the U.S. Open and the British Open, as well as the Masters. The U.S. Open is at Pinehurst, the British Open at St. Andrews.

"I can play in major championships that many professional players only dream about," said Moore, who has said he will likely turn pro the week after the British Open in July.

"I'm proud that he's stayed in school in these times of instant gratification," said Mike Moore, his father. "He is a patient man with a plan."

It starts with winning the Masters.