Forget all the poetry about how Augusta National Golf Club is a
"cathedral of nature." Forget, for now, the azaleas and dogwood
blossoms and the rolling, verdant hills, forget the tragic nobility
of founder Bobby Jones' grace in handling a crippling disease and
forget the sad end of tyrannical former chairman Clifford Roberts.
Forget the ghosts of near-miss amateurs Billy Joe Patton and Ken
Venturi, or the agony of perpetual runners-up Tom Weiskopf and Greg
Norman. And please, please forget the goofy sideshow known as
Martha Burk that the New York Times so embarrassingly
obsessed about a few years ago.
When the Masters Tournament begins on Thursday, watch every
minute of it that you possibly can, not for any of those overplayed
media storylines above, but because for pure theater it's the
single best, most arresting, individual (non-team) golf tournament
in the world. Indeed, don't limit the superlatives to golf: It's
one of the world's best sports events of any sort, period.
Sure, the U.S. Open has its own brutal drama, the British Open
its storied history and its quirky bounces, and the under-rated PGA
its strong fields and player-pleasing, fair-but-tough course
set-ups. But none of that can compare with the wildly unpredictable
twists of fate that the Masters serves up quite literally as a
matter of course -- the course itself, by its ingenious design,
being the source of those twists.
The first seven holes of the back nine are the essence of
genius. Each one of them (with the possible exception of the
recently toughened 11th) invites legitimate hopes for a birdie (or
even better) without the player doing anything too heroic;
but each also threatens utter disaster on every shot. Rarely does
one course offer so many holes in a row where a three- or four-shot
swing on each hole is such a real possibility.
From that breathtaking stretch the course finishes with two par
fours that are less visually arresting and less obviously dramatic
-- yet filled the subtleties that somehow always make for great
theater nonetheless.
Every back-nine hole has its stories. It's tough to think of the
10th, for instance, without picturing Ben Crenshaw sinking a putt
from seemingly halfway across the county en route to his first win
-- but it's just as familiar as the place where little-known Len
Mattiace hockey-pucked his ball back and forth across the green to
lose a playoff in 2003.
The 11th was where Larry Mize blitzed Greg Norman with a
140-foot chip shot to win in 1987 -- and where Norman nine years
later three-putted from about 11 feet to confirm that he was indeed
collapsing against Nick Faldo.
And on and on through each hole, with the 12th providing Fred
Couples and Jeff Maggert the ecstasy and agony, respectively, in
different years; the 13th where Tom Watson actually became the real
Tom Watson by misinterpreting a gesture from Jack Nicklaus and
letting his anger overcome his penchant for choking; the 14th where
Phil Mickelson almost holed out en route to his first major
title....
Okay, enough with the stories. No less than the great Jack
Nicklaus himself is on record as saying that the likelihood of big
surprises will be lessened this year because tournament organizers
have lengthened some holes so considerably that the holes may lose
their character and let the long bombers, about ten of them in his
estimate, be the only players capable of winning.
Well, here's saying that this is one of the first times the
Golden Bear has ever been wildly wrong. Here's saying that the only
long bombers who will benefit from the changes are the ones not
just long but straight. Because as the course has been lengthened,
it also has been tightened. Which means that whereas Tiger Woods
could drive it wildly in past years and still be hitting recovery
shots with a 9-iron, now he'll be hitting those same recovery shots
-- or, more likely, more recovery shots, because he'll be
forced to hit more drivers -- with a six-iron and with more trees
in his way.
The likely result will be more missed greens for
everybody in the field, including the big hitters whose
length otherwise would allow them easier opportunities to shrug off
wayward shots. The short game will be more important then, not less
-- and even the mid-length drivers like past champions Mike Weir
and Jose Maria Olazabal will again be on somewhat equal footing
with the Tigers and Phils and Vijays of the golfing pantheon.
This isn't to say that a long hitter won't win -- but
only that the straight hitters and the good scramblers and putters
will be in the mix just as ever.
All of which leads us...where? Established stars Woods,
Mickelson, Olazabal, Ernie Els, Retief Goosen, David Toms and the
far shorter-hitting Luke Donald all seem to be in top form. The
Golf Channel's analysts, meanwhile, all seem to agree that Ryder
Cup Captain Tom Lehman is the sleeper to watch. All of which makes
sense. But sense isn't always the same as prescience. And if
Augusta National were wont to reward good sense, then Greg Norman
and Tom Weiskopf, and Johnny Miller and Tom Kite, all would have
multiple Green Jackets hanging in Augusta's champions' room rather
than having nothing but bridesmaids' outfits to show for their
efforts.
The truth is that Augusta's ghosts really do control the script
at the Masters, and the ghosts every so often like streaky players
who revere the game and who pay homage to its lineage. How else to
explain Ben Crenshaw's out-of-nowhere victory in 1995 right after
serving as pallbearer for his mentor, Harvey Penick?
The Penick lineage also goes right through the runner-up to
Crenshaw that year, the streaky traditionalist Davis Love III. And
it goes to Love's younger buddy Justin Leonard, another
traditionalist who, like Gentle Ben, is a Texan whose putting
stroke can suddenly produce extended streaks of magic.
So all you odds makers out there can have your Tiger Woods, who
certainly will win more Masters titles before he's through. But not
this year. This year the ghosts are angry at the notion that
anybody could think The Masters could ever be a ten-man tournament.
The CBS ads call The Masters "a tradition like no other," and this
is a year where traditional golfing values will be rewarded. It is
a little-known fact that Justin Leonard and Davis Love III were the
last two major players to give up the tradition of persimmon woods
and move to the newfangled metal alloys. If everybody had stuck
with the real woods, tournament organizers would not have needed to
lengthen the course in the first place.
And first place is where I have a hunch either Love or Leonard
will be when the cheers finally stop echoing among the dogwoods and
pines.
Quin Hillyer is executive editor of The American
Spectator. He can be reached at hillyerq@spectator.org.
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