Masters more friendly to fans, but not to scoring low
AUGUSTA, Ga. – The week that was the 72nd Masters Tournament started with the first-ever televised happy-family scene of the Par-3 Tournament, with relaxed players shepherding their toddlers, dressed in white caddie jumpsuits, swinging wildly, missing putts and hitting balls into the ponds as their proud parents smiled and the gallery laughed and applauded.
The week ended with some wild swings, balls in the water and a great many missed putts – by the players, not their toddlers.
And the only one smiling at the end, a very relieved smile, was South African Trevor Immelman.
Despite an impressive international record, Immelman likely was better known in Chicagoland than around the rest of the country, thanks to his 2006 victory over Tiger Woods at Cog Hill in the Western Open. The Masters was his second PGA Tour victory and once again, Immelman topped World No. 1 Woods, this time by three shots. Tiger Killer?
Like his 5-foot-7 South African idol, Gary Player, the 5-9 Immelman is a grinder and in the last year overcame two serious health issues with great fortitude. First was a mysterious stomach disorder he picked up at the Masters last year and wound up losing 22 pounds from an already lean body. Then it was a golf ball-sized tumor, fortunately benign, that was removed last December, a week after he’d won the elite Nedbank Challenge in South Africa. He couldn’t walk or talk for two weeks and, of course, lost more weight.
Overcoming those two maladies and winning the Masters should make Immelman the leading candidate for the Golf Writers Association’s Ben Hogan Award which would be especially fitting. Immelman’s swing has been described as perfect, just like Hogan’s.
He led the Masters in driving accuracy, tied for second in greens in regulation and tied for fourth in putting, figures similar to Zach Johnson’s winning form last year.
Hitting fairways and greens in Sunday’s pant-leg-flapping, swirling winds was magical. Despite the toughened, beefed-up courses, 18 players were under-par going into the final round and four were even. When Immelman holed out in setting sunshine, only 10 players were under-par and three were even. Only four players broke par Sunday – Miguel Angel Jimenez with 68, Heath Slocum with 69 and Stuart Appleby and Nick Watney with 71s. And they were in the first half of the 45-man field, before the winds reached peak force.
Before the tournament began, Woods said that, discounting bad weather, the Augusta National has been much more forgiving than the U.S. Open. A few days later Tiger said the Masters had become like the Open, that you didn’t hear the roars coming up the hills from Amen Corner, the two water-guarded par-5s, 13 and 15, and the par-3 16th.
“This is the most complete test of golf,” Phil Mickelson said. “The U.S. Open is the toughest, just a brutal test but it doesn’t test all parts of the game.”
Both Woods and Mickelson, with six Masters green jackets between them and always renowned for their putting, lost to the greens this time. Getting the right line was like trying to decipher the Rosetta Stone.
“You have to putt perfect all week and I didn’t putt well all week,” said Woods, stuck two-thirds of the way to Jack Nicklaus’ record of six Masters victories. Tiger did get up a notch toward another Nicklaus record, however – finishing second in major championships. It was Tiger’s fifth runnerup in a major. Nicklaus had 18.
Woods can only blame himself for the muscled-up golf course. When he won his first Masters in 1997 and trashed the record with an 18-under-par 270 and went 16 under in 2001, the Masters fought back. Fourteen holes have been lengthened, most of them about 35 yards but the seventh, formerly a drive and wedge, is 85 yards longer – it’s now 450 – and Mickelson said it’s as tough as the downhill 505-yard par-4 11th.
“The seventh green is shallow,” Mickelson said. “It was designed for a short iron. Now you’re hitting mid-irons.”
The Masters, once so joyous because of the birdies and eagles, now is a brain-bruiser for the players. They’re exhausted when they finish.
“It’s like trying to breathe air at the top of Mt. Everest,” Stewart Cink said.
Masters rookie Boo Weekley said the experience was “just unreal,” called the course “pretty” and was impressed by the galleries and wondered if the greens were kept at that pace year-round, but doubted because “the members wouldn’t enjoy it.”
And when he was asked if he was “a regular player” would he want to play the course again he replied: “No. No.” And then if a Tour player would play if it wasn’t a major, Weekley, who tied for 20th at 291, said “That’s a good question… I’ll leave the rest of it alone.”
Then there was Jim Furyk on the infamous guesswork winds by the water-fronted, 150-yard 12th. “Everyone’s puckering on 12.”
It was a very difficult day and the players won’t see another one like it until June, in the Open at Torrey Pines.
That will be another pretty site, on the cliffs overlooking the Pacific Ocean. But it won’t be Augusta and the Masters, a tournament and a setting like no other, as CBS likes to say. Every year there are changes, sometimes major, sometimes tweaks, from the gates off fast-food-lined Washington Road into the course.
For the first time in my memory, I saw turnstiles at the entrances. No attendance figures were announced, however. They never are, but I’d like to see turnstiles installed in Phoenix, where they claim six-figure crowds.
There are signs that the new short-game practice area is growing – it will be in use for the 2010 Masters – and the hillside on the 16th hole has room for a couple thousand patrons, framed by countless numbers of azaleas and the tall Loblolly pines. It’s said that a storm damaged trees in that area so they were taken down to permit more viewing and it’s a perfect spot, the 16th and sixth greens and 15th green are all visible.
I don’t recall mention of a storm in 2006 and it may have been the traditional golf course superintendent’s explanation when some trees favored by some members suddenly disappear – “They got hit by rot” or “Yeah, that lightning got them.”
Televising the Par-3 and admitting free a youngster, age 8 to 16, with an adult badge holder all four days were two more fan-friendly moves by Masters chairman Billy Payne. The masterful moves by the public relations-conscious Payne put a dent in the reputation of the club as being insular and stuffy. Each youngster was welcomed by a green-jacketed club member who told them how Masters patrons behave.
Incidentally, the British Open has admitted kids free with a paying adult for the last three years. If golf administrators say they want to “Grow the Game,” maybe all the tournaments will catch on.