The Masters Afterwards

Amazing what the nerves can do to the body. Rory proved that he’s still a young man prone to a young man’s nerves. Sergio admitted that he’s just not good enough to win a major. Tiger demonstrated that he’s not really back, despite the win at Arnold’s place, that he may never be back, and that he’s given to little boy tantrums when his swing doesn’t go the way he thinks it should. And Bubba may have taken his place as the absolute favorite in the hearts of the golfing world. What a neat win it was. He’s a most unusual golfer, and this was an unusual Masters for any number of reasons. First, it showed us an albatross on number two when Louis Oosthuizen’s second shot into the par-5 flew true, bounced straight, and rolled just over the front edge of the hole for that most improbable shot in golf, the double-eagle. That’s like making a zero on a par-3, like having your shot go in the hole even before you swing. Another first time for me, a shank to the right and short of the pond on the par-3 number 12, the look on Peter Hanson’s face when he hit it. And not one, but two, holes-in-one on 16. And another brain fart by Phil when he tried for some kind of miracle shot on the par-3 fourth. He deliberately aimed left of the green on his tee shot, banged it off the railing of the grandstand, bounced into jungle, tried a right-handed stab from the bamboo, moved it six inches, tried it again and nearly hit himself when the ball came out way left of his swing path, chunked the next one inro the bunker, then made a graceful save out of the bunker for his triple bogey. He was lucky to make only six. Almost any other golfer would have sucked it up and gone back to the tee to try to make bogey from the tee. Not Phil. Oh well, this wasn’t the first Phil meltdown and it probably won’t be his last. And one last observation: I now for the first time realize the silliness of the whole dramatic dog show--the reverence paid to this course, this tournament, the Keepers of the Flame (the folks in the green jackets who run the place), the awe in the voices of the broadcasters as they reverently talk about past winners, past performances. Where’s Johnny Miller when we need him? Instead we have the insipid comments of Curtis Strange, the soft-speak of Peter Kostis and his inanities, the carefully reverential comments of Jim Nantz, who annually fears invoking the same ire of the Augustan hierarchy that led to the dismissal of Jack Whitaker, who in 1966 had the audacity of referring to the “mob scene” around the 18th green, or Gary McCord, who in 1995 too too flippantly said “They don’t cut the greens here at Augusta, they use bikini wax.” Come on, Augusta, get off your high horse and bring us Johnny Miller.