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April 2008
Braves pitchers appear jinxed
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Nobody could have seen this coming through the rose-colored glasses of spring. The Braves finally had it right. Your trusty correspondent even referred to them as “pitcher-rich.” Six starters and only room for five. A bullpen clogged with bodies, armed and ready. A crop ripe and hardy for harvesting. Things hadn’t looked so good in so long. So sound the horn, get at ‘em while they’re hot.
Well, that’s the way it looked then. There was some mention that some of the starters were a little long in the tooth. But what fine trim they were in. Tom Glavine looked lithe enough to do health club commercials. John Smoltz, well, management had such confidence in him they were allowing him to conduct spring training on his own. On a field out of view of the passing public, out where the farmhands are cultivated. He always looks healthy as a stallion. Healthy enough to go golfing with Tiger Woods.
He made one start, and that was it. He was touched up for a few runs, but you know what they say: “It’s just spring training. Ho, hum.”
Tim Hudson and Glavine both looked as lean as “whit-leather,” an old down home kind of term. Their earned-run averages were in midseason form. There was the new kid in from the Tigers in the Edgar Renteria deal, a sort of befuddling name, Jair Jurrjens, the Curacoan with befuddling stuff. Only he has performed like a veteran. And, of course, from behind the curtain, what’s with the mystery man, Mike Hampton? He could be ready, and if he were, he should be good for 15 games, then again…well, you know the rest of that soap opera.
Bullpen? Let’s see, Rafael Soriano, Peter Moylan, Blaine Boyer, Manny Acosta, Royce Ring, and a cast of stars so impressive that they felt comfortable trading Tyler Yates. And did I miss somebody? Oh, yes, Buddy Carlyle and Jeff Bennett, who can go either way. That didn’t include Mike Gonzales, the bullet-slinger who came in the Adam LaRoche deal, and whose surgically-repaired arm should be ready by June. Three cheers and a lusty huzzah!
Well, that was then. Soriano got in four innings before his arm balked. Moylan, the Australian sidearmer, will get a surgically-imposed vacation. Acosta gets an expense-paid trip to Richmond, sponsored by a 6.00-ERA. Boyer has rewarded his bosses, but the star of the outpost has been a 30-year-old Mexican, Jorge Campillo, whose spring training ERA was in double digits. All the others have been inconsistent, even Ring, whose mission is simply dealing with lefthanders. The bottom line is, there is plenty of work for them all.
For the first time in his life, Glavine has been on the disabled list, much to his chagrin. Yeah, Smoltz got his 3,000th strikeout, but in the process swallowed the bitter pill of defeat. Hudson is the puzzler now. Three innings one time, four innings another, and for lack of any other way to put it, just doesn’t look comfortable on the job.
Surely that gold-studded “pitcher-rich” cast of the spring hasn’t misplaced its magic, all at the same time. It hasn’t been the best launching party for Frank Wren, the ascendant to the general managership. The roster he put together looked like a contender in Florida. Baseball Digest, the magazine, projected the Braves no worse than second to the Phillies in the NL East. Yes, the five-star pitching staff of spring is showing effects of age, but it shows only in the box score, not in their physical presence. There’s something about all this that has the cruel mark of a hex, if you believe in such stuff.
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$57 million for an offensive tackle!!??
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Opinion No. 1: A $57 million tackle? And did you stop to realize that this tackle played on the big-time Big Ten football team that lost to Appalachian State? His major assignment on his football team is to block for the ball-carrier. Sort of drudge work, requiring no sophisticated talent, such as catching or throwing a football, just helping clear a path for the guy who carries it under his arm.
Bill Parcells has always been perceived as one of the brains of professional football. That’s why he was hired to run the Miami Dolphins when the Falcons thought they had him in hand. He is the one who had to OK this deal with Jake Long. Maybe he should have looked at the Appalachian State tackle that Jake didn’t get blocked. You mean to say you have to pay $57 million to get a guy who can play tackle in the NFL these days? And $30 million of it guaranteed, before Jake even makes his first block? I don’t know what that comes out to by the pound, but that’s mighty expensive beef.
Your move, Thomas Dimitroff.
Opinion No. 2: Look, there’s no question that to strike out 3,000 batters in major-league baseball is some feat. Only 16 have done it out of more than 600 pages of major-league pitchers — I don’t have the patience to count them one by one — and I’d say, of them all, none took a more circuitous course than John Smoltz. All the surgeries, re-routed through the bullpen, meaning three seasons were boiled down to one-inning appearances, and he still gets it done. But the television rage reached the point of sickening. Barking repetition, again and again. And through it all, not one time was it mentioned that with 2,714 more strikeouts Smoltz could tie Nolan Ryan, the leader. Ryan struck out 5,714, working between both leagues and a lot of innings. Twice he pitched more than 300 innings in a season and 12 times in the 200s, and most all of those American League seasons against a full lineup of batters to a side.
Of course this doesn’t include all Smoltz’s postseason strikeouts, and he had a bunch of those. Yes, it was quite a record, but if you watched it on television, you got overdosed, seriously.
Opinion No. 3: Yes, Mike Hampton has become an enigma. Is he, or isn’t he? I have no reason to raise the question, but readers and e-mailers are doing it. Here is a pitcher approaching his third season without throwing a major-league pitch and getting well paid as each day passes. Yeah, you get rather irritated at the thought of a pitcher hitting the payroll for millions and never throwing a competitive pitch. I think, though, that you get a good hint at what goes on inside him if you examine something he said the other day.
“I let it go as much as I could in the bullpen. You always wonder if that pitch will happen again when you feel it again. Hopefully, minor-league rehab will get that thought process out of my head,” he said.
That sounded like the thought of a worried, frustrated man, not a major-league employe enjoying the pleasures of one setting a record for highest income for innings not pitched.
Opinion No. 4: Several offended television viewers are calling attention to Tiger Woods and his profanity on the course. It isn’t easy to defend him, but at the same time it’s a case of television picking it up something not intended for broadcast. Yep, it’s bad stuff. Tiger can get as fretted as an 18-handicapper. Only suggestion I can make is that TV keep those furry microphones out of his range. Audiences don’t need to eavesdrop on his privacy, only how he plays. And forgive me, pastor, for I, too, have sinned.
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Stumbles, fumbles don’t faze Tech coach
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Paul Johnson is a realist. He is also an optimist, and good that he is, for after Georgia Tech’s spring practice wrap-up game Saturday, both qualities are highly recommended. A football coach realizes that precision and timing aren’t achieved in a flash. They come only with repetition, drill after drill, and if you put together the number of times Tech’s new head coach shook his head and kicked the air, mildly but despairingly at another play gone awry, the message was transmitted to the 8,000-or-so patrons viewing from the seats in Bobby Dodd Stadium.
It was the coming out of Johnson’s personal spread offense. It has been his trademark from here to Hawaii and back. No fullback, no tailback, but an “A” back and a “B” back, and essentially a quarterback with the deceptive skill of a magician. The final scrimmage couldn’t have gotten off to a worse start. The first snap was fumbled, then the sophomore quarterback, Josh Nesbitt, took a wrong turn, and this was the No. 1 team. The first first down came on a pass from a walk-on freshman. That freshman, Bryce Dykes, was the most effective quarterback at running Johnson’s offense. Another, Calvin Booker, was the most impressive passer. He threw lasers for two touchdowns, but those were rare interventions in Johnson’s trademark spread offense.
“I was hoping for something a little smoother, but it didn’t surprise me,” the coach said. “I didn’t know what to expect.”
It would be accurate to say the spectators were aghast, but too startled to let it show. I mean, after all, this is the hope of the future. The Gailey Era has been put away, and this is what they get? Johnson, though, showed no signs of despair, nor did he after he had a few days for it to sink in. You should be reminded that this is a mountain man whose early ambition was to be the next Elmer Aldridge. Aldridge was his high school coach in the town where he grew up — Newland, N.C.
“From the time I was in high school, that was what I wanted to do — go back home and be the coach at Avery County,” he has said. You might say he has overshot his goal.
As for his trademark spread offense, he has this to say: “People who don’t like it, don’t know it, don’t understand it.” Takes some time and patience.
You can’t expect a miracle. Johnson’s first team at Navy won only two games. George O’Leary broke in at Georgia Tech with a three-game losing streak. Bobby Ross was 2-9 and 3-8 his first two seasons, but a national championship followed.
And in his first spring game, Paul Johnson’s second team beat his first team like a drum. If the Grant Field patrons were left scratching their heads, they have company in the coach himself, getting his first serious look at his intricate offense in the hands of a cast to whom it was a complete mystery a month ago.
“Our wounds were self-inflicted. You see the ball, you’ve got to catch the ball,” he said. “It’s never as bad as it looks, it’s never as good as it looks. I’m confident we’re going to get it right.”
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Inner-city college football generally struggles
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Exhiliration runs high. Pulse of the mid-city beats picks up with anticipation. Downtown Atlanta is about to become blessed with its very own college football team, though “blessed” might be considered somewhat premature.
The Georgia State Panthers have no practice facility, not even a ball, most of all its own place to play the game, no history, no background, nothing more than a surging desire to have its own team and be, finally, a “full” university, as its envisions itself. OK, that’s fine. I don’t want to be a wet blanket, an anti-visionary spreading doom and gloom, but let’s take a cold, hard look at what has become of inner-city college football in this country.
Once upon a time University of Chicago was a powerhouse. It produced the first Heisman Award winner. Later its stadium became the laboratory for nuclear activity. In New York City, Fordham spread its wings from coast to coast at one time. It produced the great Vince Lombardi. NFL stars came out of NYU, the multi-talented Ken Strong, for instance. CCNY and Manhattan once had prosperous football programs. Manhattan played in a bowl game.
In Philadelphia, Temple still struggles to survive. Penn has been reduced to Ivy League level, as has Columbia in New York City. Columbia once played in the Rose Bowl. A few years ago I went to a game at Columbia. It was a nice little outing for about 1,500 people. No scholarships, Ivy League policy, no bowl games, no Heisman candidates.
In St. Louis, both Saint Louis U. and Washington participate well below the radar. Detroit U. once was so mighty it attracted Knute Rockne’s old Notre Dame quarterback, Gus Dorais, as coach. Once upon a time SMU was a regular on Georgia Tech’s schedule. They haven’t played in years. Now the Dallas school struggles to recover from a two-year “sentence” in the NCAA’s hoosegow.
San Francisco once was so rich in football that 11 of its alumni were playing in the NFL at one time, and some are in the NFL Hall of Fame. It’s major sport now is basketball. University of Denver no longer fields a football team. It, like so many other institutions, have been driven out of the game by the invasion of an NFL team. It still does well in low-budget sports.
Now, there are survivors. Boston College rules downtown with the Patriots making their home in Foxboro.
Georgia Tech lives within spitting distance of the Falcons, but its roots are deep in football, and any financial distress that developed there has to do with extravagant and under-funded expansion. All that in spite of a newly published survey of the nation’s major sports cities, in which Atlanta took a pounding.
Somebody, not sure who, did a poll to determine the United States’ “most miserable sports city.” You’ll never guess which city “won” this scourageous (my word) citation. Dear old Atlanta, reconnecting itself with a past which brought the late Lewis Grizzard around to calling it “Losersville.” True, there was much more damning evidence then than now. The Braves were miserable. The Falcons were miserable. Tech was miserable on the football field. There wasn’t much joy in the precinct.
I joust with the purveyors of this latest slap to the chops. The Braves have won 14 division titles and one World Series. (No, these aren’t the Red Sox and Yankees.) The Falcons have been to the Super Bowl. Blushingly, the Hawks now refer to themselves as a “playoff team,” with its losing record. Big-time golf and big-time stock car racing still come to call. There is misery within the boardroom of the Hawks and the Thrashers because of a miserably dysfunctional ownership. Gotta say this, they have kept us in conversation and headlines, though little to do with winning.
So, be cautious, be wary, Georgia State. Stick your toe in the pool before you leap headlong. This is not Statesboro. This is sophisticated Atlanta, as it immodestly considers itself. An upstart football program at a school surrounded by swirling traffic paying little attention, no hallowed halls, no ivy-covered towers and no tradition to build on is taking a walk into a deep forest.
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So much for a Grand Slam
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Augusta — So we say farewell and take our leave of the Grand Slam for another year — not to disregard the eminence of Trevor Immelman of South Africa. But until this moment, no one had raised his name in that regard until the sun went down on Tiger Woods at the Masters Sunday.
First, the Grand Slam is a fabrication. It’s a creation of four parts which began as “The Impregnable Quadrilateral,” a phrase created by a New York sports writer named George Trevor (honest). It was later simplified by O.B. Keeler, an Atlanta Journal sportswriter who rode side-saddle with Bobby Jones on his ascension to glory. I’m sure that O.B. didn’t do it all by himself, but he was at the head of the class. He was at Jones’ side as the gentleman amateur from Atlanta won the British Open and Amateur and the U.S. Open and Amateur tournaments in 1929, then went into retirement. He remains forever revered as “president in perpetuity” of Augusta National Golf Club.
Much too much had been written and spoken of the fixation on Woods, and his self-declared pursuit of this holy grail of golf. His declaration was not made as such, but became an assumption that he never debunked, nor aw-pshawed. This Masters, the 72nd, was to be the launching point, but as it evolved on Sunday afternoon, it was one convoluted round of golf, highlighted — or low-lighted — by some of the less memorable play recorded in this hallowed refuge of the Green Jacket.
Immelman managed to bring it off Sunday with a round of 75, and from start to finish, the South African called on every nerve in his 5-foot, 9-inch frame. He was, it appeared, as tightly wound as one of the golf balls he struck, but held together through a daunting afternoon. Treacherous weather had been projected, and treacherous it was. The wind blew furiously most of the round, tugging at players’ trouser legs and causing flags to dance wildly in the cups.
Through all this, the low round of 68 was posted by the Spaniard Miguel Angel Jimenez, he of the hair bun. Jimenez checked in early with a round of 68, good for a tie-8th score of 287. Only three others were under par, Heath Slocum at 69 and Stuart Appleby and Nick Watney at 71. So after four years of home-grown champions, the Green Jacket takes another trip across foreign borders. Mike Weir of Canada was the champion in 2003.
Immelman is not a winner without a championship portfolio. He won the Western Open in 2006, his first PGA Tour success, but he had won previously on U.S. soil. He and Rory Sabbatini won the World Cup for South Africa, played at Kiawah Island in 2003. Five times he had won other international tournaments. His father, Johan, is commissioner of the Sunshine Tour in South Africa, and an older brother is a golf professional who triggered his interest in the game.
What’s amazing is that Immelman has moved along below the radar among those foreign players who frequent the American tour. He does maintain a residence near Orlando and another in a London suburb. It was a kind of day that wore heavily on all 45 of the players who survived the cut, and not until the average score is posted will we know just how much was real golf and how much was merely survival. Not one player on the leaderboard, save Jimenez, improved his score.
Trio does Panhandle proud
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Augusta — On the metropolitan scale, this may not knock your socks off. But if you came from a town where you got your mail by RFD (that’s rural free delivery) and milked the cow or cut the firewood, this is as unlikely as the story of the bootlegger’s daughter who became a movie queen. This story centers in what is known as the Florida Panhandle, that part of the state which some say Georgia and Alabama disowned.
No Hollywood stuff here, backwoods instead. Out of one small spot in that part of the world three professional golfers have come forth, and mind you, this is not a golf-devout area as is Pinehurst or Sea Island. Nor has the First Tee program ever had a hand in it, nor was that program even in existence when these three were breaking out. Milton is where the most of the buzz is, a town of 8,118. Bagdad has a population of 1,490 and Jay 579, and that comes to 10,187 Panhandle rednecks — and that’s not my term, it’s theirs.
In order, they are Heath Slocum, Boo Weekley and Bubba Watson, 34, 34 and 29, as their ages go. More famous golfers that you would guess come from RFD addresses. The game isn’t limited to the rich, only to the skilled. Heath comes from Milton, Boo from Jay and Bubba from Bagdad. Heath and Boo played on the golf team at Milton High School together, Bubba came along a couple of years later. Boo was born Thomas Brent and came by his nickname from watching Yogi Bear and his pal. Watson is a real, authentic Bubba. His daddy saw him and saw a Bubba. Heath, some say, was once Heathcliffe but shortened it, and has since vacated the old territory. When he goes home now, it’s to Alpharetta.
It seems they all grew up scuffling around the same golf course called Tanglewood. Slocum had the edge. His father, Jack, was pro there and Tanglewood was their playground. Boo and Bubba are pretty sizeable guys, but Heath is only 5-10 and about 150 pounds, and they excel in different ways. Slocum deals in course wisdom and straight-shooting. He was sixth in driving accuracy on the Tour last year. Watson led the Tour in driving distance, 315.2 yards, leaving John Daly and J.B. Holmes in his rear-view mirror. It’s common gossip, though, that he knows less about the golf swing than the other two. He just stands up and bombs it, following the philosophy Bobby Jones once shared with Louise Suggs.
“Just swing hard as hell,” he told the much-decorated star of the LPGA, “it’ll come down somewhere.”
As it turns out, these three stars of the Panhandle came down in Augusta. All three not only qualified for the Masters, all three made the cut. As unbelievable as a fairy tale. Boo chipped on the last two holes at Hilton Head and won the Heritage. Weekley and Slocum got here through consistent performances over the year, and Boo easily led in the unofficial Li’l Abner impersonation, being a natural rustic. He was a show-stopper at the PGA Championship with his “aw-shucks” press forums, speaking of his preference for hunting, fishing and the carefree life of the woods.
All had a fling at college. Slocum went to South Alabama, Watson to Faulkner College, then transferred to Georgia. The truth is, he was never able to cut through the wall of five Bulldog All-Americans in front of him and never made the team. Weekley, well, his indulgence in campus life was short-lived. He went to Abraham Baldwin College in Tifton to learn all about grasses and course culture, but when his scholarship was done away, he packed off for the Panhandle.
So here they were, the three of them, playing through the weekend at the Masters. Neither was a threat to the leaders, though as twilight fell on soggy Saturday, Boo was looking good with his round of 68, a good patch away from the front-runners. But a 68 on Saturday at Augusta National, beats hunting and fishing any day, I’d say.
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‘Other lefthander’ making an impression
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Augusta — Some names just automatically roll off the tongue when the talk is about who might win the Such-and-Such Open. You know, Lefty, Tiger, Vijay, heck, even Freddie Couples, the elder statesman. The champion of our own national Open, Angel Cabrera, rarely ever makes it. Nor Steve Flesch.
Whenever have you seen Flesch’s name in the headline as the guy to beat in the next tournament? None and never. He’s just “the other lefthander.” After Phil Mickelson, and Mike Weir, even Bubba Watson, who’s more a showman than a contender yet. Mickelson’s name is in lights at Augusta National again this week. Weir, though, won the Masters and just about disappeared from view.
Flesch, though, is another story. This is his third Masters, and his best finish has been a tie for 17th four years ago. He has won on the PGA Tour four times, mainly such off-Broadway attractions as the Reno-Tahoe and the Turning Stone, two that earned his invitation to the Masters this time. Oh, he did win the Colonial, once one of the tour classics, and he won the Malaysian Open when he was sharpening his game on the Asian Tour.
Mainly, though, this is what you get from Steve Flesch: A bright, pleasant smile revealing a show of ivories, a gentle nature and a 40-year-old not overly impressed with himself. He plays golf. That’s his profession. And he plays left-handed, which is his distinction. He has been on the Tour since 1998 and has been living quite comfortably. But he’s never the left-hander who’s considered a contender here. Besides, get this: After he checks in with his score of 139 at the halfway point Friday, who should muscle his way up to join him but Mickelson himself. Spoil sport.
“I decided the par-5s were where I was going to be able to take advantage of the course, and today I was 5 under par on them,” Flesch said — while Mickelson was being interviewed on television — and he felt pretty good about that.
What he did, actually, was adopt the Zach Johnson School of Conservative Thought on the par-5s. Johnson, you know, won the Green Jacket last year by laying up on all par-5 holes, and netted 11 birdies. Flesch said, “I’m trying to lay it up 85 to 95 yards, leaving me a perfect 60-degree wedge,” and he did on the second and eighth holes, both birdies. Then he came to the 13th, and he felt strong. He went for it in two and eagled. Then the 15th, and all that water. He turned to his 5-wood and blasted the thing 237 yards, over the green, “not worrying about long. He chipped up and birdied.
His day was made, 5 under par and a tie for third. After a two-year absence, Flesch was back on the leaderboard at Augusta National. Modesty runs in his veins, and it came out as he had his give-and-take with the press.
Steve Flesch is a Kentuckian, grew up in the town of Union, which has become part of suburban Cincinnati. “It’s horse country with a lot of farming and a little tobacco,” he said. “It’s about ten miles from Cincinnati, and getting closer every day.”
He’s a natural left-hander but grew up trying to play right-handed, “because that’s how my dad played, and I just figured that’s how you played. I played baseball and batted left-handed. When I was 10 years old, I was playing with my uncle. He was left-handed, and I said let me hit one of yours. I did. It felt more natural, and that’s where it started.”
Mickelson, the story goes, is a natural right-hander who trained himself swinging in front of a mirror. There has been little similarity in their careers, but there is much contentment in Flesch’s life that Lefty rarely knows. Flesch has lived a pleasant life, brought joy and a form of Kentucky luxury to his wife and two children, and never been threatened with a return to qualifying school. He’s poised once again, and now the time has come to pull the trigger, not that that would make much of a change in his Union lifestyle.
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Masters invite tops all for recent winner Wagner
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Augusta — Say your name is Johnson Wagner. (Sounds like a construction firm, huh?) If you weren’t in Augusta, you’d be on Kiawah Island jollying about with an old classmate from Virginia Tech, you and the family. But the dangedest thing happened in Texas.
You won the tournament, the Shell Something-or-other, and the first thing you said after you sank the clinching putt was, “I’m going to the Masters!”
Nothing about the million dollars he’d just won, nothing about two years on the PGA Tour, no more Q-School, no more Nationwide Tour, no thought of the Kapalua tournament for tournament winners only. A sort of a career security blanket.
No, instead “I can’t believe I’m going to Augusta next week!”
If that doesn’t convince chairman Billy Payne he made a right move, then “good night, Mrs. Calabash, wherever you are,” to purloin an old line Jimmy Durante used to close his show. Once upon a time, every winner of a PGA Tour tournament automatically won an invitation to the Masters. Hootie Johnson thought the field might be getting overcrowded and deleted the practice about seven or so years ago. Among the Payne innovations was the restoration of the rule, and so it came about that the last-chance tournament this year was the Shell, and while more attention centered on Davis Love III and the prospect of keeping his Masters streak active, the unlikely Montford Johnson Wagner had the lucky number.
Last time this happened was in 1996, when Paul Stankowski won the BellSouth tournament in Atlanta the week before the Masters. First thing he said was, “How do you get to Augusta?” Somebody suggested a road map might help. That was before those in-car navigational gadgets.
Well, Davis Love didn’t make it, but Johnson Wagner did. The name does draw attention. It’s not often you come across a golfing personality with two last names. About the only one I can remember is Chandler Harper. He won the PGA Championship when I was still covering civic-club luncheons.
Johnson Wagner comes with golfing blood in his veins. I saw his grandpa play several years ago, a gentleman of some age then, and I still remember that swing. In young Johnson, the bloodline prevails.
He’s a stout fellow, larger than he appears on television, about 6-foot-3 and 190 pounds, a trim physical specimen. After the morning fog cleared, and Arnold Palmer had struck his ceremonial opening shot (“I hit it out of sight,” he said, and he had. The ball disappeared in the fog.), Wagner stood pondering a 3-foot putt on the first green. And missed it. He birdied the second hole, bogeyed the third from about 40 feet, and sort of disappeared into the kind of swirling melange that the opening round turns into.
He bogeyed two more holes before the turn. On the back nine, though, he blotted out all those doubts that flutter through the mind of a neophyte at the Masters, and leveled his score on the 16th green. He put it on cruise control on the way in, and thus his day came to nothing more, or nothing less, than one might have expected of the story, “Johnson Wagner Meets the Masters.”
He said it best: “A million dollars is nice, a two-year exemption, Kapalua is nice, everything that goes with winning on the PGA Tour, but being able to come to a place like this, it’s beyond belief.”
Have a nice week, Johnson.
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Great oak, wisteria endure, enchant
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Augusta — Somehow, it seems, the Masters never begins until you have stood under the limbs of the great oak. It gives you the feel of a giant hovering guardian. And one lone figure stood there as I walked up. Jerry Kelly had finished an interview and was standing there, as if communing with the great oak. Just Jerry, alone.
It was early in the week, a quiet time for a man to dwell in thought. We spoke and we began to talk. Jerry Kelly is not world-famous. The sight of him doesn’t stop traffic, like, “Hey, that’s Jerry Kelly.” Modest, Midwestern average, even to his personal dimensions. He’s 5 feet 11, about 165 pounds. Smaller and more vulnerable appearing than on television. This would be his sixth Masters, and he was drinking it all in before the invasion of the milling throng.
And we talked, and as we did, he said of the Masters, “It’s the best of them all, the only one of its kind. The beauty of this place is breath-taking, always the same, with manners and taste. No tented village, no commercialism, and no player, no matter where he comes from, has any reason to be ill at ease.
“The members are always around, making you feel at home. The scene, it never changes, the tradition and all. This is the tournament I’d like to win the most. This is the place to be the first of April.”
Kelly has won twice on the PGA Tour, the Sony Open in Hawaii and one of the old established ones, the Western Open. Before there were “majors,” as we know them, the Western Open was on the scale of the U.S. Open. Not now. The one Kelly won had an “Advil” in its name.
“The place to be the first of April,” he’d said. “This will be six of the last seven for me. I missed two years ago, and that’s a feeling I’ll never forget. It was depressing, and I don’t want that to happen again.”
I recall Doug Sanders once saying, when his career was cresting, “If you don’t get in the Masters, you feel like you’re out of the universe.”
Kelly is coming off his best Masters finish, a tie for fifth last year, just a stroke back of Tiger Woods, three behind Zach Johnson, the champion, a sort of a kindred Midwesterner. Johnson is from Iowa, Kelly from Wisconsin, where his major sport once was hockey. Nobody broke par last year, the third time that has happened in the Masters, something hard to believe. But last year was a collision of the weather and the tournament, a kind of a “perfect storm,” they’re saying of it this year.
Kelly is a borderline grizzled veteran of the Tour, though he has been out here for 12 years after graduating from what is now known as the Nationwide. He has added a light shade of well-cultivated facial hair, toughening up his features somewhat, but a genuinely warm smile gives him away. He’s the kind of guy you’d buy a used car from.
So we stood there, swapping thoughts beneath the giant oak and the wisteria. Somehow, the wisteria never seems to get its share of attention, though the two have grown into each other as the wisteria leans forward from its station near the old stone clubhouse. The giant oak, though, dominates but not without outside aid, barely noticeable. Some limbs of the old tree have grown to such a proportion that they have to be supported by cables, and another cable is grounded to protect it against lightning.
No one has a perfect fix on its age, but assuming that it began life when the Berckmans established their nursery here, it should be about 155 years old. Holding up pretty well for an old guy. Expressing great admiration for the giant oak and the gnarled wisteria, and sharing the convivial feeling of being blessed, Jerry went his way and I mine, both content that this is a beautiful time and a beautiful place to have a golf tournament.
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Arnold Palmer defined the Masters
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
It was 50 years ago that Arnold Palmer first won the Masters, and as he sets aloft the traditional opening shot on Thursday at Augusta National Golf Club, what better time to dwell upon his pioneering of this most treasured of championships. That is said, by the way, with full confidence — bolstered by a poll in which it was voted (1) the event more would most like to attend, and (2) the tournament more golfers would choose just to play.
In its long duration, ever played on the same course, one could say there have been three eras of champions, beginning with Palmer, followed by the Jack Nicklaus era and presently the Tiger Woods era. Between 1958 and 1964, Palmer won four Masters. Nicklaus’ was more a spread than an era, running from 1962 to 1975, during which he won five times, then after an 11-year lag, to 1986 when he burst forth with the most magic of them all, at the age of 46. Woods’ era began in 1997, when he shot the lights out, and is still in motion after four championships.
It is the Palmer era upon which we concentrate here, because more than any one champion, he engraved the Masters on the national consciousness. It is true that it wasn’t without controversy that he won in 1958, though he considers it the most treasured of them all. An uncertain official at the 12th hole dawdled over a ruling, upon which Palmer took matters in his own hands, and was upheld by the rules chairman, John Winters.
It was in 1960 that both Palmer and the Masters splashed upon the American scene with enduring impact. First, though, a flashback: Arnie might have made it three in a row but for a surging finish by Art Wall in 1959, “such as the Masters has never seen, roaring out of nowhere to win,” in the words of Herbert Warren Wind. Wall, paired with Julius Boros 21 minutes behind Palmer, birdied five of the last six holes and nailed Arnie by a stroke. Wall, incidentally, is the only Masters champion who never defended his title. A knee infection had him sidelined in 1960, when he watched and recorded Palmer in the year of “Arnie’s Army” as a correspondent for this newspaper. Palmer was rewarded with a check for $11,250. Wall’s check was for $250.
It was almost as if by some mystical force that Palmer and national television coincided. He had arrived at Augusta on a tear, four times a winner and leading the money list by a whopping margin. Previously, the Masters had been a nice little golfing social, come one, come all, step right up, buy a ticket and come right in. We shall never know those days again.
Palmer had his chance again in 1961, and it was the greenside bunker at 18 where the championship was won and lost. Gary Player blasted out of the sand and got his par. Palmer blasted out and double-bogeyed; for the first time the Masters had an international champion and since has multiplied that number and added a few continents. Palmer rebounded in 1964, and this time it was no contest. He led from start to finish and won by six strokes over Nicklaus and Dave Marr.
Nicklaus, meanwhile, was moving in, and winning in 1963 was just the beginning, though it was no wafting along on a breeze of popularity. Just the opposite, for Jack at that stage was still rather plump and burr-headed. Sad to say, but his retreat in 1964 was greeted with cheers. Augusta National belonged to Arnold Palmer, and some galleryites cruelly let there be no doubt about it. The stage was Arnie’s, and Nicklaus was viewed as an intruder.
Well, all that was changed by 1986, when the grand old champion was cheered home on Sunday, not a dry eye in the gallery. Now, the spotlight has switched to Woods. The stage is his. No Masters has been played this century in which he has not been the projected champion. He has not taken the course in hand and crushed it, as seemed the prospect. He has been taken to a playoff by the improbable Chris DiMarco. He has successfully defended only once, in 2002. Upset of them all, though, was when Zach Johnson, a sort of an Iowa Walter Mitty, slipped in through conservative game-planning last year, and here we are again. This time it’s more than the Woods era at Augusta, but the goal now is the Grand Slam, and the Masters must be won for that to stay alive.
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A Braves opener to forget
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
This was awful. I’ve been watching Opening Days — and Nights — since Harry Truman was president, from Class B to major league, and I’ve seen great ones and I’ve seen mediocre ones, but I’ve never seen one as awful as Opening Night on April Fools eve in Atlanta. They just don’t get any uglier.
A 45,269-person welcoming committee gave Tom Glavine a good, warm homecoming squeeze, and the left-handed prodigal gave them five good innings in return. One of his typical workdays, not a pitch over 84 mph, and most where he aimed them. He left with the Braves holding a 4-2 lead, and with that impeccable bullpen behind him, what was there to fear?
There had been some great defensive moments. Mark Kotsay’s throw that cut down Jack Wilson at the plate, a line-drive bullet to Brian McCann, followed by our David O’Brien’s exclamation, “Let’s see Andruw Jones do that. His throw hits the mound!” If there’s anything I like, it’s press-box fervor for the home team — kept within bounds, of course.
The Pirates had one defensive highlight of their own, and it involved the same Jack Wilson. He speared a hot shot that Mark Teixeira drove into the hole near third, to Wilson’s right. Wilson made a dramatic stab and flipped the ball over his shoulder to second baseman Freddy Sanchez, whose relay nailed Teixeira at first. It was acrobatic stuff. And, you might say, the game then became a circus. Bring on the clowns.
One of the Braves’ purported strengths is the bullpen, carefully selected after a spring of many rehearsals. After Glavine took his leave, the surviving candidates paraded across the grassy stage, one by one, mainly without distinction, except for the Australian Peter Moylan and the Dominican Rafael Soriano. Now, you should understand that the Braves consider themselves well-stocked in this phase of the game. This was a game cut away in the pattern as one might project over the season. Starter goes five, or six, or seven innings, Bobby Cox turns to the bullpen and the game is in its hands. Works most every time, or is supposed to.
This time it didn’t. As it turned out, one of the most functional tours was put in by one of the Braves’ projected bullpenners, who unfortunately now pitches for the Pirates. Tyler Yates gave manager John Russell a 14-pitch inning without a hit. Yates may still be around town awhile. He and his wife are building a home in Roswell, now victims of the wiles of the game.
Now, when Russell dug deeper into his bullpen, results were just as disastrous as the Braves’. The Pirates were cruising along with a five-run lead when their game-saving delegates lost connection with the plate in the ninth inning. Russell, it seemed, went for the wrong closer first, and when Damaso Marte ran into trouble, the designated closer, Matt Capps — who comes from Douglasville — arrived too late, and between them, they virtually gifted the Braves with five runs, and the score was tied 9-9. It would get worse as one of the longest and most dis-rememerable (courtesy of the Clemens vocabulary) Opening Night games of all time dragged on. Cox was finally down to his seventh and last of the bullpen cast, and Blaine Boyer, gasping for his life on the roster, was slugged for three runs and wore the horse-collar. The Braves almost made it back in their half of the 12th, but by that time, bloodied and surly, they were ready for nighty-night, having lost 12-11.
Now, there are some things that should be said here. In the first place, the Braves were victims of some thoughtless scheduling. Out of training camp in Florida on Thursday night, two exhibition games with Cleveland on Friday and Saturday at Turner Field, then on a plane to Washington to be the Nationals’ chosen home-opening date, then on another plane back home to open with the Pirates, and not a lot of them had any idea where home would be.
Not fair, really. But, as they say in golf, you play it as it lies. Sorry to be harsh, but they have 160 games left for all the wounds to heal.
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