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DEL.ICIO.USHigh scores bloom like azaleas
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
Augusta — Few birdie (and fewer eagle) roars were rising from the galleries around Augusta National. The weather was enormously beautiful. Not a leaf moved on the trees. If you were a golfer, this was a perfect day, or if you weren’t a golfer.
Reminded me of the story of the man who had dreamed forever of playing Augusta National, and at last, here he was, walking down the fairway, his caddie trudging along under the burden of his bag. “Here I am, playing the Masters course. What could be more perfect. I wonder what the poor folks of the world are doing today?”
“I don’t know about the rest of ‘em,” the caddie said, “but one of ‘em’s toting yore bag.”
There was a lot of bag-toting going on at Augusta National Friday, but not a lot of scoring. Caddies were the only people the press staff didn’t bring in for interview — and a spectator who slipped into a pond. The scoreboard was littered with 80s. It sort of grieves an old warhorse like me to look up and see all those 80s by the names of past champions. Seve Ballesteros, Gary Player, Larry Mize, Raymond Floyd, not to mention two British Open champions, Todd Hamilton and Ben Curtis. Maybe the luckiest one was Ian Woosnam. He withdrew, sprained something or another.
Of course, that’s part of the charm of this old American classic. Champions are always invited back. Some come, some don’t. Some play, some have been wisely retired from competition. Twenty-six are here this year, seventeen of them are playing. Charlie Coody played his last round last year and checked in with a sport-model 74, then found himself being interviewed like a rock star.
“I quit just in time,” he said, “looking at those scores.”
This was becoming the “silent” Masters, as in “The Silent Spring.” The foliage is breath-taking. The galleries are as mannerly as an art show. Nobody is complaining vigorously, though Tom Watson did say, “We can’t compete anymore,” speaking of the seniors. Of course not, they’re not supposed to. They’re here as sort of walking museum pieces.
High scores have been part of the history of the Masters. Two champions have won with scores over par, Sam Snead in 1954 when he and Ben Hogan tied at 289. Snead won the playoff, 18 holes then. Jack Burke won straight out at 289 in 1956, but there were conditions on Sunday. Ken Venturi, then an amateur, went out with an eight-stroke lead the last day, but how the the wind did blow, and so did Venturi. He shot 80, Burke let his experience take hold, played just well enough to win by a stroke, and Venturi exited in tears.
All Jack Nicklaus had to do in 1966 was shoot even par, but so did Gay Brewer and Tommy Jacobs. Nicklaus won in the playoff Monday, by eight strokes over Brewer. But, Brewer would be rewarded the next year and won his own. The highest winning score since that time has been 285 in 1987, when Larry Mize and Greg Norman tied, and you know the rest of that story. (Check playoff, 11th hole, chip-in. Winner: Mize.)
These are changing times at Augusta National, beyond the invigorated presence of Billy Payne. The man who sets up the course is straight out of the USGA mold. Fred Ridley, former U.S. amateur champion, former USGA president, is in his first year as chairman of the Competition Committee, previously occupied by Will Nicholson, who retired. This is Ridley’s first show, and maybe it’s a spinoff of the old USGA policy: “Give ‘em hell.”
It’s OK with the rest of us. Not that we like to see grown men suffer, but it does endear these old acres to us to see them sweat and cuss, and come off the course looking as if they have just seen a UFO. Stand by, the show is just beginning.
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Comments
By golf01
April 6, 2007 9:58 PM | Link to this
The show may be just beginning, but the mockery is well under way. To see Augusta National reduced to a circus side show is painful. Leave the tricks and gimicks to the USGA. Making a course unplayable doesn’t identify the best golfers, just the luckiest. The winner of the Masters should never be more lucky than good.