AUGUSTA -- The grizzled old oak has kept its world in order, stalwart in the face of the winds that blew through the pristine fiefdom of Augusta National the other night. These are the holy grounds of American golf, so endowed after Bobby Jones had assumed command of both the amateur and professional wings of the game.
Golf wasn't originated here, but once our cats got wind of it, they put a death grip on it. It was ours, though the Scots brought it in by boat until nearly every golf club in the country had an imported professional of its own.
It was in this atmosphere that Augusta National was established, and in time became, just by its caring guardianship, the address where golf got its mail in the USA. Everybody wanted to go there, to play the game there, and those who never cut the mustard might at least come into one of those treasured badges that gained admittance to the grounds for the Great Championship: the Masters.
It was America's game. Or, it was until the competition began to obliterate international borders. Check this: The American champion is a Northern Irishman, Graeme McDowell. The PGA championship is held by a German, Martin Kaymer. The World Match Play Championship is held by an Englishman, Luke Donald. And the Ryder Cup is in the possession of the European team.
And so it was that the leader board in the first round of the Masters brought this international fact to the harsh attention of the galleries gathered along the fairways on Washington Road. The leader at this particular point of the first round was another Northern Irishman, a bright lad named Rory McIlroy. True, Matt Kuchar, American-bred, who has been spreading his influence around the planet, stood second.
But moving down the board, we found a Spaniard, Sergio Garcia, who had been in search of his game of late. Then Ross Fisher, just a fresh British name on the European Tour. South Korean Y.E. Yang, who founded his game on conquests of Tiger Woods, established himself in the PGA championship two years ago. And another South Korean rises from the mist, Kyung-Tae Kim, a totally unknown on these grounds. Followed by Camilo Villegas of Colombia.
When McDowell won the U.S. Open at Pebble Beach, he was followed home by the most widely unknown runner-up in our championship's history, Gregory Havret, a Frenchman. There he was, on the board with another boatload of strangers making themselves at home at Augusta National.
Yes, it's only the beginning, but for those who brought the game to us the last century, and which we had dominated, this their payback.
Retired sports columnist Furman Bisher writes occasionally for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. This is his 67th year covering the Masters.
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