AUGUSTA — Responding to speculation that a three-time Masters champion was asked not to compete in the event this week, Augusta National Chairman Fred Ridley said Wednesday that Phil Mickelson personally informed him via text several weeks ago of his decision that he would not play in this year’s tournament.
“I thanked him for his courtesy in letting me know,” Ridley said. “I told him that we certainly appreciated that and, you know, told him I was certainly willing to discuss that further with him if he’d like. And he thanked me and we had a very cordial exchange.”
Mickelson, still keeping a low public profile after his scathing remarks about the state of the PGA Tour last winter, has not played a Tour event since the Farmers Insurance Open in late January. Friend and fellow pro Bryson DeChambeau early in the week remarked Michelson had “gone dark” since assailing the Tour for its “obnoxious greed” while trying to drum up interest in a proposed Saudi-back alternative pro tour.
His weeks’ silence on the matter and the blowback it created fueled speculation that the Masters may have discouraged him from competing for the championship he won in 2004, 2006 and 2010.
“I would like to say we did not disinvite Phil,” Ridley said, “Phil is a three-time Masters champion and is invited in that category and many other categories.”
But in his annual pre-Masters news conference, Ridley did not sound inclined to support the idea of a new rival tour.
“We have been pretty clear in our belief that the world tours have done a good job of promoting the game over the years,” he said. “Beyond that, there’s so much that we don’t know about, what might happen or could happen, that I just don’t think I could say much more beyond that.”
Count the chairman among the legion of fans who are incredulous that Tiger Woods, almost 14 months removed from a car wreck that nearly crippled him, will tee off here Thursday morning while Mickelson, who has played in 30 Masters dating back to 1991, is a no-show.
“I know that Phil has been a real fixture here at the Masters for many, many years,” Ridley said. “He’s been a big part of our history. I certainly and we certainly wish him the best sort of working through the issues he’s dealing with right now. As it relates to Tiger, I mean, it’s just truly amazing. I don’t know how else to say it. I probably would have taken some pretty high odds a few weeks ago or even months ago whether or not he would be here.”
Ridley also described the thinking behind the latest raft of change to Augusta National, which has seen 487 yards added to the layout since Woods set 20 scoring records while winning his first Masters in 1997. While several fairways have been widened by thinning out the second cut and the greens at No. 3, No. 13 and No. 17 were re-grassed, the most significant alterations were at No. 11 (15 yards longer with tree reconfiguration in the right rough and fairway), No. 15 (20 yards longer) and No. 18 (13 yards longer).
“(Masters founder Bobby) Jones said many times that he wanted to create an inland links course, which is almost perhaps an oxymoron, but I think what he meant by that was that he wanted to have firm and fast conditions throughout the golf course,” he said. “So the ground became a factor in the play of the golf course and the shots and the options that the players had.
“The other thing that he emphasized was the importance of the approach shots to the hole, to the green and the fact that there were so many options to that, but that certain options were going to create better approaches. So we wanted to incorporate those concepts into the golf course as we think about making changes.”
While No. 11 has gone from being one of the course’s easier holes to perhaps its toughest over the decades and that making the risk-reward greater at the par-5 15th for those intending to carry the front pond with their second shot, the par-5 13th has remained exploitable as the easiest birdie hole in the layout.
Ridley reiterated the 13th is vulnerable – “Players are hitting middle and short irons into that hole ... is not really how it was designed,” – and that the hole is a redesign priority. But that it is also a historical hole and finding a solution for toughening it up while maintaining its character is a conundrum.
“At some point, it’s something we likely will do,” he said. “We just don’t have anything to say about it right now.”
And what would Jones think about the course he and Alister MacKenzie first carved out of nursery 90 years ago?
“He would really be surprised, be amazed, but I think he would be pleased,” Ridley said. “He certainly would know after speaking with just a few of us that he continues to be revered and his persona really drives a lot of what we do here.”
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