5-at-10: Masters recap, Radio Waves

Monday, April 15, 2013

photo Adam Scott, of Australia, celebrates with caddie Steve Williams after making a birdie putt on the second playoff hole to win the Masters golf tournament Sunday, April 14, 2013, in Augusta, Ga.

Wow, what a great finish to the Masters, huh? Did anyone else feel like the first 2/3 of Sunday's broadcast was a little slow and we were headed for a three-shot Angel Cabrera win in which every other contender fell back and had the "Rory" look?

Then all of a sudden, as the rain picked up, so did the pressure and so did the focus of Adam Scott and Cabrera. It became that old MJ-Bird McDonald's commercial - "Off the window, off the scoreboard, off the floor... nothing but net" - but with golf shots. Lots and lots of golf shots.

Where does Sunday of Augusta rank on the sports calendar? It's got to be pretty high because this thing always, Always, ALWAYS delivers, right?

Heck, even a couple of years ago when we thought Rory McIlroy was going to win in a runaway, it proved to be great theater.

And, as we wrote in today's TFP, the overwhelming and neverending theme of Greg Norman's redemption and the importance of Adam Scott's win for Australia was a bit much. Hey, we get it. All the way around.

But here's something that needed to be said somewhere along the way: After a career full of major championship disappointments and never quite living up to his enormous potential, Adam Scott finally delivered. He may have won in some not-so-small way for Greg Norman, but he also won in some ways to avoid being Greg Norman 2.0 at Augusta National.

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More Masters takeaway

Here's some other Masters tidbits as we clean out the notebook, suitcase and computer bag:

- How impressive was the 14-year-old kid Tianlang Guan?

- Here are the Thurd annual Mastering the Masterful Masters contest results:

25 - TNBuck -- I'll take J. Day (3), A. Scott (1), Phil (54), Kuchar (8), & Dustin Johnson (13).

38 - Thinker - Tiger (4), Rose (25), Scott (1), Westwood (8)

39 - TFP football ace David Paschall -- Tiger (4), Rory (25), Kuchar (8), Cabrera (2)

42 - Sportsfan - Lee Westwood (8), Adam Scott (1), Bo Van Pelt (20), Justin Rose (25), and Fred Couples (13)

47 - HardCopy -- Tiger Woods (4), Jason Dufner (20), Jason Day (3), Bill Haas (20).

47 - Richie Rich - Phil Mickelson (54), Luke Donald (25), Matt Kuchar (8), Brandt Snedeker (6), Lee Westwood (8)

50 - Weena - Couples (13), Charlie Schwartzel (25), Westwood (8), Tiger (4)

52 - ThatIDoKnow - Day (3), Tiger (4), Dufner (20), Rory (25)

52 - TFP golf ace David Uchiyama - Phil (54), Rory (25), Dufner (20), Sneds (6), Adam Scott (1)

54 - Spy - Dufner (20), Jason Day (3), Snedeker (6), Rory (25) and DA Points (38)

59 - DanRoth22 - Phil Mickelson (54), Justin Rose (25), Fred Couples (13), Adam Scott (1), and Jason Dufner (20)

No one got sabotaged by Phil's stinkitude more than Rusty Vol who had Tiger (4), A. Scott (1), L. Westwood (8), and Phil (48). Just think, an inspired Sergio pick rather than Phil gets RustyVol in the money. (Side note: The 5-at-10 finished somewhere South of Macon in this puppy, so there's that.)

As always thanks to all those who played. Congrats to TNBuck, who won in their first contest entry. Do you want a Masters Tshirt (size men's large) or a Masters hat? Let us know, and if you think we've messed up your score let us know.

- Just because we need to get it out there, even as badly as he putted on Sunday, if Tiger Woods' approach on 15 on Friday is 2 inches left or right, he's likely in the playoff. Or he's likely in the final group and make everyone else sweat on Sunday afternoon.

We're also left with a couple of questions:

- Is Bubba Watson going to be this generation's John Daly, minus about 100 pounds or so?

- Will Phil win another major?

- Will Tiger?

Discuss, and we're going to have a draft contest. We love the draft. You know this. Any thoughts?

(Side draft question: Has there been a more certain No. 1 overall pick in draft history than Brittney Griner? OK, the Cavs drafting LeBron was a lead-pipe cinch too, but still. What's your Rushmore of certain draft No. 1s?)

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Radio beginnings

TFP football ace David Paschall and the sports editor are going to start their two-week special radio stint today at 1 p.m. on ESPN radio 105.1 FM in here in Chattanooga area. We're pretty sure you can get it on the interwebs too.

We're scheduled to have UTC senior Steven Fox, fresh off his Masters debut this weekend, right around that 1 p.m. start time.

Feel free to give us a call if you want at (423) 648-1051 and we'll kick around anything this side of that stuff or on the other side of that other stuff. That made sense when we started typing and then - BOOM! - like Brandt Snedeker's putting stroke, it goes everywhere.

Here's a question, what should our intro music be? We're leaning to Lunatic Fringe or the Chicken Dance song. Thoughts? Paschall prefers some sort of Rush tune - dude has a serious Rush Crush.

Discuss.

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This and that

- We're going to have to spend the morning catching up on the rest of the sports world headlines because we have been neck deep in Masters stuff.

- Wow, the Braves are smoking. A sweep of the mighty Nationals in D.C. puts the Braves at 11-1 overall and winners of eight straight. And this is with Jason Heyward swinging at lightning bugs and Freddie Freeman and Brian McCann on the DL. And McCann better hurry back or he'll be backing up Evan Gattis, who is killing it right now. And of course Paul Maholm has been untouchable. He's 3-0 with a 0.0 ERA (fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life son) and has 20 strikesouts and only 16 base runners in 20.1 innings.

- Spring football was in the air Saturday across the country. Here are starting points that we'll get into today on the show and through the week here: Johnny Football is good at tackle football (dude put on a show on Saturday at Texas A&M's spring game); Jadeveon Clowney caught a TD pass is street clothes; The man you know better as Joe the police man from the 'What's Going Down' episode of "That's My Momma" Mr. Sammie Watkins ran wild with two long TD catches at Clemson's spring game; FSU super recruit Jameis Winston looked super sharp in FSU's spring game in the race to replace quarterback EJ Manuel.

- The Dodger-Padres go at it tonight in a game that will be even more tense after the fireworks of last week when Carlos Quentin ignorantly charged Dodgers pitcher Zach Grienke, who ignorantly mouthed off and led with his shoulder. Quentin will not be in the series tonight because he elected to take his three-game suspension starting today. Here's what we know: If you have a $200 million payroll like the Dodgers, you need to become rivals with the Giants, Cards, Braves or Nats. The Padres? They stink, so if you are amped up to beat the stinky teams you are bound for nothingness. Second, can Nolan Ryan and Tom Emanski put out a fundamental video for how pitchers should handle someone charging the mound. Grienke's decison to lead with his shoulder led to a broken collar bone and roughly three months on the shelf. Third, hey, Quentin, you moron, you got hit with a 3-2 pitch leading off the inning in a one-run game. It was an accident, it happens, deal with it you goof.

- If former Steelers linebacker James Harrison signs with the Bengals, then the Pittsburgh-Cincy game just became Sunday night football at least once next season.

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photo Kobe Bryant

Today's question

There are a lot of them spaced throughout today's interweb ramblings, but here's one last line of thinking:

Is Kobe Bryant done? And if so where does he rank all time?

Bryant, the 34-year-old Lakers superstar, tore his Achilles' tendon and is done for the year. He could be done forever.

He's an old 34 who has been in the league since 1997 and has a ton of miles on his sneakers.

Thoughts? And thanks for holding down the 423 while we were in Richmond County. It's good to be back.