Last day on the beach. Sigh.
Hope you and yours have enjoyed spring break if this is your spring break.
From the satellite studios of the Georgia coast, let’s make the magic happen.
From a bunch of you
What did you think of the first round, and how in the world did I forget Justin Rose?
Gang-
Don’t beat yourself up about Justin Rose turning in one of the best non-Tiger rounds in modern Augusta National history.
Dude had to WD with back aches in The Players and balky backs are hardly the basis of success in a Green Jacket chase. Plus, the stat I saw stated this is the fourth time that Rose has held or shared the first-round lead at the Masters.
It matches the record held by one Jack Nicklaus, with the key difference being that Nicklaus has six wins there and Rose has as many as Spy.
That said, Rose was close to golf perfection Thursday. He was four shots clear of any other player in round one and his 65 was almost 10 better than the average score of the day.
It was that good, and rarely this side of big-league hitters and long-range shooters do we get to see someone personify the clichéd ‘zone’ like Rose did on Thursday.
He was 9 under on the final 11 holes and everything he hit – be it driver splitting the fairway, approach shots finding the proper side of the slope, or putts trickling to the lip and falling like Red did for Rita Hayworth at Shawshank – was perfect.
Heck when he stood over his 25-foot birdie putt on the last, I fully expected it to find its way home.
As for thoughts, well, like Sinatra and regrets, I have a few.
> It was clear the Masters Members were not super pleased with DJ’s 20 under waltz through the pines last November. Yes, they can easily delete that one away from the IBM memory card and chalk it up to no patrons, less pressure, benign weather conditions, you name it. But by trimming the second cut (more on that in a moment) and putting the pins on very small plateaus around the ever-fast putting surfaces, the average of 74 and change was not an accident. And that they did it silently and covertly is so Masters, and completely unlike the USGA, which would have popped its suspenders and proudly boasted that they are protecting par as a good score before they lose the course heading into the third round and everyone shoots 77.
> As for trimming the second-cut, cue the Guinness dudes – “Brilliant.” The rough at Augusta has never been U.S. Open penal – and yes, a somtimes-acting-like-a-teenage-boy like myself will always find ways to fit in ‘penal,’ the oft-used haughty golf term that ranks right below Uranus and Putin as perfectly fine words that make me giggle – or British Open-trailer parky. So doing that now is admitting you’re concerned about the bombers. Granted, we all are concerned about the bombers because driver wedge to get to 13 in 2 is not as much fun or as challenging, and in a game that forever measures its greats against ghosts, it’s worse than less fun, it’s wrong. So they cut the rough way down and planted the seed that drives off course by a fraction would run out, go through the fairway and into the pine straw or behind trees. And, in my opinion, it wasn’t as much the outcome of that happening that caused the heavy-hitters to lose their way Thursday. It was the knowledge that that possibility was out there and the only thing worse that putting obstacles in front of golfers is putting doubts in their craniums. Mission accomplished Thursday.
> Man, that place is perfect no? Just perfect, and watch Thursday was, as I expected, as close to sports normal as I have felt in 15 months.
War Augusta.
And for those wondering, there were two of our 82 entries with Justin Peter Rose among the five names. Congrats Ted M and Adam M for adding the Englishman to your entry.
From Ernie
Of the people that have won three majors, only four of them had not won the masters. Three of them have pretty good excuses, Tommy armour , Walter Hagen and Lee Trevino. Armour and Hagen didn’t get to play until they were quite a bit older, and Trevino didn’t like playing in the masters for numerous reasons, which he later regretted. All the other guys and there’s eight of them, won the masters and then they missed out on others. Do you think that Rory is psyched out about Augusta, and will never win his fourth major? It almost seems that way. When he blew the huge lead, it may have done him in. Many have said, the Masters is the easiest to win, because it has the limited field, plus a lot of people that really don’t have much chance of winning with the past winners and amateurs. What do you think?
Big Ern-
I think this question is pitch perfect.
I do think Rory’s biggest issues are between his ears as we speak.
His weird admission about trying to be like Bryson and chase the mega-distance.
His body language on the course.
We discussed it at the time, and doing what I do for a living, I’ll never look a gift quote in the tongue, but Rory’s honesty shows a vulnerability that almost every other big-time golfer bends over backward to hide or distort or explain away.
But it’s that honesty that will cause for me to forever root for him, especially here, because when he reached the 64th tee of the 2011 Masters with a commanding lead and snap-hooked a green jacket into “The Pipes” he handled it like a true gentleman.
And a champion.