Day Two And Other Loose Ends

Giving myslef a day off from skiing, so let's do this:

Day 2 - Huh? -  There must be something in that Austin water supply, 'cause things got weird.  First the Mickelson-Daniel Berger match, as per the header:

Daniel Berger whiffs, loses to Phil Mickelson, and gets hurt in one odd sequence

I beg to differ.... He most certainly did not whiff, as he made solid contact....with the rock, that is.   Video is here....

"I don’t even know what happened,” Berger said after. “I thought I had a full swing. I was shocked I hit the rock coming down and the club came out of my hand."

“Hopefully, I’m alright and I can play tomorrow,” added Berger, who fell to 0-2 for the week. 

Mickelson, whose record went to 2-0, will definitely be playing on Friday. The five-time major champ has a showdown with Patrick Reed, with the winner advancing to the round of 16. What will Phil -- or his opponent -- do next? We'll have to wait until his 2 p.m. tee time.

 After the strange denouement, the two were quite palsy-walsy, despite this from earlier in the match.  I do hope Suzann Pettersen was taking notes.... You don't have to concede anything and you can still be friendly, you just can't you know, not concede the putt from the next tee.

But that Phil-Patrick match should be one of Friday's high points.  Have your popcorn ready...

Strange item the second... Submitted for your approval, is one Jason Day.  Last seen writhing in pain at the conclusion of his fist round match, he warmed up unsure of whether he would play.  But a moment before we get to the point of the matter, we've all heard of Jason's increasingly close relationship with that Woods fellow... see if this answer couldn't have come from the man himself:

Q. Describe the way you feel right now.

JASON DAY: It's not too bad. Yesterday it was definitely sore. I had a pull. It's a disk, when it gets inflamed the facet joints lock up, and then everything kind of goes into spasm and I can't really move. And it's really difficult to play golf.

I did a lot of therapy yesterday and made sure I did protocals every hour and felt pretty good. I felt pretty good last night. And came out today not really knowing if I was going to play or not. I warmed up very nicely on the range and decided to give it a shot. And I stretched pretty much on every hole. 

Q. Jason, yesterday when we saw you after your victory on 16, you didn't know if you were going to play today. You not only played, you have blown Thongchai Jaidee off the map, what was it, an eagle and five or six birdies?

JASON DAY: Yeah, I didn't really know if I was going to obviously play today. It was kind of up in the air how I felt. It's the same old things that usually happens to me when my back locks up like that, the facet joints, everything gets inflamed, the facet joints lock up and I can't really swing. I got some good therapy last night. And then doing my protocols every hour and slept pretty good. I woke up and I'm on a Dose Pack right now, which is the steroid to try to get the inflammation out. A little pain, but for the most part pretty good. I came out during the first hole and that was pretty good there.

But Jason, did your glutes activate?  Have you had enough reps to get back your golf feels...It's Tiger Mad-Lib day here at Unplayable Lies...

So Jason goes about his warm-up routine, waiting to see how his back feels before committing to play....  And who can blame him, as it's an awkward situation.  The Masters starts in two weeks and if you make it deep into the Match Play you'll be required to play an unconscionable amount of golf....

So, golfer with gimpy back steps to the first tee and takes an iron and steers one into the fairway.... yeah, right!  This guys has only one gear:

Back woes are not foreign to golf. Stars like Seve Ballesteros, Fred Couples and, most recently, Tiger Woods have suffered from them, as have many an amateur player. Jason Day has fallen into this unfortunate category, noticeably aggravating his bulging disc during Wednesday's WGC-Dell Match Play. 

However, unlike the rest of his bad-back brethren, Day, playing in pain, was able to nuke a 381-yard drive on his first hole of the day:

Beware the injured golfer indeed, as he made the eagle putt and rolled Thongchai Jaidee, 5 and 3. 

For our third bit of strangeness, I can't find any coverage....  But Smylie Kaufman put his ball in the hazard on the Par-3 17th and shook hands rather than trying to, you know, halve the match.  Rory had a difficult bunker shot so I'll try to recreate the post-round interview:

Roger Maltbie:  Smylie, tell me about the decision to concede.  You didn't want to try to chip in and Hope Rory couldn't get up-and-down? 

Smylie:  Oh?

Well, as long as he carefully considered his options at that point.... Smylie Kaufman, not just another pretty face.

No doubt many are disappointed that the one match out of the 96 matches in pool play that had everyone salivating Monday night has lost a bit of its luster, though welcome to the vagaries of match play.  Though clearly Jordan gets it:

Spieth is undefeated so far but will play against his close friend Justin Thomas in a match that means just a bit more than bragging rights. Though Thomas (0-2) has already been eliminated, Spieth is guaranteed at least a head-to-head playoff regardless of the outcome. To advance, all he needs is to tie Thomas. 

“But even if he’s out of it, he’ll still want to beat me,” Spieth said. “That’s kind of who we are. As much as I just want to halve the match and stay in tomorrow and practice, I don’t think he’s going to want that to be the case. I’m going to have to bring my A game.”

True that.  And props to the Tour social media guys for digging this photo from circa 2007 out:

Whatever became of those cute kids?

Today should provide peak intensity.... I hope the winds plays its part.

Masters Stuff - To your himble blogger, this is truly the best time of year, as it's all in front of us.  Nothing more so than that annual get together in Georgia....

Because they can?  David Own continues his Masters Countdown with this question:

Masters Countdown: Why does Augusta National have two head pros?

Here per David are the original requirements for the job as per Bobby Jones:

The club’s original pro was Ed Dudley, who was Bobby Jones’s first choice for the job. 

Dudley's shop at the 1940 Masters, with Lloyd Mangrum (r).

(His second and third choices were Macdonald Smith and Willie MacFarlane.) Jones explained his criteria to Clifford Roberts, the club's co-founder and chairman, before the two of them approached Dudley: “First of all I want a gentleman. Next, I feel we should select a pro who likes to teach. And, finally, I believe we want someone who is a good player.”

A fourth requirement was that the new pro be willing to work without a salary, since there was no money to pay him. Dudley at first had to get by on what he could earn from lessons and his minimally stocked golf shop -- a tough proposition, considering how few golfers played the course in the early years.

No doubt that fourth item will surprise folks, but this was Depression-era America.   There are few rules on this blog, but one is that you read everything of David Owen to which I link, as he'll inform or amuse you, and sometimes both.

I just purchased his history of The Masters which will await me when I arrive home.  Hope there's time to get through it before April 7th, though I suspect that means that the Donald Ross documentary will remain cellophane-encased.

Another thing that surprises folks is the claustrophobic nature of the ANGC clubhouse.  It was, after all, built as a private home... You'll enjoy this slideshow from inside the building:

Also known as Bobby Jones’s attic, the Crow’s Nest at Augusta National is a top-floor bunkhouse with five beds and a sitting area. Traditionally, it houses amateurs during the tournament.

Does anyone recognize any of these names?

But this from Jake Nichols is just bizarre:

Why Chris DiMarco’s 2005 Loss to Tiger Woods Was the Biggest Masters Heartbreak Ever

OK, before I reject it out-of-hand, explain yourself:

A narrow loss at the Masters might be the most painful experience in professional golf. 

And it might sting the most for Chris DiMarco. In 2005, he erased a three-shot final-round deficit against Tiger Woods (a two-time winner already that season) and took him to a playoff while beating the field average by more than 18 strokes over four rounds. In fact, it took Tiger's miracle chip on the 16th hole in the final round to match DiMarco in regulation. DiMarco turned in the sixth-best Masters performance by anyone since 1970, but it wasn't enough. He fell to Woods on the first playoff hole.

OK, now I see your point, Jake, and agree that it was the greatest Masters heartbreak ever, at least for members of the DiMarco family.  For the rest of us, it doesn't make the top ten.

What Jake doesn't note is that Tiger's 16th hole chip-in gave him a two-shot lead, and then he proceeded to butcher the last two to let Chris back in it.

Masters heartbreak?  I start with Craig Wood who had the second installment of the Augusta Invitation won, before that Sarazan guy hit arguably the most famous shot in golf history.

DiMarco did have an ability to play Tiger tough, but he really wasn't that good of a player that his failure to win a Masters or major even qualifies.  No doubt the proper list would have to start with Greg Norman, but I'd add Ernie Els (who played Phil so tough in '04), Weiskopf and Miller from that great '75 Masters, Ken Venturi who was victimized by Arnie's embedded ball and The King himself from '61.

And a list of Masters heartbreak that omits Roberto?  Get real!