OK, we got a little sidetracked yesterday with Lexigate, but we'll be mostly on point today.... Mostly.
Conditions/Weather - Geoff had an interesting post confirming what I've been hearing in recent years:
The club put out News Bulletin No. 1 today, Masters Monday, and it reads..
"Our fairways are mowed at 3/8 inch, the second cut at 1 3/8th inch, the tees at 5/16 inch, the collars at 1/4 inch and the greens at 1/8 inch. All mowings are subject to weather conditions and growth."
That's actually long by today's standards, especially so when you consider that this club has more money than God. Geoff explains:
As most of you know, the club keeps a surprising long height of cut, especially considering what modern mowers are capable of producing. That cut is pushed toward the tees by a mower brigade, designed to create a grain. This practice slows down roll and does keep the course from producing drives like we saw at Austin Country Club a few weeks ago (where overseeded Bermuda fairways produced incredible roll without the grain).
It obviously helps to control distance off the tee, but it actually makes play around the greens easier...
Via Steve DeMiglio, one of the few golf writers left in America, one critic actually thinks the golf course has gotten easier:
“The golf course has been redesigned and it’s not as difficult as it used to be,” Woods told USA TODAY Sports in an exclusive interview during a promotional tour for his book last month. “The golf course was quicker and faster. All the greens have been redesigned and it’s not as difficult as it used to be; they’ve all gotten bigger and flatter. But at the same time they’ve made the golf course longer so we’re all hitting longer shots into (the greens).”
The shots around the greens have changed, too.
“I think that the short shots at Augusta have gotten so different,” Woods said. “The grass has gotten longer. Chipping with Seve (Ballesteros) and Raymond (Floyd) and Ollie (Jose Maria Olazabal), showing me how to play all these different shots because you could play those little shots.”
Sounds less like a "redesign" and more like a change in set-up, but whatever...
Here's a weather forecast reasonably similar to what Golf Channel had last night:
Tuesday (Practice Round): Mostly sunny and warmLow: 61, High: 86 -- Winds: WSW 10-15 mphWednesday (Par 3 Contest/Practice Round): Cloudy, 80 percent chance of rain and thunderstorms, especially after 11 a.m.Low: 63, High: 80 -- Winds: SSW 5-10, increasing to 10-20 mph
Thursday (Round 1): 30 percent chance of early morning showers, mostly cloudy and windyLow: 55, High 65 -- Winds: WSW 15-20 mph with gusts up to 25-30 mph
Friday (Round 2): Chilly start, then partly cloudy, breezy and coolerLow: 44, High: 63 -- Winds: WNW 15-20 mphSaturday (Round 3): Cold start, then sunny and pleasantLow: 40, High: 69 -- Winds: 6-12 mph
Sunday (Final Round): Mostly sunny and warmerLow: 46, High: 78 -- Winds: S 5-10 mph
The good news is that weekend looks much better than in last week's early forecast.... There's quite a good chance that the Par-3 could get washed out, though I think Western civilization might survive.
Golf Channel had higher winds for Thursday and Friday, and that to me is the takeaway.... Back when I thought it would be soft with wee breezes, my mind inevitably went in the direction of, "Well, if Rory is ever going to get that lifetime slam, these are the conditions". Now, it's more along the lines of does he have back-up plans for the weekend....
Time Killers - Do you have too much time on your hands? Do you have to wait for Candy Crush to release new episodes? We've got you covered....
viewing opportunities available.... There's featured groups, Amen Corner and much other coverage you didn't realize you needed....
Short drone coverage here. Pro tip, turn off your audio for this..... Not sure why they don't have drone video of every hole, but I also don't know why we don't have a blimp or ProTracer.... It will have you salivating, so have a napkin available...
But if you're really in the market for a time suck, you can't do better than to watch the videos of the original CBS broadcasts of Arnie's victories,,, His first in 1958 is here, and is quite interesting having just finished David Owen's history of the event. I love the crude graphics of the hole layouts, and adore watching a player "we can't identify" hit his tee shot on No. 16. This was long before they sent the leaders out last, a vestige of the days when the live gate was a meaningful share of fnding the costs of the club each year.
The 1960 video I highly recommend, especially the award ceremony featuring Clifford Roberts and Bobby Jones. My favorite is Roberts correcting the name of the club, but it also features Jack tying Billy Joe Patton for low amateur and the interesting interplay between Arnie and Ken Venturi. The back story is the Arnold had gotten a strange ruling in 1958 related to an embedded ball, and Venturi went to his grave believing that a Masters had been stolen from him (full details on this incident here). But in the presence of Jones and Roberts, one plays from the script...
Predictions Are Hard... - You know the drill, especially about the future.... We'll circle back to the Tour Confidential panel, in which I thought this a better question than the usual one:
2. Masters week is finally here, so we're going all green the rest of the way. What's the biggest storyline of the week? No wavering. Pick just one.
Zak: As for storylines, methinks the career Grand Slam outweighs DJ's impressive run. After all, it's only the most impressive run this side of Jason Day 11 months ago. Rory earns a completely different rank within this game once he wins a Masters.
Spieth and Phil get a bit of love as well.... This question could have been avoided:
3. Fuzzy Zoeller, in 1979, was the last player to win in his first trip to Augusta National. There's a strong lineup of first-timers in the field this year, and it's got an international feel to it. Who is most likely to contend among these four rookies: Adam Hadwin of Canada; Alex Noren of Sweden; Thomas Pieters of Belgium; or Jon Rahm of Spain?
The answers, in the order in which they were rendered, are Rahm, Rahm, Rahm, Rahm and Rahm.....
No question which of these guys has the greatest upside, though my expectations for the Spaniard this week aren't all that high. Partially because he's a first-timer, and partially because he went through the wringer two weeks ago in Austin.
The answers when asked to pick a dark horse to contend are a trip:
Bamberger: Fred. Swing does not quit. Back does, but swing doesn't. Give the old man a good putting week and let's see what happens.
Zak: Charley Hoffman has a sneaky-great record at this course. For someone who has never ascended to the top 30 in the World Ranking, Hoffman has placed in the top 30 in all three of his appearances at the Masters. In other words, he's due to miss the cut.
Two things... Fred who? And I don't think you're using the word "great" correctly... Really, the effective field at the Masters is so small that an actual successful professional should expect to finish in the top thirty just for showing up.
And the obvious exit question:
7. Step up to the window and give us your win, place and show picks, along with a winning score.
Shipnuck: I'm gonna cite Occam's razor here - sometimes the most obvious choice is the correct one: 1. Dustin Johnson (-13); 2. Phil; 3. Jordan Spieth.
Bacon: I picked Phil to win before the season started and while my confidence dipped after his showing this weekend in Houston, I could still see Lefty pulling out some magic, and leaning on a revived putter, to get No. 4. I'll say Rory and Paul Casey round out the top-three.
I'm not sure about the picks, but I do love the Occam's Razor citation.... Though how that leads to Phil's door remains a mystery.
As of now, I'm not feeling committed in any particular direction. I know, channeling my inner weasel... But I'll throw a roster into Yale Stogel's pool tomorrow, and will share my picks with you. In the meantime, I'll direct you to this Golf Digest piece from their Masters issue that will steal any remaining time not spent on the videos above.
It's basically players anonymously dishing on each other and assessing their chances this week. There's so much of interest that I'll let you discover on your own, but there's a couple of things I want to share. First,as relates to Rory, this is something that has frustrated me for years:
How often do you see him and [caddie J.P. Fitzgerald] looking at each other in shockafter his ball has finished 20 yards over the back?" . . . "If you listen to them on the course, you often hear Rory asking, 'What happened there?' More than once I've heard J.P. saying something like, 'OK, hit a soft draw with a 6-iron off that tree.' And I've immediately thought, This ball is going over the green. And sure enough, it does. So you have to wonder. I see Rory up close only occasionally, and I know he's going to hit the ball over the green when his caddie clearly doesn't. It makes no sense." . . . "Rory needs someone to tell him what he needs to hear, not what he wants to hear." . . . "Why he doesn't employ Billy Foster is a mystery. Rory would have 10 majors by now if he did. Of course, we know what Rory is like. He's as stubborn as anyone on tour. The more people tell him that J.P. is not the right caddie for him, the more he'll keep him on."
I also think Rory is terrible reader of greens, and could use assistance there.
And another player's caddie was also called out, at least as far as this week is involved:
."His biggest problem is his caddie [brother Austin]. At Augusta, you have to really be on your toes. And he's not that experienced there. So I do wonder if they have any idea strategically on the ultimate strategic course. He has already gone for way too many flags."
Having his brother on his bag has obviously worked for DJ, but he could use a Carl Jackson this week... I don't think either of the Johnson boys is smart enough to at least play a practice round with an experienced Augusta caddie and suck up the necessary yardage, like Spieth and Greller did a couple of years ago.
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