My inevitable post-Augusta emotional crash was helped by the fact that Employee No. 2 and I played yesterday in 75 degree weather.... Yes, my pasty white legs made their first appearance but, more importantly, the bride walked nine holes.
Masters Detritus - Sergio is everywhere, most notably on the cover of Sports Illustrated:
I haven't yet read Alan Shipnuck's accompanying article, but am curious to see how he handles it with the anachronistic lag to accommodate a weekly print magazine. Interestingly, SI contines to publish a print preview of the Masters, but couldn't get it into my mailbox until Friday. Guys, it kind of defeats the purpose....
Alan's piece is here, which kind of defeats the purpose of a print edition, but is worth a read. Spoiler alert, he plays the Bobby Jones card quite liberally, as in his coda:
The sports world may obsess about results but in victory García displayed an admirable perspective. "To be totally honest, I’m very happy but I don’t feel any different," he said."I’m obviously thrilled about what happened here today, but I’m still the same goofy guy, so that’s not going to change."
Here, Jones deserves the final word: Golf is the closest game to the game we call life. You get bad breaks from good shots; you get good breaks from bad shots—but you have to play the ball where it lies. The breaks will even themselves up in the long run, if the run is long enough.
True that, and the run might have some life left in it yet...
I was rooting for Sergio, which shouldn't surprise the loyal reader. As you well know, I tend towards the elderly and those needing it most, and that made the Spaniard my own very daily double. But that pails in comparison to this parlay:
Yup, he parlayed Rickie in the Honda with Sergio in The Masters.... I can only imagine how he felt after Sergio pushed his birdie putt on the 72nd hole. Maybe the guy would have been calmer had he known about The Bear....
David Dusek does a nice job at the eating crow thing, with an open letter to Sergio. I can truly relate to this sentiment:
Last year when someone asked me why I was not picking Dustin Johnson to win the U.S. Open, I said that I would never pick him until he had already won a major. Weird things, many self-inflicted, always seemed to happen and prevent him from winning majors. Then he won at Oakmont.
Yup, but again that's an awfully passive construction. Strange things happened to DJ largely because he was DJ... Yeah, he grew up and applied himself to his business and, to flip the expression, you weren't so much wrong as you were late.
I felt the same way about you. It was never personal, but I did not think you could win,but your victory at the 2017 Masters was fantastic. I hope the smile you flashed as you walked off the 18th green, and that you showed again atop the Empire State Building Monday night, stays on your face for a long time.
I admit that there were a few times on Sunday when I thought you were going to blow it again. That second shot on 10 must have tightened your collar a bit as you walked down that fairway.
The comparisons to DJ are quite apt, because Angelina and her family have had a big impact on Sergio....
One last excerpt for you to keep in mind for a bit:
Your Ryder Cup teammates have always loved you, and you have tons of American friends on the PGA Tour, but your relationship with the fans in the United States has run hot and cold.
With one exception, but I'll circle back to that in a bit....
Riffing on a theme I mentioned on Monday, Shack and Matt Adams debate the use of Sudden Death to decide ties in The Masters here. Geoff's position is most obviously undermined by his use of the Amen Corner Macguffin, a ploy that screams desperation. He might as well have defied Godwin's Law.
Let's get this out of the way quickly, as that stretch of holes simply can't be used late in the day. Not only is it too far from the clubhouse, but it's the lowest point on the property and loses light too early. It's TV that demands a winner on Sunday, but daylight remains a requirement....
I'm more focused on the disruption caused by the need to sign scorecards and the inevitable loss of continuity.... Geoff makes one good point tat it's far quicker to get to the tenth tee than the eighteenth, but the real argument is that settling it over multiple holes minimizes the impact of any one shot, especially that first shot. And that tee shot on the finishing hole is so out of character with the rest of the golf course, it just seems so awfully arbitrary....
Peter Alliss has himself in a spot of bother over a hot mic incident relating to Sergio's muse:
File this one under things you would never hear Jim Nantz utter from the tower at Augusta National.
On the BBC's Masters broadcast on Sunday, the ever-colorful and sometimes controversial Peter Alliss was caught by a "hot mic" making a quip about Sergio Garcia's fiancee's attire.
Moments after Garcia sunk the winning putt in his playoff with Justin Rose, the 86-year-old Alliss said over the roars that Angela Akins had "the shortest skirt on the campus."
The problem with the PC police is that truth is no defense.... although the judges did rule her outfit as "Mostly Appropriate". And while any such piece will necessarily review his body of work, see how you take this one:
This is not the first time Alliss has found himself in hot water over comments about women. When Muirfield originally voted to not allow female members in 2016, Alliss suggested that anyone who wanted to be a member "better get married to someone who's a member."
That one seem also factually accurate, and to say far more about the club members than about women.
But that Euro Ryder Cup bonhomie we all take for granted? Not all it seems:
Harrington told Irish radio RTÉ 2fm that he and Garcia had very different approaches to dealing with emotions on the golf course, particularly after Harrington defeated Garcia ina playoff at the 2007 Open Championship at Carnoustie. Harrington won the four-hole playoff by one stroke (one of four runner-up finishes in a major for Garcia), and recalls Garcia being less than gracious about it.
"I gave him every out I possibly could at the 2007 Open," said Harrington. "I was as polite as I could, and as generous as I could be. But he was a very sore loser, and he continued to be a very sore loser. So clearly after that, we had a very sticky wicket I'd say."
Did this need to be said right now? We all had issues with Sergio's attitude, and I myself have posted that video of the loogie in the cup more than was strictly necessary. This game torments virtually everyone at some point, so I'm thinking that Paddy might have just kept his thoughts to himself.
Lexi Detritus - No doubt you've gotten an earful on this subject, as have I... People just instinctively hate what happened, and with some considerable justification. My original reaction can be found here, for anyone testing my internal consistency.
Mike Bamberger makes the unpopular case, and his Twitter feed might require a censor's warning:
Some players and golf observers take the view that the extra scrutiny that comes withplaying golf on TV makes this whole call-in system unfair to the more prominent players. Right after Thompson got her four-shot penalty, Woods tweeted that viewers should not be officials “wearing stripes.”
But that view does not show a keen understanding of the intent of the rules. A player should want the scrutiny that comes with playing on TV because the player is not trying to get away with anything. The player should want to turn in the most accurate scorecard he or she can, with help from anybody who's watching.
Golf is the only game where the player is responsible for his own results, and that does color any discussions of this issue. But I also think it's helpful to acknowledge this reality as embraced by our governing organizations, rather than just wishing it all away.
Because the rules organizations have been comically inept at utilizing the new technology, they've actually required the public to inform them what's happening on their playing fields. How is it that when Dustin Johnson's ball moved on the green at Oakmont no rules official is sitting in front of a bank of monitors? Like this has never come up before?
And while I somewhat regret being harsh about Phil's comments, this from Mike is important:
The Lexi Thompson situation in Mission Hills was completely different. Her ball-marking was completely haphazard and not within the rules of golf. We don’t know and cannot know and shouldn’t make a guess about her motivation in being so careless, but the fact is a half-inch on any putt, let alone a one-footer, gives a player a different line to the hole. In baseball, a hitter decides what pitch to hit. In golf, you play it as is lays.
I think we should of course give Lexi the benefit of the doubt as far as intent is concerned, but the fact is that players are abusing this to avoid spike marks and indentations, and it is therefore very important that players mark their balls properly. And it's important that players that don't be penalized, though that's as likely to come down on the inadvertent as the intentional. It's called deterrence...
I remain deeply troubled by the penalty being assessed the next day, and would like to see each round considered a closed piece of business. That signing of the scorecards seems rather one-sided in retrospect, no? It commits the player but not the tournament? Also ironic is that the importance of the underlying action, marking and replacing the ball, will be a lesser concern under the rpoposed rules changes...
A couple of final notes, first this:
First of all, if the ball had moved at all, it had returned to its original position. Secondly, the rules allow for what a player could reasonably expect to see. Garcia was not looking at his ball through binoculars.
This troubles me, because the language that I've read is hopelessly vague, perhaps analogous to their first go at the rule change for balls moving on the green. That didn't work out so well at Oakmont, did it? Who can know at this point what any of this means?
Mike closed with this:
By the way, the only reason Woods was allowed to keep playing in the 2013 Masters after he described in a post-round interview the incorrect drop he took is because a TV caller had called in about the drop, and Augusta National officials decided to take no action on it. A TV viewer actually saved him that year.
That's a valuable note, as it was David Eger's intention to relay the information before Tiger signed his card. But I'll also note that Tiger is likely more bitter about what happened later that year at the BMW, when he caused his ball to move imperceptibly while sitting on some twigs. That movement of the ball could not be discerned in real time, but it could in slow motion.... So, on January 1, 2019, is that a violation?
Stay tuned....
ESPN Detritus - ESPN is in a world of hurt these days, so you'd think that they'd go to pains to not piss off their remaining audience. But this rantfest between Steven A. Smith and Max Kellerman is really quite the race to the bottom:
This notion that we’re really not competing against each other. We’re really just playing golf and it’s really competing against the course. Nonsense. There’s a game to be played.Each of you go out there to do it. You’re trying to compete at a level that eclipses the individuals that are also on the course. Last time I checked, that’s competition.
He added: “I damn near told them to get a room. It was ridiculous, how they were with one another…I want to see you rooting for the other to fail.”
Kellerman actually does a reasonable job of refuting the ignorance of Smith, then unfortunately shares his own.... It's all rather unpleasant, but we should also admit that this is how many folks think of our sport.
What Are Your Plans For Friday? - I might have to see a certain movie.... This new clip has been released:
This part is true enough. Players of the day carried a club called a Rut Iron, because the wheels carts crossing the golf course would leave ruts in the turf. The Rut Iron was the ancestor of the Sand Wedge, and Young Tom was the first to spin a ball back on a green.
I'm not overly optimistic about the success of the film, as it seems an impossible task to capture the historic sweep of the period. Also, golf.... you know, it's not of mass appeal. But you should of course read the book and it does have an 82% rating on Rotten Tomatoes....
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