Now it's getting real... This seems to be the most important question in this week's Tour Confidential:
6. With no Masters, no roars and no pimento cheese sandwiches, how did you fill the void on Sunday afternoon?
Dethier: By watching the entire Masters from last year! CBS and the gang ran the whole thing back, and got Tiger to join for some bits. It was all a blast and capped off nicely with Tiger’s play-by-play of his post-win family celebration. Investing some time and energy into the re-air paid off enormously — it’s hard to imagine ever approaching it again. But I’d love it if we get to try in November …
Shipnuck: Actually, I enjoyed all of those things (at least in my mind) while conjuring GOLF.com’s exclusive coverage of the (fictional) 2020 Masters.
Sens: Donned a mask, went to the supermarket and cooked a big Champions Dinner for the family.
Bamberger: Drove a green car on hilly roads near my house. Felt like a vacation.
Sit tight, Alan, we'll get to your fever dream of a Masters in a bit. It might have helped if Mike and you could have wrapped it up by now.
The bride did make our traditional Masters ham, which is in no way similar to an Easter ham. Not that there's anything wrong with the latter, I just worship in a different pew.
We did watch the highlight package from the '75 Masters after dinner, then commenced the countdown to November....
Last week we had Golf Digest's dramatic countdown of the 50 best Masters moments... Correction, here's there actual premise:
50 defining moments in Masters history, ranked
Your humble blogger, who presumes to know much useless golf history, opined last week that the winner was a mortal lock. After all, absent that singular event, we can't even be sure there would be a Masters. In contravention of that faultless logic, here it is a bit early:
No. 4: The shot heard round the world (1935)It’s not only that it’s perhaps the greatest shot in golf history, but the story behind itmakes it even better. Three strokes behind Craig Wood in the final round of the second edition of the Augusta National Invitation Tournament, Gene Sarazen was considering club selection in the 15th fairway when Walter Hagen’s booming voice pierced the air: “Hurry up, will ya?” Hagen called. “I’ve got a date tonight.” Sarazen, choosing his 4-wood, sped things up dramatically by holing the shot for a tying double-eagle 2. “I never realized it went in the hole until I saw people jumping,” Sarazen told Peter Kessler on Golf Talk Live in 1996. “There was only about 25 people up there.” Among them, according to Sarazen, was Bobby Jones. Sarazen would go on to defeat Craig Wood in the tournament’s only 36-hole playoff, but it was the albatross that endured over time. “That shot was the greatest thrill I’ve ever had on a golf course,” Sarazen said years later.
A couple of notes before I take folks to that well-used woodshed. First, Hagen yelling at The Squire to hurry up because he has a date is delightfully on brand, but I prefer this exchange via Bobby Jones' muse (word had just reached them that Craig Wood had birdied the final hole to go three up):
O.B. Keeler, reporting in The American Golfer, related the needling byplay between the two friends:
Hagen: “Well Gene, that looks like it’s all over.”
Sarazen: “Oh, I don’t know. They might go in from anywhere.”
It is almost a cliché to say truer words may never have been spoken.
The other interesting fact is that, while very few folks saw the shot, those that did comprise quite the listing of golf royalty:
Jones, perhaps realizing the moment, decided to come down from the clubhouse to see if Sarazen could catch Wood, thinking he needed three birdies coming in to force a playoff. He reached Sarazen and Hagen just as a young Byron Nelson, playing the adjacent 17th hole, pushed his drive near where Sarazen’s ball had come to rest.
So, all four of those ultimately on golf’s Mount Olympus – the hallowed Jones, the flamboyant Hagen and the soon-to-be great Nelson, watched as Sarazen’s arrow-like 4-wood hit a foot before the green, “…bounded once - twice - and settled to a smooth roll, while the ripple of sound from the big gallery went sweeping into a crescendo – and then the tornado broke,” according to Keeler.
You could add Keeler to that list as well...
The listing is a fun walk down memory lane, but has me screaming about category errors and the like, as these things often do. I'll show you with the lists of Nos. 1-3:
No. 3: Tiger’s return to glory (2019)
No. 2: Tiger’s original glory (1997)
1: ‘Yes, SIR!’ (1986)
For some unexplained reason, Tiger's wins in 1997 and 2019 constitute "moments", but Jack's 1986 win gets sliced and diced into its component moments. And yet, still beats Tiger's wins, so that should settle those Jack vs. Tiger arguments, right?
Of course the issue is that Tiger didn't have those electric moments in 2019 (and had way too many of them in 1997). For the former, those moments would be ranked as follows:
3. Molinari rinses his third ball on No. 15;
2. Koepka rinses his tee shot on No. 12, and our winner;
1. Molinari rinses his tee shot on No. 12.Notice a trend?
Golf Digest has some other lists that might prove more interesting (I say that sight unseen), including a listing of the top twenty Masters players. I assume the top three are pre-ordained, but I'm guessing the bottom of the list will have some surprises. For instance, that victim above is interesting in his own right:
20: Craig WoodWins: 1 (1941)Runner-up in the first two Masters, he would win in 1941, when he became the tournament's first wire-to-wire champ.
Craig Wood was Greg Norman before we knew we needed a tragi-comic hero. He was the only man to have lost all four majors in playoffs before the Shark made it a thing. It goes without saying that only a really good player can accomplish that....
We do, of course get Horton Smith, but after that it goes chalk pretty quickly...
I had high hopes for this list:
The 13 best "B characters" in Masters history
Silly me, I thought this would be a list of the Chris DiMarcos and Ed Sneeds of the world.... Instead it's a list that includes Martha Burke and John Daly's RV... Sheesh, you're supposed to be amusing and entertaining us, not pissing us off.
They do partially redeem themselves with a feature that uses 1950's era photos to show how the course has changed. For instance, who can identify this green:
That's the Par-3 sixth, with a pond that was removed in 1959.
Here's one that I certainly didn't know or remember:
Yup, the bunker used to be in the middle of the fairway. Who knew that ANGC had centerline hazards before they became cool?
We're now up to three simulated Masters, with three different winners. We had the first last week, in which an XXXL green jacket was draped on Jon Rahm. Golf Digest has this version as well:
We simulated the 2020 Masters with advanced data—and the winner is …
That was nice of them to go to the trouble of using the more expensive advanced date....Spoiler alert, here's their projected leaderboard:
OK, I think we call agree that the global pandemic, thousands of deaths and the dismemberment of our economy were all well worth it to deny Patrick a second Masters... It's really a small price to pay.
Of course the more substantial effort was that of Mike Bamberger and Alan Shipnuck, who gave us a highly granular view of a Masters week form inside the ropes. Not actually inside the ropes, because the tyrants of Augusta won't let the writer that close to the action, which really pisses them off. I still remember the late Dave Anderson ranting about how much he hates that. he basically told Billy Payne where he could stick that new media center. Good times.
Lots to enjoy in their hallucinations, much of which we've had earlier in these pages. I actually enjoyed their shameless plugging of their 2011 Roman à clef, which begins early in the week with a riff on Rory's newfound love of the classics:
McIlroy sauntered out of the gym, drenched in sweat. In the parking lot he leaned against his tournament-issued Mercedes, drawing a happy face on the windshield, which had been dusted by pollen. Visible on the passenger’s seat were a pile of books: Bhagavad Gita, Dianetics, The Alchemist, Man’s Search For Meaning, The Swinger.
It's like the standardized tests of our youth... Which of these items does not belong?
But it gets even better when the actual fake golf begins:
AUGUSTA, Ga. — When Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player and Tom Watson gathered on the 1st tee — Ceremonial First Shots, registered trademark! — shortly before 8 on Thursday morning, there were many familiar faces around. Fred Ridley, of course, as club chairman and the host of this annual event. Barbara Nicklaus and a small army of grandchildren. Tree Tremont and Jim Nantz were also on hand, quietly making the scene unobtrusively, given their fame. Hope Hicks, attending her first Masters as Tiger’s new communications chief, was on her toes, taking it in.
Tree Tremont was the protagonist (really, an anti-hero, though he finds redemption by the end) of their novel, and that link goes to Tree's Twitter account. Though an account that hasn't been updated since 2011.... Just sayin'.
This little bit during a second round gale also caught my eye, when local boy Kiz had this to say:
“You could play this thing in a November hurricane and not get wind like this,” said Kevin Kisner, who grew up in nearby Aiken, S.C., and knows the local conditions well.
Kiz, don't you dare put a Kinihara on our November Masters. It's about all we have at this point.
Spoilers "R" us, so you should read it on your own if you don't want me to spoil the fake ending for you. Bams and Shippy envision a wild Sunday, that begins with Rory and Tiger tied for the lead. regulation play concludes with a three-way playoff among the 54-hole leaders and...wait for it, Jordan Spieth. Strange to say, Spieth being in their playoff isn't even the crazy part...
By now the sun had dipped below the pine trees on the horizon. While McIlroy and Spieth studied their putts, Woods stood on the edge of the green, eyes closed, headthrown back. He appeared to be in a meditative state. Spieth narrowly missed his putt, and then McIlroy’s own par attempt horse-shoed out. Twice, in two holes, he had suffered such close calls, but this time he only laughed.Now the stage belonged to Woods alone. He was one putt away from his 16th major championship victory. Woods walked slowly toward his marker and set his ball down with great care. He was kneeling over it, like a catcher at home plate, examining his ball for an unusually long time.
McIlroy removed his cap, convinced the tournament was over, anticipating a congratulatory handshake. He ran his hand through his hair. Spieth then did the same, with less fanfare. (And less hair.)
But then Woods picked up his ball, leaving its marker right in place, found Fred Ridley on the walkway to the 11th tee and conferred with him. The conversation was short and private, but sources said later this is what was said:
“Fred, this is unlucky but true. I can see it plain-as-day. This is a nonconforming ball. I grabbed a ball from the wrong pocket when I went from the first playoff hole to the second. It’s marked exactly the same as my gamers, but I had asked for some other balls to be made for me that had just a little less shine on them. They’re prototypes. They haven’t been approved yet. It has a duller finish, a slightly heavier paint, sort of like the MacGregor ball that Jack used circa 1970. I’m out.”
Ridley, a former president of the USGA, said, “I believe I would have the authority, as the chairman of this event, to allow you to continue to play, as long as there is no material difference in the two balls.”
“No, I couldn’t accept that,” Woods said. “I would know. You can’t play with a ball that’s not on the approved list. It’s entirely my fault. I was messing with this ball in the practice rounds. I could actually tell it fell out of the air faster. It might be a half-a-gram heavier. Did kind of have a funny flight off 10 tee, right?”
Thud! What were those boys thinking? I guess '68 Masters didn't scar them sufficiently...
Mike Bamberger is very much the conscience of our game, and on issues of integrity he's the first guy I go to. The actions he attributes to Tiger are probably the highest compliment he could offer. And. just in case we don't get it, this is the next bit:
“Your sense of humor in this extraordinary moment reveals the depth of your character,” Ridley said.
Yeah, we got your point...
Forgive me for my instinctive contrariness, but what is the basis for Mike's absolute faith in Tiger's character? Remember, in Mike's view of our game, a golfer wants nothing more than to post an accurate scorecard, and therefore should welcome any corrections from whatever source, including call-ins and slow-mo video. That clearly does not comport with the real Tiger Woods, c. 2013, who at the BMW petulantly refused to concede that super-high-speed video clearly showed him causing his ball to move.
I'm certainly not equating Tiger with a certain Prez Cup captain's pick, but he always chafed at the extra rules scrutiny he got as a result of being on camera so much more than others. He did take an unconscionable drop that same year on No. 14 at Sawgrass, though perhaps like your humble blogger he instinctively turns away from the bad ones.... It's almost like Mike has an interest in rehabilitating the man'...
Strangely, Mike also makes a big deal about Tiger committing to return Monday morning to see how things turn out between Rory and Jordan. Which brings to mind the 2005 PGA Championship, when Tiger couldn't be bothered spending another night in Jersey with an outside chance that Phil and others would stumble sufficiently to require a playoff....
Mike has a vested interest in Tiger in the present moment, though I trust him sufficiently to assume that he's come to these conclusions about Tiger's character honestly. I'm just not so sure...
Tour Stuff - This article is as good as any in summarizing the current state of planning for a resumption of PGA Tour golf. I'll pick things up with the TC panel:
1. The PGA Tour and golf’s governing bodies announced their revised tournament schedules this week, with the PGA Championship moving to August, the U.S. Open to September and the Masters to November, while the British Open has been canceled. The first event on the PGA Tour calendar, for now, is the Charles Schwab Challenge in late May, though the Tour sent a memo to players that said it was unlikely play would resume that soon. With the future of the coronavirus still largely unknown, did the organizing bodies announce the new schedule prematurely?
Dylan Dethier: No, I don’t think so. While it seems impossible that they’d resume play at the Chuck Schwab Challenge in May, I like having the idea of some majors to look forward to. This way, golf’s decision-makers are more transparently taking us into the unknown alongside them. Hope is a good thing!
Alan Shipnuck: I understand the Tour wanting to offer hope, but it feels very premature. California Gov. Gavin Newsom has sounded very skeptical that any kind of sports will resume before September – and probably later than that. I think that’s the realist’s answer.
Josh Sens: It’s natural to want to feel like you’re doing something, anything, in the face of all this sheltering and waiting, and announcing a schedule was exactly that. But I’ve read a number of reports from public health experts saying that we shouldn’t be expecting large gatherings until late fall at the very earliest. Maybe they can pull these events off with no fans. Let’s hope so. But as Alan says, we’ve got to balance that hope with realism.
Michael Bamberger: It did not seem like a deeply considered statement. When you offer a possible schedule and say on the outset that it’s not really likely, I don’t understand the point.
Forget the underlying question, and focus instead on what a cluster-eff this is for the folks in Ponte Vedra Beach. Jay Monahan finds himself in the most untenable position possible, and then proceeds to misplay his hand.
Fact is that not too many regular Tour events matter, and current circumstances are reminding everyone of that inconvenient fact. Jay has little choice but to use his leverage to preserve the FedEx Cup, but I'm so old that I remember when they tried to con us that it's a full-season competition.... In the absence of that full season, you're preserving standings that only include the Sanderson Farms and Shriner's Hospital events... Good chance that the long awaited resumption of play happens at the friggin' Wyndham.
This is a situation in which Jay can't win. I'm happy to have the Augusta and USGA folks fighting to hold their events, because they actually matter. Putting anyone at risk for the Wyndham, however, seems quite a different matter.
2. In the memo, the Tour also said playing without fans is an option when play resumes. Do you like the idea of the Tour potentially returning without spectators? Or would you rather see the Tour wait until health organizations deem events safe for both players and fans?
Dethier: It seems like a tightrope walk to find a lane where it would be safe for players, caddies, officials, media and volunteers but not fans. If they can do it, people are thirsting for live sports! Golf fans would go nuts for more golf. So I’m open to the idea — it’s just a high bar to clear.
Shipnuck: Even without fans, many hundreds of people have to come together from all over the country for a tournament to happen. If it’s not safe for fans, I’m not sure how you could ask caddies, TV technicians and Tour support staff to fly in from all over the country.
Sens: While I wouldn’t mind watching an event without fans, I wonder if the Tour will be able to pull it off. Even with minimal infrastructure, a professional tournament is like a roving carnival. Lots of people and equipment to move around. No doubt the Tour is well aware of this and will make its decision accordingly. As we said above, this whole proposed schedule has a lot of big ‘ifs’ embedded in it.
Bamberger: A PGA Tour event without fans would feel very strange, but I have been to many senior events where there are entire holes on which you do not see a single spectator. Is it ideal? Of course not. Can it be done safely? I think it can. Is it better than not having a tournament at all? If I had a vote, I would say yes. Tournament golf improves people’s lives.
Guys, without spectators, how many of those volunteers and Tour officials do you really need? What should scare the Tour, however, is that without crowd noise it would be an amazing replica of that Tiger-Phil match at Shadow Creek.
But remember, Jay had the chance to try playing without spectators at The Players, but he screwed the pooch there.
3. Do you see fan-less events being an advantage or disadvantage to any players in particular?
Before we get to the obvious answer, Dylan botches this one:
Dethier: Advantageous for Tiger Woods’ playing partners, who love the vibe but no doubt face extra challenges playing alongside mega-crowds. Disadvantageous for Brooks Koepka, who has a hard time convincing himself that Tour events matter as it is.
They don't... But playing with Tiger isn't too much of an issue, but the place you never want to be is the group in front and especially behind him.
Shipnuck: Patrick Reed and Ian Poulter will he stoked!
Sure, and for a while you could have included Kooch. Though you could also argue that they feed off it...
R.I.P. Doug Sanders - We lost one of the true characters of our game:
Doug Sanders brought a flamboyance to golf fashion ahead of his time, a colorful character known as much for the 20 times he won on the PGA Tour as the majors that got away.
Sanders died Sunday morning in Houston, the PGA Tour confirmed through a text from Sanders’ ex-wife, Scotty. He was 86.
Sanders was still an amateur when he won his first PGA Tour event in 1956 at the Canadian Open in a playoff against Dow Finsterwald, and his best year was in 1961 when he won five times and finished third on the PGA Tour money list.
But he is best known for four runner-up finishes in the majors, the most memorable at St. Andrews in the 1970 British Open. He only needed par on the final hole of the Old Course to beat Jack Nicklaus, and Sanders was 3 feet away. He jabbed at the putt and missed it, and Nicklaus beat him the next day in a playoff.
“If I was a master of the English language, I don’t think I could find the adjectives to describe how I felt when I missed that short one,” Sanders said after the playoff, where Nicklaus beat him by one shot. “But that’s golf, and that’s the fascination of the game.”
Sanders also finished one shot behind Nicklaus in the 1966 British Open at Muirfield. He had a one-shot lead going into the final round of the 1961 U.S. Open at Oakland Hills and finished one behind Gene Littler, and he finished one shot behind Bob Rosburg in the 1959 PGA Championship at Minneapolis Golf Club.
It's a shame that the one hiccup came to obscure a very strong record. That said, I simply can't watch the video of that miss on No. 18 without screaming at him to step away... It's just too damn painful.
If the accompanying photo surprises, Sanders spent quite a bit of time among the Ray Pack, who were of course pretty golf mad.
R.I.P.
Nerd Alert - All of you know of Cypress Point, the Alister MacKenzie gem that most of us know only by reputation and photos.
It's tied to this week on the golf calendar, because Bobby Jones made his way to the Monterrey Peninsula to play in the 1929 U.S. Amateur. He shockingly lost his first round match and, with unexpected time on his hands, played at both Cypress, as well as in the opening day festivities at Pasatiempo (partnering with Marion Hollins).
You might not know, however, that the Good Doctor was not the original architect chosen for Cypress Point. Not a bad fall back choice for sure, but it was Seth Raynor that was first hired for this very special property, a contract he was unable to fulfill due to his untimely death in January 1926.
A bit of a long introduction for sure, but necessary to set the table for this that popped up in my Twitter feed over the weekend:
I'm all ears.... The proerty is so amazing, I usually describe it as the three greatest golf courses that folks will never play (your humble blogger did play it twice in the 1980's, so please don't hate me too much). The early holes are parkland golf at it's finest, the middle stretch winds imaginatively through the dunes and then one comes to the three epic ocean holes.
It will be a hoot to see what Raynor would have made of the property and how he might have utilized these vast natural settings. As a registered Macdonald geek, I naturally wonder if he would have employed the standard templates. Is there a Redan hiding somewhere, or even a cape hole.... This could be great fun.
I shall leave you good folks there, and we'll catch up again soon.
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