Masters Miscellania

You can feel it building, no?  A week from tomorrow balls will be in the air...

Batting leadoff, Scott Michaux of the Augusta Chronicle who put leather to concrete to bring us this news yesterday:

Woods’ Gulfstream G5 was parked in front of the terminal for private aircraft at Augusta Regional Airport on Tuesday morning and left in the afternoon.

Just to be clear, this doesn't mean that he's committed to playing, but it probably does mean that he's not committed to not playing...  and what would April Fools Day be without clarification from Steiny:

"Tiger clearly is working hard and he will advise as to when he is ready to play competitively," said Mark Steinberg, Woods' agent, in an email.

Clearly?  You mean clearly in the sense of the accounts you've leaked to cooperative journalists?  Got it... Back to Michaux:

Recent reports out of South Florida claim that Woods’ game has been improving out of the public eye and he’s been firing in the low- to mid-60s in rounds at the Medalist.

And that differs from the similar accounts we heard in January how?  Just askin...

Meanwhile, the early line has Chris DiMarco walking this back by the close of business today:

Chris DiMarco said on Tuesday what many others were thinking when Tiger Woods

Easy there, Tiger, better to let Joe slam the trunk.

withdrew from the Farmers Insurance Open in February with what the golfer said were back spasms. 

In the first round, Woods had played the first 11 holes on the Torrey Pines North Course in 2-over when he pulled out, saying his gluteus muscles didn't “activate.” 

“I think the reason he WD’d in San Diego is there was no back problem; he was embarrassed to be out there. He wasn't doing anything good, and I think there was something wrong and he couldn't take care of it,” DiMarco said on a conference call to promote the Golf Channel’s coverage of next week’s Masters.

John Feinstein said two

hree very interesting things in his Golf Channel appearance yesterday, one of which was in the DiMarco vein.  I'm paraphrasing from memory of course:

1. John is now in favor of Tiger playing The Masters, because even if he plays poorly it will make him that much better prepared for the U.S. Open;
2. If Tiger continues to Yip with the wedge, then the back will act up because he "Ain't posting an 85 at Augusta";
3. Tiger would at this point take one more major and call it a career.

As for the first, that seems eminently reasonable....unless it's not.  The Yips are different and if they present then that could set him back, no?  And those tight lies and tucked pins could make anyone yip...  

The second is a beauty because we're not allowed to even think such thoughts, are we?  But really, which would piss off the green jackets more, him trying and failing or walking directly to the parking lot from the ninth green?  I'd guess the  latter, so that has to be in his calculus somehow...

Before we hit the third, a digression to this Derek Lawrenson item in which he warns us not to write off Tiger just yet:

By the time he turns up at next year’s Masters he will be 40, and the list of players who have won the event past that milestone is not a long one.

Even so, we should be wary of passing final judgment just yet, and declaring this the ultimate example of sporting hubris. 

Look at the stories of the five men who have completed the career grand slam — Tiger, lest we forget, has done it three times — and one of the things that binds them is their inestimable powers of recovery. Look at Jack Nicklaus, written off at the age of 46 yet still he claimed one final Masters in 1986 with a thrilling back-nine charge that spooked the life out of players such as Greg Norman and Seve Ballesteros.

Derek also cites Hogan's comeback from the near-fatal car accident, but there's no shortage of golfers that have won majors late in their careers, and if you count near-misses it's a long list.  But those examples leave me cold, because mostly they come down to great players getting by on their wits and/or having a great week with the putter...

What makes this spectacle so riveting is the imponderables... we'e seen players lose their form, Ian Baker Finch disease is a recognized medical condition, but this guy was so in control and that control has disappeared entirely...  

So back to Feinstein's Faustian bargain....do we think at this point Tiger would take No. 15 and spend more time with the family?  Or would he let the chips fall where they may, trusting that he's still the guy that won fourteen of the damn things?  

And bonus points for anyone who remembers that Earl Woods famously predicted way back when that Tiger would win fourteen majors... looks like a great call right now.

In other Masters musings, Jim McCabe has looked for the soft spots in the field:

As tumbles go, they don’t rank with Tiger Woods plummeting from No. 1 to 104th, but

the picture at the end of March 2015 looks vastly different for Jason Dufner and Luke Donald than it did one year ago. 

Back then, they were ranked 16th and 27th, respectively, in the Official World Golf Ranking, two guys riding into Augusta National Golf Club as part of that VIP group of annual top 50 names who can count major championship and World Golf Championship spots as locks. That stature, however, is teetering and they’re two names who are going to have to scrap to keep that coveted designation part of their resumes.

.I'm not sure what Jim's point is, as Dufner would be there anyway based upon his PGA Championship win.  Donald's form seems to continue to deteriorate, but he's hung on at No. 50 this week so he'd be there anyway...and would be a discernibly better world with Marc Warren, current No. 51, in the field in lieu of Luke?

Two last quick items..first Shack predicts the winner here.  Well, sort of...he says the winner will come from the twelve names he posits, and then just to make sure he can't possibly miss he adds three more alternates... C'mon Geoff, there are no alternates at a Masters.  A couple of mild surprises, but mostly all of the usual suspects...

Lastly, golf.com provides a gallery of aerial shots of ANGC here.  Some good shots, though of course I'd still rather have a blimp on the telecast:

The short course during the Par-3 event in 2000.