Unless, yanno, there's something else you'd like to discuss...We'll lede with the upbeat stuff, saving the weather forecast for a bit later.
Actually, let's start in an unusual place, the 2021 Masters:
Lee Elder’s legacy at the Masters was already established with his historic appearance as the first Black golfer to compete in the tournament in 1975. But that legacy will take on a new life next April when the 86-year-old steps to the first tee once more at Augusta National, this time as one of the tournament’s Honorary Starters.Augusta National chairman Fred Ridley announced Monday that Elder will join Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player in the annual ceremony for the 2021 Masters.“The opportunity to earn an invitation to the Masters and stand at that first tee was my dream, and to have it come true in 1975 remains one of the greatest highlights of my career and life,” Elder said. “So to be invited back to the first tee one more time to join Jack and Gary for next year’s Masters means the world to me.”
Additionally, Ridley announced that the club will fund the creation of a women’s golf program at Paine College, a Historically Black College and University located in Augusta, as well as establish the Lee Elder Scholarships at Paine College in his honor. Two scholarships will be awarded annually, one each to a student athlete who competes on the men’s and women’s golf team.
In his post, Shack adds the obvious question of why not cast him in that role for this installment, though I suspect that they want to allow him the gratitude of the spectators, which often includes some of the players. For this one, perhaps some of the staff as well, as per this recollection of that groundbreaking effort:
The display from the employees of Augusta National was especially moving. Most of the staff was black, and on Friday, they left their duties to line the 18th fairway as I walked toward the green. The other patrons cleared the way for them to come to the front, and they were instantly recognizable by their uniforms. This took planning on the part of the employees and moved me very deeply. I couldn’t hold back the tears. One club employee shouted in this booming voice that rose above the applause, “Thank you for coming, Mr. Elder!” Other employees, taking his cue, shouted the same thing. Of all the acknowledgements of what I had accomplished by getting there, this one meant the most.
It's still moving, forty-five years later...That, by the way, is from a 2019 My Shot feature that Elder did with Guy Yocum , helpfully linked by Geoff. It's very much worth your time.
I'm curious as to whether this is the start of a new Masters tradition, a third honorary starter with Jack and Gary... For 2022, may I suggest Phil and his 47.5 inch driver? By then, he might have actually found a fairway with it...
"V" Is For Vibe - We're all trying to process and make sense of this November Masters, so let's sample a lightly-curated selection of reactions, presented in an almost random sequence. Golf Digest photographer Ben Walton offers these thoughts with a selection of his photos:
Augusta National Golf Club opened to photographers at 7:45 a.m. Monday morning and Golf Digest's Ben Walton was there to get an early sense of what a fan-less November Masters might look like. Short answer: Very quiet, but still gorgeous.With the move from its traditional April date to late fall, it's already apparent Augusta National will have a slightly different aesthetic. There will no blooming azaleas or dogwoods, but there will be a golden hue to the foliage. Even more apparent is that this year's tournament will be absent thousands of fans who line the fairways and greens of every hole. A loss in atmosphere, perhaps, but given the dazzling backdrop, not a terrible trade-off for viewers at home.
Don't worry about us, we're cheap dates by now. Click through to scroll them all, but here's a sample of the eerie venue:
4. This version is Augusta National.
It felt particularly strange to see Collin Morikawa teeing it up on No. 1 at 8:20 a.m. just sort of — out there. No ropes. No spectators. No officials. Just player, caddie and a handful of cameramen on a green tee. It requires a shift in mindset, and serves as a reminder that this is what the course
usually plays like. This is how the members usually see it! Day to day, there are no people lining the fairways like bumpers at a bowling alley.
But this isn’t necessarily a bad thing! Let’s refer back to some other comments that Rory McIlroy made about Augusta National at the Zozo Championship a few weeks ago:
“My favorite times at Augusta have been not the Masters. My favorite times are, we’ve taken a couple of father-son trips, which has just been awesome. I think for a golfer, the greatest experience in golf is being invited to Augusta by a member, staying in one of the cabins, doing the dinners at night, going down to the wine cellar, picking your bottle of wine, all that sort of stuff. Those are the cool things about Augusta that a lot of people don’t see.”
Unless something really strange happens, I don’t expect to get access to the wine cellar this week — but the Augusta National we’ll see will be far more similar to the day-to-day member’s course than usual.
Of course we tend to forget that the place functions as an actual club for 51 weeks of the year (OK, given the summer shutdown it's not 51, but you'll understand my point). And as heartfelt as Rory's comments above are, it also feels like it should come with an irony alert...
But if we're seeking guidance on the vibe, who ya gonna call? Mike Bamberger has to top that list:
There was something casual, about this later-afternoon golf, Monday at the Masters. Have you ever seen a wife walking down a fairway with her golf-pro husband in a Masters practice round? It happened in Monday’s dusk, Jolande Lyle, walking with her husband, Sandy, winner of the 1988 Masters and playing on Monday in suspenders. Without the fans, without the gallery ropes, without the large numbers of Pinkerton guards and Richmond County sheriffs on patrol, the vibe is loose. It’s casual.
Loose? I'm pretty sure that's not what Clifford Roberts had in mind...
Bernhard Langer flew late Sunday night to get here, from a senior event in Phoenix.
“When I heard there was going to be the Masters in November, I anticipated wind and highs in the 40s,” Langer said Monday night. It was downright balmy. “I thought we’d be wearing sweaters.” He was wearing a short-sleeved shirt. “I wasn’t expecting this.”
Nobody was expecting this. No one could have predicted this. But here we are. A beautiful Monday night. A lousy forecast. A grand tournament being played, smack-dab in the middle of a deadly pandemic. It was a gorgeous night here. Nothing seemed amiss, deep inside this deep inside.
And yet, here we are....
Last word here goes to the club itself, in a video that is beyond my technical abilities to embed. The video is here, but this is the key bit:
“Greatness realized without thunderous applause is no less great”
True enough, though there's that pesky perception thing...
"C" Is For Conditions - Back to Dylan, who went deep on this subject in his Monday stroll, starting with this no-brainer:
1. It’s green.
Look, some of these observations are going to be extremely obvious. I won’t apologize for it! But if you’ll recall what Augusta National typically looks like in late summer, they scalp the Bermudagrass and the entire place looks unmistakably brown. That’s not the case at the moment. It’s green green green. Overseed green. Lush green. The fairways are green. The tee boxes are green. The walkway to the media center is green. The grass next to the volunteer parking lot is green. These lawns would make your neighbors jealous. You get the idea.
Color me shocked. This though, gets at the issue of the week:
2. It’s soft.
Thus far, the fairways and greens are lush and soft. Players are spinning wedges back off the fronts of greens. Drives are hitting and sticking. There’s nothing firm nor fast about the place just yet. (Well, except the greens. They’re still fast.) Could this change? Yes; you’ve heard plenty about Augusta National’s Subair system and the extent of its ground-drying capabilities. But it could also easily stay soft — the forecast calls for significant rain on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, with shower potential other days, too. Time will tell how the course plays for the event, but for now it’s quite friendly.
Tis a pity. But keep this one in the back of your mind as to how the joint will play:
3. There’s a hint of Bermuda.
Yes, there’s a ton of green, and the entire place is in outrageously good condition. But a careful look at the fairways and greensides reveals something interesting: There’s still some Bermudagrass peeking through the ryegrass overseed. That Bermuda grows sideways and adds a different grain and texture to the ground surface; it’s pesky stuff, and likely hung around extra this year because it’s been so warm. What does this mean? Not much for you or me, but it’s another small factor for golfers navigating touchy pitch shots around Augusta National’s slopes.
Rory McIlroy described the situation to ESPN’s Bob Harig. “That’s going to make things very interesting around the greens. Chipping will be a lot trickier,” he said.
Meaning that we should anticipate some hinkiness on chips around the greens... Didn't that defending champion have some issues with chipping yips a while back? Watch this space...
"W" Is For Weather - It's not a pretty picture, though still a bit early to panic. This local reporter does a deep dive on the subject, beginning with temps:
Temperature forecasts for the mid-70s to low 80s this week should make this November’s Masters feel like April, ending months of conjecture and speculation by players, fans and the media about playing Augusta National Golf Club in the cold.
As for the wet stuff, this is an optimistic spin on the forecast:
Storms and showers are in the forecast for Wednesday and Thursday this week, adding to players’ projections for a longer course due to wetter conditions.
It has rained during 44 Masters tournaments — from single-day showers that didn’t interrupt play to long delays and even full-day washouts like the one in 1973 that led to a Masters first — threesomes with a two-tee start.
As I look at the forecast on Accuweather, Tuesday-Thursday looks wet, though not the constant type that would curtail play. The accumulation for Thursday is forecast at .26 inches, which I'd assume they just plow through, though the Sub-Airs will be humming in the background.
The wind actually might be the bigger factor:
What about the wind?
Veteran players look at the flags atop the main scoreboard to see which direction the wind is blowing from the first tee.
Forecasts for this week at windfinder.com show shifting winds from the northeast to the northwest of 2-3 mph for Thursday followed by mostly northwest winds with gusts up to 20 mph the rest of the tournament.
“If you’re able to get the north wind that time of year, it can be awfully difficult and long and very different than what we normally play in April,” Woods said in October, a sentiment echoed by Reed and Kisner.
Those level of winds might help it dry out, but the bigger significance is that they come out of the North this time of year, which affects the Par-5's significantly:
But a northwest wind has proven helpful to the shorter hitters in the past by leveling the playing field against the long bombers.
“You’ve got some of the longer holes down breeze and you’ve also neutralized the par 5s on the back nine at 13 and 15,” Furyk told The Augusta Chronicle in 2010. “(The wind) neutralizes the field a little bit and it gives (short to medium hitters) an advantage.”
The proof Furyk said, is provided by Mike Weir in 2003 and Zach Johnson in 2007. Both are medium-length hitters who have trouble reaching the par 5s in two at Augusta National even under the most favorable wind conditions, Furyk said.
Accuweather doesn't show winds at anything approaching that strength, so that may be the most important weather variable for the week.
"N" Is For News - There is some actual news, but just a reminder that it's still very much 2020. First, the club seems to be using these unusual circumstances to make a significant permanent change to the competition:
In further news, another Covid casualty, this one ending quite the streak:
A positive COVID-19 test will keep Sergio Garcia from playing in this week's Masters. It also means the end of a pretty amazing streak in major championships.Garcia announced his withdrawal from the 2020 Masters with a pair of tweets on Monday morning. According to the 11-time PGA Tour winner and 2017 Masters champ, he decided to get tested Sunday morning after experiencing a sore throat and cough on Saturday after driving back to his home in Austin from the Houston Open, where he missed the cut.
As to that streak:
But while Niemann would have been making his pro debut at Augusta National this year, Garcia, 40, would have been continuing a streak of competing in majors that stretches back more than two decades. The last time Garcia didn't play in one of golf's four biggest events came when he didn't qualify for the 1999 U.S. Open at 19.
It was later at the 1999 PGA Championship that Serio scissor-kicked his way to prominence. Joaquin Niemann withdrew last week for the same reason.
"B" Is For Bryson - Can you believe I got this deep into a post without mentioning him? Alan Shipnuck had some burning questions about the event, and ledes with this query on everyone's mind:
1. Will Bryson gobble up Augusta National like a triple serving of peach cobbler?
Gotta start with the most obvious storyline, which is the U.S. Open champion’s looming destruction of one of golf’s most iconic courses. Perhaps not since Eldrick Woods was chasing the final leg of the Tiger Slam in 2001 has there been this much focus on one specific player around Augusta. But for all the breathless speculation about how many flip-wedges DeChambeau will leave himself into the par-4s (and par-5s!), he has struggled mightily on Augusta National’s diabolical greens, including finishing dead-last in Strokes Gained: Putting last year. Not for nothing did Johnny Miller once derisively dub the tournament the Augusta National Spring Putting Contest; how efficiently DeChambeau gets the ball in the hole will matter as much as far he bashes it off the tee. It’s going to be fascinating to watch.
The clubs into greens we had yesterday most certainly reminded me of Tiger, but 1997, not 2001. My point being that we've seen this movie before, but we've also seen the club's reaction thereto. But Tiger will be the second most watched player on Thursday, and when's the last time we could say that?
A fun practice round pairing yesterday:
Bryson DeChambeau will bring the noise.
The big bruiser from Texas will shatter the silence that has blanketed the majestic arena that is Augusta National Golf Club for this week’s patron-less Masters. The reigning U.S. Open champion did just that Monday on a windswept, quiet day during a practice round with defending champion Tiger Woods, 1992 Masters champion Fred Couples and 2017 PGA Championship winner Justin Thomas.
Apparently I'm not the only one making that 1997 comparison:
“(Hitting) pitching wedge into 13 today, which was kind of fun,” he smiled. “I asked Tiger what he hit into 11 back in 1997 and he said pitching wedge and I hit the same thing today.”
Yes, pitching wedge into the green at the 505-yard par-4 11th. On 13, he hit it over the trees with draw and had 150 yards in on the 510-yard par 5. He also hit pitching wedge at the par-3 12th from 160 yards. At the 440-yard uphill par-4 14th, he had 130 yards in – another pitching wedge. At the 530-yard par-5 15th, he hit a 7-iron from 185. At the 440-yard uphill 17th, he hit 8-iron into the green. At 18, he blew his tee shot over the two bunkers on the left side of the fairway and had but a 7-iron to the green.
And he’s still not completely dialed in.
Doesn't seem that we'll see the 48" driver shaft this week:
As for using a 48-inch shaft, that seems unlikely this week.
“This is the final push to see if it works, and if not, there’s always the next Masters, there’s always other tournaments where I can use it,” he said. “Not every rabbit hole I go down works. The nice part is I’ve become really good learning to pull myself out of those rabbit holes.
“I will not use it until it’s right.”
April?
Sean Zak breaks things down to five holes where Beat Mode will be Yuuuge:
No. 13, Azalea — Par 5, 510 yards
When asked this summer about the upcoming Masters, DeChambeau said simply, “I’m just going to unleash.” Arguably, no hole will allow the big dog to eat quite as ravenously as the 13th. Where many players will have to bend a perfect draw around the corner to find the A position, Bryson aims to just go up and over all of it. He isn’t thinking about those trees on the left or the creek that snakes along beneath them. He’s focused on the end of the tree line on the right, where a trio of lonely, leafy towers hangs out between the 13th and 14th fairways. The landing zone there is enormous, and even though the fairway slopes to the left and the green slopes to the right, having just 170 yards into the hole is the stuff green-jacket dreams are made of.
On Sunday in 2014, Watson pounded his drive 366 yards, out around the bend. Peter Kostis saw where the ball landed and was reduced to laughter. Ben Crenshaw asked GOLF’s Alan Shipnuck at the time, “What game is he playing? It isn’t golf.”It’s exactly the game DeChambeau hopes to harness on 13: one long drive, one smooth wedge, one eagle putt.
To which Sir Nick Faldo responded in a manner unbefitting an MBE:
During a conference call on Monday with several CBS Sports personnel, Faldo was asked if DeChambeau, who has promised to try to bomb Augusta National into submission with his driver, could reach the first green. The par-4 opening hole of the Masters is 455 yards uphill. So not bloody likely, said the three-time Masters winner."Bryson will not be driving the first at 445," Faldo, lead golf analyst for CBS, said confidently before backing it up with a promise."If he does, I will leap out my tower and run around naked round Augusta National," the Brit averred."Let's not do that," fellow announcer Dottie Pepper chimed in.
There's no truth to the rumors that soft conditions are anticipated.... Jim Nantz is a notoriously nice guy, as he could have been far more specific as to the types of lens required:
"Well, Lance, you were trying to figure out where to position your cameras," CBS anchor Jim Nantz said to coordinating producer Lance Barrow. "And you said we were going to find out, come Thursday. Maybe we just found out we might want to have one close by the 18th tower."
I shall leave you on that note, as my thoughts counter-intuitively turn to breakfast. We shall try to get some golf in tomorrow, but I'll try to share some thoughts beforehand.
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