That Masters Meltdown

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I watched Jordan Spieth's inexplicable implosion at the Masters last Sunday with my father.

What we saw is still difficult, a week later, to wrap one's brain around.

I am not a golfer, and neither is Dad, but we enjoy watching the Masters. There is more to it than that for Dad, though. When my father and mother were newlyweds, they lived in Atlanta while he did his graduate work at Emory University. Atlanta is more than a two–hour drive from Augusta, and I doubt that my parents ever attended the Masters. Still, being in the vicinity of something big like that makes you feel connected to it.

My mother has been deceased for many years, but watching the Masters on television brings back pleasant memories for my father. Even if he never spent any time on the golf course, the pastoral scenes remind him, I am sure, of pleasant spring days he and my mother spent in Georgia as young newlyweds beginning their adventure together.

For the last year scenes from the Masters are certain to have brought back pleasant memories for Spieth, too. After all, he was the defending Masters champion. In the future, however, his memories are bound to be bittersweet — at best.

It all comes down to his quadruple bogey on No. 12. That's right — quadruple bogey.

No one would have expected it. Spieth won the Masters last year, matching Tiger Woods' record–setting performance in the 1997 Masters, and led by five strokes midway through the final round.

As I say, I'm not a golfer. I'm not even a golf fan — but I worked for several years on the sports staff of a large metro newspaper. For most of that time, my days off were Monday and Tuesday so I was almost always in the office on the days that final rounds of major tournaments were played.

I was in charge of the sports section the day that Jack Nicklaus won his sixth and final Masters in 1986. People often speak of that tournament, and it was natural for that tournament to be mentioned during this year's Masters since it was the 30th anniversary and all. But a lot of people forget that he might not have won if Greg Norman hadn't bogeyed the 18th hole. All he needed was a par to force a playoff — and history may well have been changed.

Few people gave it much thought, even at the time, probably because of the drama of Nicklaus winning the Masters at the age of 46. But Norman, who was 31 at the time, called it the "greatest regret" of his professional career.

The year before that, one of my colleagues was in charge of the section on the day of the final round of the Masters. Curtis Strange started rough, found his groove in the midddle rounds and had a two–stroke lead at one point in the final round but found water hazards on a couple of holes and lost to Bernhard Langer.

Talk about a long Strange trip — but not as strange as Spieth's.

As you can see I am no stranger to Masters meltdowns. But none was ever as spectacular as Spieth's.

Still he's the early favorite at the U.S. Open in June.

Nicklaus' First Masters Championship

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When I was growing up, three names dominated the PGA Tour — Gary Player, Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus. They weren't the only golfers who won tournaments in the 1960s and 1970s, just the most frequent and prominent winners.

On this day 50 years ago, Player and Palmer had both won the Masters at least once. Palmer had won it three times, the most recent being the year before. Nicklaus, by far the youngest of the three, had not yet won it.

But he was about to.

Nicklaus became a professional golfer in late 1961, and he won his first major tournament (the U.S. Open) the next year. That was a pretty dramatic victory. Nicklaus prevailed over Palmer by three strokes in a playoff. At 22, he was the youngest U.S. Open winner since Bobby Jones nearly 40 years earlier; no one who is any younger has won the Open since.

On this day in 1963, Nicklaus became the youngest golfer to win the Masters. Tiger Woods became the youngest winner in 1997 when, at the age of 21, he won by 12 strokes.

In the buildup to this year's Masters, which begins on Thursday, there has been considerable speculation concerning whether Woods will win his first Masters since 2005.

But even if he does, it will be Woods' fifth triumph at the Augusta Golf Club; he will still trail Nicklaus, who has won a green jacket a record six times, by one title.

Tiger's first Masters title was a dramatic one because, initially, it looked as if he wouldn't make the cut, but he roared back to finish the four–day tourney at 18 under par, beating runnerup Tom Kite by 12 strokes.

Nicklaus did not enjoy such a comfortable margin in 1963. He held on for a one–stroke victory over Tony Lema, who trailed by three strokes entering the final day and nearly forced Nicklaus into a playoff. A double bogey in the opening round proved to be his undoing.

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The 1963 Masters was a defining moment, writes John Berry in the Lake County Record–Bee of Lakeport, Calif.

Battling "brisk and windy" conditions, Berry writes, Nicklaus "showed that he had what it takes to win under the toughest of conditions on golf's biggest stage."

The Golden Bear won the Masters five more times, the most recent being in 1986.

Augusta's Glass Ceiling

The decision by Augusta Golf Club to admit two women to its membership may be "better late than never," as the Boston Globe sneers.

And, with all the politically motivated accusations of a "war on women" being bandied about, I guess it really isn't surprising that Augusta may have felt a certain amount of pressure to end its long–standing prohibition against female members.

Fact is, though, that the PGA bears a certain amount of responsibility for this. More than 20 years ago, as Martha Burk writes for CNN, Augusta had to open its doors to blacks when an Alabama country club's restricted membership came under fire.

The PGA insisted that clubs that discriminated on the basis of race or gender would not be allowed to host a tournament, and some clubs, including the one in Alabama, complied in full. Others did not.

"But there was one exception — Augusta National," writes Burk. "It did open to black men 'after being pistol–whipped behind closed doors,' according to one major golf writer who was around at the time. But it drew the line on the girls."

As even a casual golf observer like myself can tell you, Augusta's policy has not kept the Masters from being one of the four major tournaments on the PGA's schedule every year. Burk is absolutely right when she says the PGA has been "officially ignoring its own policies and looking the other way."

So the PGA has been enabling Augusta's ban on women members.

Now, I'm not a golfer, and I have never been a member of a country club. Over the years, I have visited the country club in Dallas on the Fourth of July to watch fireworks displays, and, once or twice, I have joined my parents and their friends (who were our hosts) for dinner there. But that has been all.

A country club's membership policies really don't concern me — nor, for that matter, do the membership policies of any club. I figure, if a club doesn't want me to be a member for one reason or another (my age or where I grew up or where I went to school or anything else), that is the club's business.

(I'm tempted, at this point, to quote — or at least paraphrase — Groucho Marx's assertion that he wouldn't want to belong to a club that would have someone like him for a member.)

I might feel differently — probably would feel differently — if I was a member of a group that had felt the sting of discrimination, but I'm not. I'm white and male, two groups that have been regarded, historically, as privileged in this country (although many members of both groups haven't felt particularly privileged in the last few years).

And I do understand why many women feel that shattering Augusta's glass ceiling is important. It is symbolic — if nothing else — not unlike Sandra Day O'Connors' appointment to the Supreme Court or Sally Ride's historic trip to space or the vice presidential nominations of Geraldine Ferraro and Sarah Palin.

Or the rumors that have been floating periodically this year about Hillary Clinton replacing the vice president on the national ticket this fall.

I don't mean to suggest that those events were only significant in a symbolic sense. They represented breakthroughs for women. Other women have followed O'Connor to the Supreme Court and Ride into space.

And someday, a woman will be elected president or vice president.

It's empowering to be allowed where you've never been before. I get that.

But I also get that there are millions of people who are without work or have only part–time jobs, millions who have lost their savings and most of the value of their homes, millions who will never be able to retire and who will have to work until, literally, they drop.

It seems to me there are more important things to be concerned about right now than the membership policies of a country club, even one that hosts a PGA major event.

Down From the Pedestal

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Because he is so young compared to most in his sport, many people forget that Tiger Woods already has had a remarkable career.

He's won two of the four major tournaments four times each — the exceptions are the U.S. Open and The Open Championship, both of which he has won three times and came close to winning on a few other occasions. He also holds records for the most consecutive weeks in the top spot and the most total weeks ranked #1.

If he isn't the best golfer of all time, his name belongs in the conversation.

His pro career isn't over, of course. Many pro golfers are just hitting their stride when they are Woods' age (36), which means there may well be some more titles in his future — perhaps many more — even though he hasn't won a major since 2008, and he hasn't won two or more in a calendar year since 2006.

It doesn't look as if he will add to his majors total in today's concluding round of The Masters. There is too much ground to make up, too many golfers to overtake.

Woods won his first major, the 1997 Masters, 15 years ago this month. Only 21 years old at the time, Woods was the youngest–ever Masters champion, He wasn't the first black golfer to win at Augusta — Lee Elder accomplished that in 1975, less than a year before Woods was born — and he struggled out of the gate, but he won the tournament in dominating fashion, setting scoring records that still stand today.

Through the first nine holes, Woods was four–over par, but he finished the round three shots off the pace at two–under par. He seized control of the tournament in the second round, shooting a six–under 66.

(Nothing like that happened this year, of course. Tim Dahlberg of the Associated Press describes Tiger's second round of the Masters as "a foul–mouthed, club–kicking back nine ... that would have gotten you or me thrown off much lesser golf courses.")

Back in 1997, the third day was much like the second. Woods shot a 65 and took a nine–stroke lead into the final round. He only shot a 69 on the last day, but that was good enough to add three strokes to his final margin. His eventual margin of victory (12 strokes) is still the greatest ever in the Masters — and it was a record for all of the majors until Woods himself bested it with a 15–stroke win at the U.S. Open.

If anyone in golf is regarded as a natural (a la Robert Redford in his memorable baseball movie role), it must be Woods. So often, from his childhood through his young adulthood, it has seemed that things have come so effortlessly for him — the championships, the money, the adoring women.

The 1997 Masters made him seem like golf's version of Secretariat, pulling away from the field like (in the words of horse race caller Chic Anderson) "a tremendous machine" and strolling to the clubhouse to pick up his first green jacket. Hard as it may be to recall now, there was a period there in the late 1990s when many spoke of wanting to "Tiger proof" their golf courses with par–6 holes.

Undoubtedly, Tiger was a role model for millions. He was golf's golden boy who struck it rich with endorsement deals as well as tournament triumphs. In a post–Michael Jordan world (or one that was nearly so in 1997), he was the new Muhammad Ali of sports in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, recognized by all, master of all he or anyone else could see.

But, as both Jordan and Ali could have told him, such a time is fleeting. America loves its sports heroes, but it always ends — too soon for most athletes — and the love affair with Tiger was tarnished long before this year's Masters.

His tantrums on the Augusta National course in the last few days indicate that Tiger has been doing things in reverse order. He was a child prodigy for whom success came too early; he lacks the maturity and discipline now to learn and, eventually, benefit from mistakes and setbacks.

His enablers may say otherwise, but he hastened his own plummet from golf's pedestal.

A Memorable Masters

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"If you could read Adam Scott's lips when he shook fellow Australian Jason Day's hand as they walked off the 18th green as runners–up, it summed up a day unlike any other in Masters history.

" 'That was awesome; that was unbelievable; that was great,' said Scott in a flurry of superlatives about a day that was all of that and then some."

Scott Michaux
Augusta (Ga.) Chronicle
April 11, 2011

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I don't usually watch golf on TV.

I don't play the game so I don't understand many of its subtleties.

And I've always been of the opinion that, if someone wanted to market a truly effective cure for insomnia, all that person needed to do was sell video tapes of golf tournament broadcasts. The announcers always speak in hushed tones, as if they are standing just behind the golfers, and the imagery is always pastoral and soothing.

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Especially the Masters — with the coma–inducing theme music it has been using as long as I can remember.

But I watched much of Sunday's final round of the Masters — and I was never tempted to doze off.

There were too many stories unfolding, as Scott Michaux wrote in the Augusta Chronicle.

Now, I don't know anything about Michaux. I presume that, if he has been writing for the Augusta paper for awhile, he has covered more than his share of Masters tournaments — and he speaks from experience when he calls yesterday "a day unlike any other in Masters history."

What I do know is this.

I've watched bits and pieces of most of the Masters broadcasts in my life. Occasionally, I have felt compelled to watch a bit more than that.

But I can't remember the last time I sat in front of my TV for hours, watching the Masters' final round unfold.

I was alternately astonished by Tiger Woods' remarkable comeback (for awhile on Sunday afternoon, he was actually tied for the lead), Rory McIlroy's equally amazing final–round collapse (thanks to a still–hard–to–fathom triple bogey from a guy who had been shooting under par all week) and the rapid ascent of three Australian golfers.

It was like golf's version of the Olympics. Something dramatic was happening at every hole.

And when the dust settled, South African Charl Schwartzel birdied the final four holes and won the tournament by two strokes.

When Tiger Woods won the Masters 14 years ago, he changed golf. He became its star — an unreachable star, in the eyes of many who played the game. Hard as it may be to remember, there were actually managers of some golf courses in America who wanted to extend some of their holes to make them more challenging for any golfers who could hit drives as far as Tiger could.

Tiger has fallen on hard times, and golf no longer has a dominant personality — but, as Michael Hiestand observes for USA TODAY, there was no absence of star power in Augusta on Sunday.

Even when it became clear that Tiger's comeback would come up short.

Tiger Blood

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Someone is going to win the Masters today.

It ain't gonna be Tiger Woods, writes Gene Wojciechowski for ESPN.com.

But it might be Rory McIlroy, who staked out his advantage in the first round and has built it into the "largest lead Augusta National has seen since that remarkable day 14 years ago," writes John Romano of the St. Petersburg Times.

Anyone who is old enough to remember the 1997 Masters remembers the way Tiger Woods dominated the field. He was the youngest golfer ever to win the Masters, a mere 21, but that was probably the least of his accomplishments on the day he won his first green jacket.

He's won three more since then, and he's won every other major multiple times.

Tiger continues to cast an enormous shadow over this tournament — even though he has only won it once in the last eight years — but that shadow seems to be receding.

Tiger goes into today's final round trailing by seven strokes. He had a seven–under round one day in 1997 en route to his record–setting triumph in the Masters, and he flirted with it the next day so he is — or, at least, has been — capable of that.

But, in order for a 65 to result in at least a tie with the current leader, that leader would have to do something he hasn't done in the first three days of this tournament — break even.

In fact, even if the leader duplicates his worst round of the tournament (yesterday's two–under 70), Tiger would need to shoot a nine–under 63 to match him — and he would have to hope that the other golfers who stand between him and McIlroy don't have record–smashing afternoons of their own.

It just seems to me that there are too many obstacles between Tiger and a fifth green jacket. And even if there were no other golfers between Tiger and McIlroy, the greatest of the obstacles would remain: If Tiger ever shot a 63 (in a major or even a non–major), he hasn't done it recently.

So I would have to conclude that Wojciechowski was right — but we won't know that for sure until later today.

We'll also have to wait until later today to find out if Sports Illustrated's Joe Posnanski was right a couple of days ago when he observed that first–round leaders seldom win it all.

"In the last 25 years, there have been a total of 41 first–round leaders, including ties," he wrote. "One won the Masters. One. More first–round leaders over the last quarter century have finished in 21st place than first. Only 17 of the 41 first–round leaders even finished in the Top 10."

Let me amend what I just said. Posnanski clearly is right about the tournament's recent history. What remains to be seen is whether McIlroy will overcome it.

Going into today's final round, McIlroy has a chance to make that two first–round leaders in the last quarter century who have made their leads hold up long enough to win a championship.

We'll find out if he is able to do it later today.