Some thoughts on the 2016 Masters, in no particular order. I’ll add more as I think of them (and please add your own in the comments!).
- Congratulations to Danny Willett. I think he snuck up on all of us. Did anyone have him in their picks?
- Willett is just the second English winner. The only other was Nick Faldo, owner of three Masters Championships (1989, 1990, 1996).
- In retrospect, it is surprising that Spieth got as close as he did. It was clear that he did not have his A game. He may not even have had his B game. And yet, somehow, he kept the lead on Friday and Saturday, and throughout most of Sunday. He truly plays a different game than the rest of the field.
- In doing the interview afterwards, and at the Butler Cabin, Jordan Spieth showed incredible composure. Even more reasons to like the guy. It had to be brutal to put the jacket on another guy after such a collapse.
- It was sad to see Bernhard Langer fall out of contention. It had to happen, though. He was giving up too many yards to the young guys.
- The real winner this weekend was Augusta National. Just six players finished in red numbers. About halfway through the final round a friend — who is new to the game — sent me this text (over a couple of messages, actually): “Something about golf that I don’t get. If 120 of 146 rounds were above par by the best golfers in the world, don’t they need to adjust what par is?”
- I don’t like the talk that Jordan Spieth “lost” this Masters. Willett won it by getting into position, then playing steady golf at the end when the pressure was highest.
Discover more from GolfBlogger Golf Blog
Subscribe to get the latest posts to your email.
Masters with a -5 winner… Wow.
There were a lot of people who could have won this thing. I think that in the years to come, it will be Spieths 30 minutes of misery from this afternoon which will be what people remember.
Jason Day is probably fine with that, because his 30 minutes of misery on 15-17 on Thursday was what lost the tournament for him. He retains his #1 due to Spieth’s fold, and this week, the 1,2,3 shouldn’t have changed… nobody was stellar.
And about #3— common sense would tell you, cooler and windy, go with the #3 guy from Northern Ireland. But appearantly no. Thankfully I heard that on XM Radio on the way to the course saturday, so I kept from picking Rory in the pool for Saturday, instead I won by picking Day, one of only 5 to break par on Saturday.
It was a good masters, and reminded me, that golf is a game which is won slowly, by first and foremost not making mistakes and selecting the right risk/reward trade offs. For these players, the mistakes are almost always mental, they can execute stroke they decide to play, if they have the mental piece under control.