Congratulations to Adam Scott. He is by all accounts as fine a person as he is a golfer.
This year proves once again that there is no tournament or course that can generate as much excitement as The Masters at Augusta. Another playoff was just the thing to add to the legend. This Masters had the one thing I look for most in a sporting event: competitiveness. For me, sports are far more interesting when the outcome is in doubt. In this case, the outcome was in doubt until the last putt. Half a dozen players had a reasonable chance to win.
The USGA should take a look at how the Masters generates such excitement when setting up their courses. Their intention of identifying the best player often degrades into identifying the most boring course possible.
Scott’s victory ratchets up the belly putter controversy. There can be little doubt that he’s dependent on the long stick. I personally think it is a non-issue, but it will create more buzz.
I was glad to see that Tiger didn’t win—not because I can’t stand him—but because a Tiger win in the wake of Dropgate would cast a pall on an otherwise great weekend. It was also nice that Tiger didn’t finish within two, thereby avoiding another nasty set of conversations. Truth be told, though, Tiger was not in Major form today. Perhaps the whole controversy got to him.
Scott showed a lot of class in acknowledging Greg Norman: “Greg Norman has been incredible to me and all the young golfers in Australia. Part of this definitely belongs to him.”
While nothing can make up for the lack of a Green Jacket, it has to be gratifying to Norman that his mentoring of young Australian golfers has paid off. Norman said of Scott: “I think he’ll go on to win more Majors than any other Australian golfer.”
There’s a bit of the proud father there.
I wonder how many headlines after this win read: Great Scott! It is too good to pass up.
Steve Williams is the all time caddy leader in majors. As part of a team, he trails only Jack. I’m glad he showed the good sense not to jump in front of a microphone—and that CBS had the good sense not to give him the opportunity.
Angel Cabrera is an amazing story. He has two PGA TOUR victories—that is, two Majors. Those same two Majors also count as two fifth of his European Tour victories. It is as though he’s the QB who wins two Superbowls, without winning a regular season game.
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I can’t believe that we don’t have a couple quotes from Steve about dropgate and slamming Tiger and Lacava.
Still haven’t watched much of Sunday. With Phil and Freddie out, while I was pulling hard for Brandt and secondly Jason -but my daugther was wanting to go to the course and I guessed it would be empty and it was a wonderful day with her. I watched the playoff on my iPad live – and like both of those guys, but really wanted Adam.
On XM this morning they were talking about the long putter slam being complete now. It has been almost two months since the comment deadline, and the USGA and R&A have been pretty quiet about where they are going. Now there’s another win by a popular player, and what are you going to do? Now Augusta National probably needs to weigh in too. are they more likely or less likely to adhere to an R&A/USGA ban when the PGA does not? IMO this just sealed the fate of this ban. If the USGA and R&A do this, then only the British and USGA will have that ban in place. The PGA tour, the PGA Championship and the Masters will continue to allow them. The bodies will have to drop the proposed ban.
As an Australian this was one of the highlights of my golfing life. The Masters always delivers some excitement but having a local boy there in the mix made it even more so thrilling.
Watching GC, Kelly Tilghman points out just how great Tiger is at Augusta. (about how he will still beat Jack)
Hmm Kelly. Since Tiger turned 30, 2 2nds, 1 3rd, 3 4ths, 1 6th, 1 40th. Awesome, he is great on this course. Throw out the best and worst over that period, and his average is an impressive 3.83 place.
How about Jack in his first 8 from 30 on: 2 wins, 2 seconds, 2 3rds, 1 4th, 1 8th. Knock out the highest and lowest, and his average placement is: 2.5.
Interesting thing- averaging the middle 8 finishes, Jack has 3.25 in his 30s; Tiger, if he wins the next two years at 38 & 39, he will also have an average 3.25 over his middle 8 finishes. There’s something for Tiger fans to chew on—for Masters, he has to win the next two years in a row to match Jack over their 30s. (if you don’t throw out best and worst finishes, Tiger could not match Jack at this point).
So the more I think about dropgate, the more the Masters got it really, really wrong.
The reason is, if the caller had never phoned in the violation – and the judges didn’t review the tape… but then someone watched the interview, Tiger would have been DQ’d.
What the committee did or did not on Friday should have had no bearing on the decision they made on Saturday morning to not DQ him. They didn’t DQ him because they felt guilty about not informing Tiger of his cheating before the card was signed.
People keep saying this is an innocent mistake. For goodness sakes, please nobody accuse Tiger Woods of cheating. The word cheater and Tiger have no relation to each other.
Oh… wait….
Tiger’s career has paralleled Jack’s except in many ways. Some big deviations:
First, Jack had fare more second place finishes. He won eighteen majors, but was second nineteen other times. Tiger has finished second five times. Jack had 46 top threes, and 56 top fives. Tiger has half that many in both categories.
The point is not to find trivia to make Tiger look bad, but that Jack won eighteen because he constantly put himself in a position to win.
Tiger may improve that, however, in the next ten years.
Second, as I’ve said many times. Tiger is older, in golf years, than Nicklaus was at the same chronological age. I continue to believe that the wear and tear is what will ultimately keep him from breaking Jack’s record.
As for Dropgate, I think that years from now, we will look back at that as a critical juncture—the point at which golf became just another television revenue sport.