One of the 61 magnolia trees lining the driveway into Augusta National was blown over in a storm that swept through this week but otherwise nothing was amiss on the eve of the 75th Masters. There was not an azalea out of place.
The golf course, conceived and built in the Great Depression, looked as pristine and contemporary as ever. The sun was beating down and the best players in the world were fine-tuning for the challenge that lies ahead.
It is easy to rail against the antediluvian social attitudes informing this golf club’s membership policies but on a glorious day such as this it was impossible to deny that Augusta National is the perfect place for a major championship. All that is needed now is a tournament and a winner worthy of the setting.
Twenty-five years ago, in what many believe was the greatest major championship Sunday in history, Jack Nicklaus shot 30 on the back nine to win his sixth green jacket at the age of 46. There have been some wonderful Masters championships since then 1997, when Tiger Woods announced himself to the world; 2004, when Phil Mickelson broke Ernie Els’s heart to win his first major — but there have been a few dreary ones too.
Zach Johnson played safe in 2007 and walked away with the prize. Trevor Immelman shot 75 on a cold Sunday in 2008 and won. There is no shame attached to either man, who proved themselves better than the rest when the call came, but there were precious few memories for the rest of us in their victories.
But the wheel turns. Thankfully, it sometimes stops at a moment such as last year’s final round, when Mickelson found himself in the pine straw to the right of the 13th fairway, with only a narrow escape between two trees. “Listen,” the left-hander said as his faithful caddie Jim Mackay suggested he play safe and chip out sideways. “If I’m going to win this tournament today, at some point I’m going to have to hit a really good shot under a lot of pressure. I’m going to do it right now.”
We know what happened next. Mickelson hit the six-iron of his life, a shot so good that a steady stream of his peers have walked over to the spot this week to pay homage. But if Mickelson’s six-iron will live in the annals, his eventual victory over the second-placed Englishman Lee Westwood may not. There is no drama in a three-shot margin, no edge-of-the-seat tension in a celebratory march up the 72nd and final fairway.
The weight of expectation for this year’s tournament has swung heavily behind a repeat performance by the big left-hander. A stunning victory at Houston last Sunday has seen him installed as a clear favourite – a logical move, it may seem, but one that runs counter to history.
Only four players have followed up a win the week before the Masters with a victory at the Masters itself. Mickelson is one of the four. He did it in 2006 but, surely, it is asking too much of him to do it again? More daringly, is it too unkind to hope for a different outcome?
No offence to Lefty but Augusta National needs another Masters for the ages — if not another 1986 and Nicklaus, then something that comes close. More importantly golf desperately needs one, too. These are transitional times for the sport, which seems caught between the Woods era and a hard place. Uncertainty abounds. Will the great man ever again find that which made him great and won him four green jackets? Or will he finally be cast aside to be replaced this week by a new hero?
Looking down the practice range there is no shortage of candidates for such a role. The world No 1, Martin Kaymer, has proved he has the game, winning last year’s PGA Championship, but does he have the charisma? Westwood is another who has the game to win a major. But the Englishman is 37 now. He would be a worthy and popular winner come Sunday but the truth is he does not represent the future of the game.
For that we must look to others, such as Dustin Johnson, the big-hitting American who came close at a couple of majors last year, and the mercurial Bubba Watson, he of the homemade swing and the down-home charm. Rickie Fowler, aged 22, is a darling of the home crowd despite never having won a PGA Tour event. European hopes will rest on the shoulders of Luke Donald and Paul Casey, two Englishmen who seem to improve with every passing year but who have yet to reach the promised land. Perhaps they never will.
Of those who have already climbed to the summit, Padraig Harrington, a three-times major winner, is in Augusta this week wearing a quiet confidence after some good, albeit sporadic, performances on the PGA Tour. The US Open champion, Graeme McDowell, is another who is talking up his chances. A win for either man would be great for them personally but best for the sport would be a victory by the final member of Irish golf’s holy trinity.
For the first time in his nascent career Rory McIlroy has arrived at the scene of a major in relative anonymity. He has said very little but then there has been no need. Those who know him best say his game is in prime condition and he has the confidence to match. At 21 he has as much talent as anyone and more charisma than most. All he needs now is a Masters victory. Preferably in a Sunday afternoon thriller that no one will ever forget.
Woods talks a good game
Tiger Woods has come to Augusta National this week to win the Masters. He is confident of breaking Jack Nicklaus’s record of 18 major championship victories. The world has not seen the best of him yet.
“I believe in myself,” he said, 48 hours before he stepped on to the first tee alongside Graeme McDowell and Robert Allenby in pursuit of his 15th major championship victory. “There is nothing wrong with believing in yourself. God, I hope you guys [the media] feel the same way about yourself. That is the whole idea – that you can always become better.”
The message, straight from the mouth of the four-times Masters champion, had a familiar ring but the reaction it wrought did not. In years past the self-affirming proclamations of the world’s greatest living golfer were read as gospel, as if they had somehow been chiselled in granite and handed down from the nearest mountain top. This year they carried all the import of a soundtrack playing in an airport lounge.
“No,” declared Ian Poulter when asked if Woods would finish inside the top five come Sunday afternoon. “Not this year. He hasn’t done it for a while, but I think that if he starts to hole the putts at the right time you are going to see the Tiger of old and that is dangerous. But I don’t see it this week — I just don’t see it myself.”
Full credit to the Englishman for his honesty. In previous years one might have feared for his chances should he find himself in the final pairing on Sunday alongside Woods, who has made a lifetime habit of making his most public critics dine out on their words, but perhaps not this year.
It is not just that Woods has not won a golf tournament anywhere in the world for almost 18 months and it is not even that he has fallen to No 7 in the world rankings. It is simply that he no longer wears the aura that left his opponents a couple of shots behind standing on the first tee.
Once upon a time he cut a God-like figure when he strolled on the practice range at Augusta. As he made that same walk on Tuesday he looked like just another pro — a highly talented athlete, no doubt, but not someone who would strike fear into the Ian Poulters of the golfing world. —