[Jerry Kluger]

Tiger was on the local sports station here in the DC area this afternoon and was asked about ANGC.  He said the course is simply too tough for anyone to make a run at the leader on Sunday.  He said they moved up some tees on Sunday but it still was 7300 yards.  He felt it is too much like US Open conditions including the second cut of rough and the speed of the greens.  He said the greens were running at least 12 but he laughingly said there isn't a flat spot on the greens big enough to get a proper reading.  He heard that they were considering making some changes for next year but he would not elaborate.   In his opinion, the winning score should be at least 12 under. 

I was listening in the car so I am sure that I'm not exact about what he said but it's close.

[Patrick Hodgdon]

I would tend to agree with Tiger.

[Mark Bourgeois]

Thanks, Jerry.  Click here to hear Tiger say:

"Other than that, though, the golf course has just gotten too hard."

A few other quotes (if I typed them correctly!):

"The golf course is set up too hard."

"I've heard a lot of people say that the Masters has kind of lost its identity...it used to be on the back nine Sunday you'd hear the roars and have things happen...it's evolving into more of the US Open mentality.  As a player, you have to grind it out, try to make more pars, then sprinkle a birdie here and there instead of being more aggressive. I think the last year where we've seen guys go low was the year [2004] we saw Phil come from behind to shoot 32 or 31 on the back nine."

Q: "Would you dare ever go to someone in a green jacket and say, 'You know, maybe you ought to try this--"

Tiger: "All players have, a lot of the past champions have. But Augusta makes their own policies, they do what they want to do and a lot of times that's great for the game of golf and I think they might have made the course just a little bit more difficult. I heard they're making some changes for next year so maybe that might facilitate some lower scores."

Mark

[BVince]

If you think about it, the pins were really accessible on the back 9 - just like normal.  The "idea" that the winning score should be 12 under was completely in reach this year but adverse weather conditions made the course play way more difficult on Sunday than the previous three.  I think the course is about right.  It may take the players some time to adjust, but as the years pass you will see them elevate their game and continue the tradition of posting low final round numbers. 

[Matt_Cohn]

We should contextualize that quote accurately: "The golf course is too hard" to shoot low scores on the back nine Sunday. Not, "The golf course is too hard and should be made easier," although that was implied.

Very interesting 5 minutes or so with a couple of things I hadn't heard Tiger say before. Worth a listen.

[Phil Benedict]

Tiger must have seen Phil McDade's thread about being a one-dimensional major winner who is more likely to win if the scoring is low.  He's probably lurking in the background of GCA. 

[Mark Bourgeois]

Related to that, in the interview he's asked whether he TiVos tournaments then studies his swing / play.

He has an assistant get footage from the Tour office instead of taping the network broadcast.  He never listens to the announcers!

Matt, the interesting point to me about context is an impression I get from listening to his recent comments about the Masters.  Just my impression maybe but he sounds to me like the victim of a theft.  Which he is...

Mark

[PThomas]

I wonder if Tiger would express the same thoughts if he had made a few more putts, hit good drives on 13 and 15, etc................

[Jerry Kluger]

Tiger played well on Sunday but par shouldn't be the score that puts you in contention.  He hasn't been able to come from behind in a major but he did play well - I believ 14 out of 18 greens in regulation.  Fact is, 16 - 18 simply aren't that exciting to watch and except for a really bad shot, like Immelman on 16, there really isn't much going on for those holes.

[Rick Shefchik]

The weather was not conducive to comebacks at Augusta in '07 and this year. Wait for decent weather on Sunday before declaring birdies and eagles endangered species.

[Kalen Braley]

Not to sound too callous, but I'm not surprised to hear yet another rant about some course being set up too tough.

I've said it many times on this site, and I'll say it again.  Despite the very brutal Sunday conditions, and how "hard" the course was with the fast greens, the finishing score was still slighty lower than the 74 year average for the Masters.

I just don't get all the buy into this stuff.  If the winds had been normal, Immelman would have gotten to 13 under and none of this would be an issue.  I just don't get all the knee/jerk reactionary to the Masters. To boot I didn't hear one word of this nonsense when Phil won his last two times there at -7 and -9...

Immelman is getting tossed under the bus with all this post masters talk being about the course and otherwise instead of his fine play thru the week.

[Jon Wiggett]

Gentlemen,

there have been lots of threads about the changes at ANGC and the universal feeling is they have been for the worse. It is interesting that when Tiger says something negative about them all of you seem to be against his comments. Would it be the same if someone from this site said this or is this just because its Tiger?

Are you really all in favour of the changes

[Phil McDade]

Jon:

I don't see the changes at Augusta as necessarily being an either-or/black-or-white situation. I have favored the lengthening of some holes, particularly 13, 15, and 18, to keep up with technology. I also think, given recent trends, that the course ought to consider lengthening 12, given that it now plays as the easiest of the course's par 3s and seems to hold not nearly as much terror as it once did (lots of players hitting 9-irons there).

But I think some of the changes on the par 4s, mainly lengthening and tightening (7 and 17 come to mind, as well as 1 and 10) have created a course that lessens the chances of the kind of birdie/eagle runs seen past years by folks like O'Meara in '98, Jack in '86, Price in '86, and even Tiger in '97.

Because the course keeps its green speeds so fast for theMasters, and those greens are what they are, it seems as if Augusta can get very close to being over the top in terms of difficulty with challenging weather conditions. I don't think Sunday as over the top, but it was close, and -- more importantly -- in those conditions the course is simply too tough to make a sustained under-par run.

[John_Cullum]

The most famous come back ever was in 1986, winning score -9. Most of those great tournaments from the 80's the winning score was around -8, give or take a stroke or 2. Something is amiss at the Masters, but it's not the final score, I really can't put my finger on what it is that's missing; although, it seems that noone can make a putt on Sunday for the last 3 years

[Rick Shefchik]

Phil,

I think you're right about the course being close to over the top on Sunday, but how often do we see those conditions at Augusta? I don't recall ever seeing a player's pant legs flapping the way Tiger's were as he sized up his approach shot on 11. Having watched the highlight reel from '86 about a million times, I know Jack wasn't dealing with cold and wind when he made his famous charge.

Maybe the ANGC brain trust has been a bit too quick to react in recent years, but maybe we have been, too. I'd love to see the conditions the players enjoyed Thursday and Friday of this year show up on Sunday next year. Then, I believe, the Masters would be more like its old self.

[Kalen Braley]

The big problem with much of the analysis is this knee-jerk assumption that it's the architecture that's causing it.  We've all played this game for a long time.  Sometimes, wierd stuff happens and sometimes it doesn't.  Maybe this is as simple as wierd stuff hasn't happened for a couple of years.  I'm not sold on the causal connection between the architecture and the beta of the tournament. 

Shivas,

Well said, I've been meaning to say something like this for a couple of days now but just couldn't seem to get the words right. 

To boot if Tiger had won the last two years instead of coming in 2nd, I doubt we would hear a peep about this a.l.a Phil.

John is right though..there is something missing.  And thats the big name players not winning....but I'm sorry to say its got zero to do with the course.

[Phil McDade]

Kalen:

You sometimes don't know when a "big name" arrives to win his first major. OK, I'm sure folks thought that when Jack won the US Open in '92, and Tiger the Masters in '97, there were many more to follow. But Watson had choked away two US Opens before he won his first British Open in '75, which he won in a somewhat less-than-convincing manner. Trevino was the funny Mexican guy who had one top finish in a major before winning the US Open in '68. Hogan -- history's greatest late bloomer -- won his first major in 1946 and it was promptly discredited in some quarters because he didn't face anyone particularly noteworthy other than Demaret.

Of late, I like the chances of Immelman winning multiple majors a bit more than Johnson, but I can see both of those guys winning a major again.

[Kalen Braley]

Phil,

I'm not following you, but this was one of my points in my previous posts.  Immelman is a fine player and all the talk about the course instead of him is a disservice to him.  He's a fine champion and earned every stitch of thread in that green jacket.

As to comparing him to some of the games greats, we will certainly have to wait for him to create his legacy.

[Jon Wiggett]

To me I find it is the rough that makes the difference. Before a shot being a bit off line still left the player with a shot, all be it a more difficult one, to the green. Now the rough combined with the contours make it too risky and the players are faced with a no brainer lay up. This leads to less risk taking off the tee.

It is true that the winning scores were usually no lower in the past but you must not forget that Augusta WAS a course where a player going for birdie might walk off the green with an eagle or a double bogey. 1986, hole 15 Seve in the rough. Does he go for it? No. Lay up, wedge on holed putt for birdie. Jack the winner?

They are changing the character of the tournament. The most important comment that Tiger made was that the Masters was more like the US Open.

[A.G._Crockett]

Analyzing Tiger's comment in terms of scoring is misinterpreting.  It is the STYLE of play that he is talking about.

If the winds don't blow on Sunday, and Immelman shoots 69, he ends up at a low number, and is the first guy to be in the 60's all 4 days.

But the low round for the week was a 67, and there were only THREE of those!  And Thur.-Sat. were pretty close to ideal weather.

BTW, and I know I'm repeating myself here, the weather on Sunday was not that bad.  Yes, it was windy, but not outrageous for April, and it was nearly 70 degrees.  It was a very pleasant day to be outside, though difficult to hole out wedges from the fairway.   But I think that explaining the lack of ability to go low by the weather is not realistic.  There are very few Masters that don't involve some rain and some wind.  It is, after all, early April.

[jeffwarne]

The most famous come back ever was in 1986, winning score -9. Most of those great tournaments from the 80's the winning score was around -8, give or take a stroke or 2. Something is amiss at the Masters, but it's not the final score, I really can't put my finger on what it is that's missing; although, it seems that noone can make a putt on Sunday for the last 3 years

John,
As you may know I have been a defender of the lengthening of several holes (not 7) to retain the risk reward equation.
However, I do think the greens are too fast. they've already had to flatten may plateaus to keep the ball on them.
The feeder pins and the green speeds make some holes a silly game (14,16)
Watch the 1978 Masters and you'll see you had to land closer to your target to get it close on those holes.
Other holes, you miss by a foot and it's 100 feet from the hole.
Nobody in the world is controlling their distance to the foot-they're just getting lucky on some shots.

[Jerry Kluger]

Perhaps another way to say this is that they are taking the brave shots out of the game and making it a very conservative attitude which is not what ANGC is all about.  You could wind up with a bunch of winners like Andy North and Curtis Strange - let the USGA have them - the Masters is about excitement  and that means making a back nine charge on Sunday; that simply isn't going to happen with the course as it is.

[Phil McDade]

John is right though..there is something missing.  And thats the big name players not winning....but I'm sorry to say its got zero to do with the course.

Kalen:

I actually thought that the 2007 Masters was a blast to watch, even with the high winning score. I found the 2008 Masters pretty dull, save for about five minutes surrounding Immelman's 3rd shot at 16.

To me, what was interesting was watching the emergence of two players younger than Tiger who showed potential for taking him on and becoming something of a rival, in a way that the yo-yo Mickelson has not, so far. I was really impressed with Johnson's play at the last Ryder Cup, where he won a pairs match pretty much by himself, and played well in the singles with all the emotion and fervor surrounding Darren Clarke. Immelman, as others have said, is something of a prodigy; I think it was only a matter of time before he won a major.

My point was that these may be some of the "big names" emerging to challenge Tiger, which is what I think the game needs right now.

[Jon Wiggett]

Perhaps another way to say this is that they are taking the brave shots out of the game and making it a very conservative attitude which is not what ANGC is all about.  You could wind up with a bunch of winners like Andy North and Curtis Strange - let the USGA have them - the Masters is about excitement  and that means making a back nine charge on Sunday; that simply isn't going to happen with the course as it is.

Jerry,

spot on Not sure what your gripe is with Curtis Strange though. One of the better US players from the 80,s.

[W.H. Cosgrove]

Phil,

I'm not following you, but this was one of my points in my previous posts.  Immelman is a fine player and all the talk about the course instead of him is a disservice to him.  He's a fine champion and earned every stitch of thread in that green jacket.

As to comparing him to some of the games greats, we will certainly have to wait for him to create his legacy.

You miss the point.  The tournament Immelman won isn't the same Masters that the greats won in the past.  Immelman played great, lead wire to wire and behaved in an exemplary manner.  That said, the tournament has become insufferably boring to watch as the players lay up to the par 5's and the difficulty of the putting surfaces has negated any of the big moves that Augusta National was famous for on Sundays. 

The members of Augusta, apparently, have become so worried about par and all of the things they think that represents, that they have lost track of their own market.  It is particularly odd that the great captains of American industry don't understand their own market strategy and the tournaments place in the market.  The Masters was the MOST exciting of the majors, promoting the risk and reward of the golf course and representing the best in American business.  Now it has become a plodding, beureacratic mess of a tournament.......just like the American economy. 

It is time for the tournament to stop worrying about how the winner's score looks to par and go back to celebrating those who risk big and either fade away trying or win with a flourish. 

[Tags:]

Tags:

[Tags:]

Tags:

Call to undefined function theme_linktree()