Interesting roundtable discussion in the New York Times online format only. Below is the lead-in to the Monday discussion. At the bottom of the page I have posted links to the first two days of discussions. First day includes comments per the changes to Augusta National, length, and shotmaking.
"The Global Sports Forum with Christopher Clarey is a periodic
discussion featuring international journalists exploring the issues and
events in sports around the world. This edition will preview the Masters
golf tournament April 9 to 12 in Augusta, Ga."
"CHRISTOPHER CLAREY: We’re back for the latest edition of the forum: our digital water cooler for some of the planet’s leading sports reporters and analysts. We looked at Formula One’s shifting hierarchy in our last debate, but we appear to still be firmly in the Tiger Woods era in golf. With the Masters set to begin Thursday, and with Woods set to make his return to the majors after major knee surgery, I have brought together several of the sport’s finest writers.
We have Larry Dorman of The New York Times, fresh off a leg injury of his own yet still ready for Augusta National. We have John Huggan, the respected golf correspondent for Scotland on Sunday and many top golf magazines, and one of Colin Montgomerie’s teammates as a youth and one of his sharpest critics as an adult. We have Richard Hinds, the consistently clever columnist and golf writer for The Sydney Morning Herald in Australia. And we have Lewine Mair, chairman of the Association of Golf Writers and the first female golf correspondent for London’s Daily Telegraph, who held the post from 1997 until last year.
I have divided our discussion into four parts — rounds if you will — and will be posting each one in the run-up to the Masters.
Why don’t we start with Tiger? Everything in golf does. He remained the primary topic, even for much of his eight-month absence from the game. He won last week in dramatic fashion. He has won four times at the Masters but not lately. Does he really deserve to be the favorite to win so early in his comeback?"
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/05/sports/golf/05clarey.html?pagewanted=1&ref=golfhttp://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/07/sports/golf/07clarey.html?ref=golf