I've been reading all these Masters post mortem topics in semi-amazment!
Some of you guys might be good architectural analysts but when it comes to analyzing tour pro golf and golfers I think a few of you are living in some kind of dream world!
Some maintain that the changes to ANGC this year of 200-300yds in added length makes no difference to the Tour pros or a leaderboard of the world's top ranked players! Really? Those guys are good but they're not quite that good!
Of course it makes a difference to them. Others say if someone shot a 30 on the back nine in one of the earlier rounds there is every reason to expect that someone or maybe more than just someone should be able to do that on Sunday.
Do any of you think maybe the pins might have made any difference at all? Maybe you don't! Maybe you think they can fire at anything, no matter where it is! Maybe you think they're that good and if they fail to do that they must be whimps or not thinking clearly! Somebody actually said that Mickelson wasn't thinking clearly because he should have hit the ball 10 ft below the pin and he hit some past the pin or just over the green! Did it ever occur to you that the Tour Pros miss shots too? They don't miss them as bad as we do but they certainly do miss them!
Even more impressive than that (to me anyway) is they know they're gonna miss shots--they expect that to inevitably happen and they can deal with that (apparently) one helluva lot better than we can. They also are pretty fine-tuned about estimating where they miss their shots too!
I've even heard things on this board from Tom Doak, no less, that amateurs are too aggressive and Tour pros are too conservative! There's no doubt in my mind that most amateurs are too aggressive. That's generally because they have no real idea how to calculate their overall ability in relation to various risks and rewards! But the Tour pros certainly know how to do that--amazingly well actually.
If Tom Doak or any of you really think the tour pros truly can generally just get a bit more aggressive and consequently generally score better, then I think he or all of you should get them all together and let them in on that interesting little secret that you'all have somehow come up with! You might even get lucky and have one of them explain to you in some detail why that is just not so!
And some say all those in contention on Sunday who failed to produce and/or win are whinners and excuse makers! That's certainly not what I heard those interviewed say. Els explained very clearly he made a really bad mental mistake on #13, got greedy, got out of his game plan, hit maybe a good shot that happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time (the tees had been lengthened on that hole) because the hole does not play the same with the added length this year! That's not an excuse--that's a clear statement of fact, and an honest one, in my opinion! He didn't say his foot slipped or something when it didn't! That would be an excuse.
Goosen was honest too and said he just could not stop pulling his irons all day and consequently could not get the ball near the hole although he did get it on the greens but in (admittedly) 3 putt range on that course! That's no excuse!
And Mickelson, who finished 3rd did not say he was happy with 3rd! He said he wanted nothing more than to win Masters and that he is dying to win a major too, but that he did not think that 3rd place in the Masters was some kind of disaster either!
I'm actually impressed that Mickelson can keep putting himself in contention weak after week despite the fact that he's saddled with deep dark demons of secrectly wanting to fail, as so many of you guys have decided, and that he keeps bouncing back week after week after these cotton candy headed decisions and shots that you'all have determined he hits. Mickelson's decision and the shot he hit into #12 is impressive and is supposed to be the "no can do" shot on #12 on Sunday!
I don't think Mickelson is making excuses--I think he's trying to take something positive out of another disappointment from a player of his talent! Furthermore, because he does that, I'm predicting he will win a major soon despite his life long super aggressive style of play many of you say is insane and will never work!
But practically an entire field of whimps, whinners and weak competitors who can't stand up to Woods and collectively suffer from the "deer in the headlights" syndrome? Come on--that's impossible! 45 of the best players in the world failing to break 70 is more than the "deer in the headlights" syndrome.
Of course Tiger Woods is on their minds. He's on everyone's mind! So was Nicklaus, Hogan and Jones! Some can't handle it probably but others can--just like always!
So that's not what it is--certainly not totally, as some of you are saying! What it really is is Tiger Woods is the best damn golfer anyone has ever seen and maybe ever will. They know that, although a lot of you all don't seem to know it or know it yet. They know they can beat him but not as often as they can beat each other!
These guys aren't whimps, whinners and weak competitors, they're realists! I think they're trying their asses off, probably far more than if there was no Tiger Woods. But they know what a Sunday production record of 23-2 when in the lead or tied for it is all about! A number like that just ain't no fluke! That's 91%, by the way!
They know that has to go down too, and I would bet the Elses, Mickelsons, Garcias et al are pretty damned convinced they will be the ones to drive that percentage down. That percentage will come down too, but maybe not by all that much, maybe not by as much as they think it will or you'all think it should.
And the reason is because Tiger Woods is just one f... phenomenon--it's as simple as that! They will beat him but probably not as often as Nicklaus's fellow competitors beat him!
But, although, the Masters was a dud this year for drama, the people that control ANGC have to take a real close look at the changes they made and just where and how they made them, if they care to make some of those holes play the way the Masters has in the past! There is some fine-line stuff going on here architecturally that translates into Sunday score production and drama (or not). It's really not that much different than GeoffShac's column on the changes ANGC made to the water level and "beautification" project on #13 on Rae's Creek a few years ago.
They obviously thought that was meaningless to the pros but it practically wreaked the entire "go/no go" theme of that hole--so the following year they changed it back to the way it was before and everything went back to the way it was before and worked out fine!