A stalwart stumbles

[Ran Morrissett]

For thirty plus years, I have never played golf late on Masters’ Sunday. It’s like Nadal’s grittiness at the French Open .... hanging in there and getting the job done. Bottom line: I can sit on a sofa with the best of them.
 
Partly out of boredom and partly out of social protest, my amazing endurance record ended today after JS birdied 13. Chris Buie and I left GCA world headquarters and headed out for a quick eight holes at the Royal & Ancient Southern Pines GC.
 
There were a few ways that this Masters might have become riveting. One of them COULD HAVE BEEN on 11 after JS blocked his tee ball. For me, the trees mandated a set, prudent chip out. JS played it to perfection as well as the subsequent pitch to secure par. Sensible golf but not Masters’ Sunday spectacular.
 
Suppose there hadn’t been any (or at least fewer) trees. What might have happened? Alas, we will never know. 
 
Perhaps, he plays the same prudent bullet chip way right but maybe not. Having a go at the green would have been memorable, one way or another. The intangible ‘will he or won’t he’ seemed absent this year. Do you agree?
 
Playing this afternoon brought me no great satisfaction as my streak ended but the lack of swashbuckling golf didn’t warrant staying put.

[Peter Pallotta]

Ran -

I was thinking today of the luxuries and limits of strategic golf.

A wonderful champion is Jordan Speith.

A (still) wonderfully strategic course is Augusta.

The luxuries: that a golfer of average length, if he appreciates the nuances of great golf course design and consistently makes the right choices, can even today score well enough to win a major championship.

The limits: that such is the nature of strategic design that said nuances and options can be mastered by a smart young golfer, if he has enough Architectural Intelligence (AI*), even before he has played single round in competition.

Peter
* is part of the trade-marked Architectural Intelligence* to distinguish it from Artificial Intelligence (AI).

[Carl Rogers]

the 16th could have been pivotal if Rose made the birdie and Spieth missed the par .... then Speith 2 shots ahead w/ 2 to play

[JESII]

It's always interesting, to me, to observe the evolution of momentum of as many players as possible throughout a tournament.

There are inevitably ebbs and flows over 72 holes. The timing of your ebb could effect my flow for 3 or 4 holes and result in a 5 or 6 shot swing. Speith never let a single ebb last more than a hole. He hit enough crappy shots to finish close to par this week, but...

He completely demoralized the three other hot young guns before they broke a sweat on Friday. Can you imagine folding the tent 1/4 of the way through? McIlroy and Fowler managed to rebound while Day languished all weekend.

I think it was that fact alone...his ability to not let the door open at all, which is so rare, that kept me tuned in, until the putt on 16...

[astavrides]

Seems to me that there were about the correct amount of trees. More trees and recovery shots wouldn't be possible. Fewer trees, or no trees, and there would be nothing to recover from.

[Colin Macqueen]

Gentlemen,

This year our club here in Oz resurrected their "Masters Breakfast" shindig as the last 12 holes are feeding live on Monday 06.00a.m. Downunder. There were 60-70 "stalwarts" in attendance. It was interesting that no-one was riveted to the tele screens.
The chattering of the masses over devilled kidneys indicated very early on that a passionate and excited involvement was lacking in this band of committed gowfers!
The derring-do of a Nicklaus or Ballesteros, the lack of "swashbuckling" heroics a la Mickleson; the cut and thrust, or ebb and flow as J.S. describes it, were, for me, missing. As with yourself and Chris a goodly number of the breakfast party, myself included, left before the denouement and sallied forth to do battle on our own hallowed turf.

In my opinion this was symptomatic of the "stumbling stalwart" syndrome you are describing. Nostalgia! Nostalgia!

Cheers Colin

[James Bennett]

I enjoyed it.

Yes, the set-up was different, but good scores were possible, and balls stuck on banks, and 'texas wedges' were less successful, and shots could be struck from a little out of position.

It is only once a year, and is one of the two best tournaments on television.

James B (not so curmudgeonly today)

[Ed Tilley]

I don't think there was anything wrong with the set up. There were plenty of memorable shots played over the final round. These guys are so good that they seem to be able to get out of any trouble - and Augusta affords the possibility to escape if you hit a good shot. The problem was simply that one guy played so well that there was never any real doubt as to the winner, no changes of lead with resulting drama. It is always the way. Performances that we tend to think of in hindsight as "memorable" and "great" - e.g. Tiger at Pebble or Augusta 1997, Rory at Congressional or Kiawah, Kaymer at Pinehurst - are actually deadly dull at the time. I went to bed when Spieth hit it on the green at 13 - was about 10.30 and not worth staying up for on a school night!

[Rick Shefchik]

Spieth seemed like a swashbuckler when he went for the greens on 13 and 15 Sunday. He didn't have to -- Zach Johnson certainly wouldn't have -- but maybe he felt like the risk was worth it because the green aprons weren't shaved as tightly as they have been in past years. One thing seems clear: the riskier the shot, the fewer players who will take the risk.

[Jason Thurman]

I suspect the relatively dull nature of this year's tournament was a one-year blip resulting from inexplicably soft conditions and a player on a hell of a hot streak, but it does strike me that the exciting shots at Augusta weren't very exciting this year. Balls weren't rolling out of the fairways and into trouble - if anything, the second cut acted as a safety net. Balls cruising toward fairway bunkers generally were halted before rolling in by the soft conditions. Balls weren't bouncing through greens or spinning back off the front, and even when they did they didn't run far. I saw balls stopping on banks and edges where in past years they would have rolled off into water or runoff areas.

I don't attribute the lack of "will he or won't he?" scenarios this year to trees or other architectural changes. I really just think the course was too soft and thus lacking any real risk for playing what would normally be bold shots, and the players were hitting the ball far enough to make approach shots on tough holes easy in such soft conditions. The worst was watching 13 and 15 - there was just no edge to those holes at all. Reaching in two didn't take two spectacular shots, but rather two average ones. The risk/reward balance was out of whack as a result.

[Steve Lang]

  yeh, wonder if Chip Beck regrets not going for the 15th to challenge bernhard, instead locking in his 2nd place???

[John Kavanaugh]

yeh, wonder if Chip Beck regrets not going for the 15th to challenge bernhard, instead locking in his 2nd place???

Do you think the grass behind the 15th was as long and soft in Beck's year as this?  Beck may have gone if he did not need to fear the pond beyond. Water behind a short par 5 is an oft forgotten great hazard.

[Brent Hutto]

That misclub from Jordan in the first round would have found the water over the green in 2 out of 3 past Masters I'm pretty sure.

[BCrosby]

Ran says about the 11th: "There were a few ways that this Masters might have become riveting. One of them COULD HAVE BEEN on 11 after JS blocked his tee ball. For me, the trees mandated a set, prudent chip out. JS played it to perfection as well as the subsequent pitch to secure par."

The 11th is now so hard that only risk averse, "sensible" play makes sense. That is a shame.

The new trees that tighten the fairway and shift the old LZ to the left are simply depressing.

If the goal was to toughen the hole, the way ANGC chose to do it was remarkable only for its lack of imagination.

Bob  

[Steve Lang]

  this was the first year that i got to watch a lot of the masters online, being arm-in-sling status on a couch,  the 11th was the most boring hole as player after player bailed right on the approach and showed no real interest in taking that green on!

[Patrick_Mucci]

Ran,

Sometimes the golf course can't orchestrate drama.

Sometimes the dice roll your way, other times not.

Look at Tiger's lopsided win years ago.

Was that before the trees on 11 :

Fate doesn't always follow our desires.

Hope you enjoyed your golf.

Why didn't you play earlier in the morning ?

[Peter Pallotta]

Just goes to show how much personal tastes and temperaments have to do with this.

I found the US Open at famed Merion tedious to watch and aesthetically unpleasing, and the US Open at famed Pinehurst #2 equally (though differently) tedious. For previous US Opens, I have to go all the way back to Oakmont in 2007 for anything resembling a satisfying viewing experience. (The PGA Championships all blur togther in my mind, while the Opens are in a class by themselves.)

Meanwhile, at Augusta/The Masters: I enjoyed very much watching Jordan Speith play a (still) strategically interesting and lovely course brilliantly; and can go back all the way to 2007 or 2008 before recalling a Masters that wasn't, in its own way, fun to watch.

[Bart Bradley]

The magic of Augusta is watching the ball rolling on the ground...towards the cup, away from the cup, towards the hazards, whatever..

Unfortunately, that didn't happen much this year because the grass was too lush and the ground too soft.  I have no idea if mother nature was entirely at fault but I would rather see Augusta with less perfect lush grass and more roll.  The excitement and danger of the shots increases significantly with firmness.

Bart

[Gary Sato]

Thankfully the rest of the public did not follow Mr. Morrissetts example.

CBS Sports’ final-round coverage of the 2015 Masters on Sunday, April 12, which saw Jordan Spieth win the coveted Green Jacket in record-tying fashion, earned an average household metered market rating/share of 9.6/20, up 23% from last year’s 7.8/17.

[Brent Hutto]

Gary

Tiger did not play last year. A 23% increase with Tiger vs without is probably equivalent to a 27% decrease once you factor in the hordes of Tiger-but-only-Tiger viewers.

[cary lichtenstein]

WOW, a lot of negativity...I thought it was a wonderful tournament from start to finish. Shows you how little I know.

[Bill_McBride]

I'm with you Cary. I loved watching that kid manage the course and dominate an elite field. I thought the turning point was when he got up and down on Saturday after a terrible double on 17 and very loose second to 18.  If he screws up that pitch I don't think he wins the tournament. 

[noonan]

Lefty swashbuckled in that bunker shot for eagle.

[John Kirk]

I liked it a lot.

Augusta National is an awesome tournament course.  Great angles, great greens, and a great rhythm.  Sure, Jordan Spieth had a big lead, but he still had to execute.  He can sure roll those 10-20 foot putts.  And always great to see a couple of older players on the first two pages of the leader board.  Phil Mickelson played like a champion.

[Bill Brightly]

yeh, wonder if Chip Beck regrets not going for the 15th to challenge bernhard, instead locking in his 2nd place???

Water behind a short par 5 is an oft forgotten great hazard.

I agree. Does anyone know if the shots going over the 15th green this year would have gone in the water in prior years?