2. They’ve played, learned that it was actually difficult, and decided not to like it because, brah, I don’t suck at anything… (other than life of course)
That doesn’t cover the scope of the suckitude of this tournament however, in a four day stretch where the low score was 67 and the final 20 players on Sunday couldn’t break par, there was a detached and very distant feel to this tournament. There were no roars on Sunday, there were no back nine charges, there were no low scores from a few groups ahead of the leaders to add intrigue and excitement to this competition… this from a tournament that was world renowned for: “The Masters doesn’t start ‘till the back nine on Sunday”. Ack. Some will blame the wind… but that’s a scape goat here. It’s not as though the place was on fire for the first three rounds, and there were fantastic conditions to be had out there. What did we get? A bloodbath… which isn’t what the Masters used to be about. Suddenly the Masters and the folks in those green jackets have caught a case of USGAitis… and it reeks. I do not enjoy the U.S. Open, it’s not entertaining for me to sit there and watch train wreck after train wreck on a tricked up and artificially toughened forgettable track in the summer sun. Leave that garbage to the USGA.
The Masters is above that, its tradition is so interwoven with the holes and the players who have made them memorable that to trifle with them to the extent that the people down there have has robbed the tournament of much of its magic. NOBODY CARES that Augusta yielded under par scores because it was still a course that demanded and rewarded solid golf and shockingly: yielded exciting golf. The people at Augusta have gone too far with their changes. The course is too long and they have combined this length by making the greens no more receptive, adding cuts of rough where none previously existed, and essentially turning the track into the U.S. Open dressed in green sheep’s clothing. Which is vomit inducing.
Don't plan on seeing these reactions on Sunday anytime soon...
There’s a ridiculous and nasty venereal disease going around the sport of golf right now concerning the word “par”. “We must protect par!” has long been the cry of nobodies and dweebs at the USGA, and now with the artificial and unnecessary tricking up of Augusta National, we’re starting to see the effects of this kind of hysteria. Par is just a goddamn number, that’s all it is, a number, and an arbitrary one at that. What I want to see is exciting golf, I want to see players dueling down the stretch, and I have not a single care in the world whether that duel takes place at 15 under or 1 under or even 3 over. We got none of those things Sunday, because we’ve got courses now that don’t allow players any opportunity to do anything other than get lucky, and they are covered up with stupid words like “demanding”, “exacting”, and “a challenge”. They are none of these things, they’re contrived and stupid. Anyone can make a golf course hard by growing the rough for a couple of weeks, saying par 5’s are par 4’s and making the fairways as wide as your hallway. Augusta has started to show the early symptoms of this ridiculousness and the tournament has suffered the consequences for the past two years.
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2 comments:
Immelmen may have won the human component on Sunday - but no doubt the real winner was the course. Nobody beat it! And that's what made this tournament seem so burdensome.
Now, surely the powers that be at Augusta are going to lighten up next year right? I mean - here's how desperate I was for SOMETHING: I wanted Tiger to make a charge. I actually wanted Tiger to go out, do his Tiger thing, and shoot a 67 in the wind. And you know what? Nobody was going to do that yesterday, because the course couldn't let anybody do it. Where were the scoring holes? Where was there a single opportunity for a player to say "I've got to make my move here?"
It was non-existent.
Immelmen should have been dead when he hit in in the water on Sunday. There should have been somebody making noise. But there wasn't because the course was all US open on us.
Sad.
I expect a response, champ.
You're completely right Mastin, the course is simply set up too hard... perhaps even more telling is the fact that the first three days yielded a low score of 67... in nearly perfect conditions. That's a joke.
You can't take a course that places all of its emphasis on playing to the proper location on the greens and making putts and then go out and add 500 yards to it and not make requisite changes to the greens to still allow for scoring opportunities. I would love to see the players be more frank about the setup, you KNOW they have to be frustrated. I'm sure Nicklaus is as displeased with it now as he was when they first unveiled the changes, and if anyone's opinion should carry some weight, it's his.
This is a place where 65 and 66 were almost required in at least one round to win the green jacket. Now "going low" means shooting 67 on a perfect day and even par if the wind happens to blow with a bit of vigor... There's no need for the Masters to try to assume some role as the toughest test in golf, it was NEVER that at any point in time... furthermore the fans don't want to see that. They want to see an exciting tournament, and that means goddamn eagles and birdies on the back nine on Sunday. It ain't hard, it was a tried and true formula.
The Masters has always been the best THEATER in golf, it's the most gorgeous venue that presents players the opportunity to go out and do some really exciting things and bring home a major. There's nothing of lessor worth in that role, there's nothing to be ashamed of there, the fact that they've gotten on this kick of trying to toughen up the course is ridiculous and has singlehandedly turned the tournament into a snoozefest instead of a spine-tingle fest that it was almost annually before hand.
Yes the players of yesteryear were hitting longer clubs into these greens... but guess what, the greens weren't freakin' pool tables back then either, you could actually stop the ball!
The whole thing is a joke, and frankly I hope there is someone with some goddamn sense there that can say hey, we need to ratchet it back, tone the greens down a half notch, bring the tees up to reasonable but testing distances and turn the boys loose.