The Masters is the youngest major, yet it has established several traditions because of the returning to Augusta National every year that has allowed the tournament to catch up in some ways to the other three monster events in the men’s game. The honorary starters have transitioned from generation to generation and currently the combined Masters titles of Nicklaus, Player and Watson is eleven and their overall major championship haul is 35. Their mere presence together on Thursday morning on the first tee made me emotional watching from a monitor in the press building. I saw Gary Player in person 50 years ago at the Greater Greensboro Open in 1973 when I was six years old. I was on the grounds in 1980 at U.S. Open when Nicklaus shot 63 in the opening round and went on to win that year at Baltusrol. On that same Thursday in 1980 I saw Tom Watson make a hole-in-one on the 4th hole at Baltusrol. These three men are part of the soundtrack of my life loving golf, and you simply don’t know how much longer they will do this wonderful exercise together.
My day centered on four live hours hosting the radio coverage on SiriusXM with a rotating cast of people from Carl Paulson, Brian Katrek, Taylor Zarzour, John Maginnes, Fred Albers and Chantel McCabe. All with the gift of gab that is essential on radio, and we were focused primarily on the featured group of Tiger Woods, Viktor Hovland and Xander Schauffele. Tiger was simply not sharp. He labored all the way around, and on a day ripe for scoring, his 74 felt higher. Hovland was almost spotless and produced a stellar up-and-down on 10 to hold the round in place and after thirteen holes he was 7-under and looked like he might be headed to something very low.
I got out on the golf course at 2:30 and caught up with the group of Jason Day, Zach Johnson and amateur Gordon Sargent. Having attended Vanderbilt, I was able to catch up with their terrific golf coach Scott Limbaugh as well as a dear friend and Sigma Chi fraternity brother who flew in to meet his two sons who attend Vanderbilt. I bumped into the Walker Cup captain Mike McCoy, the reigning British Amateur champion, who was out watching Sargent who is destined to be on the US team next fall at St. Andrews. Conditions could not have been better for scoring, and it showed on the white, hand-operated scoreboards.
Quick hits
- The tenth hole is the most majestic inland hole in my estimation in the world. Grand in scale with big and bold features from the Mackenzie bunker to the cascading loblolly pines it embodies the grandness of the golf course.
- The landing zone for good tees shots from the new tee on hole 13 make the hole what Bob Jones intended. The decision to go for the green should be “momentous” and it is once again.
- From the top of the hill on 15, the green looks like an extended island green with the pond on 16 at the far exterior of the 15th green.
- No lunch report today as I simply did not have time to grab anything, and I was not eating a pimento cheese sandwich on the course because they are grossly overrated. My Mom makes great homemade pimento cheese, so the bar is high but the sandwiches here are living on a reputation that is part nostalgia and maybe an ounce of fear that you shouldn’t say anything negative about the staple Masters food item. Sorry, they are not good, its o.k. The event’s reputation will be unaffected.
- Best dressed media member. Doug Ferguson of the Associated Press. He’s a lion in the business and his uniform of a Hawaiian shirt and shorts with his well bronzed face is one of the iconic looks in any media center.
- We wait for the impending weather rolling in late tomorrow.