The 2008 Masters Tournament tees it up next Thursday at the historic Augusta National Golf Club in Georgia. The Masters is the first championship of the year and it is truly unique in that it is the only Grand Slam event played year in and year out on the same storied golf course. The other three majors, the U.S. Open, the British Open and the PGA Championship, move every year among a rotation of well-known classic layouts.
Zach Johnson is the defending champion, having survived a most difficult Masters course setup. Johnson”s aggregate total of 1-over-par 289 was the highest since Jackie Burke ran down amateur phenom Ken Venturi in 1956.
During a 50-year period of modern-era golf, the Masters was all about combined power off the tee and brilliant putting on tournament golf”s most treacherous greens. Every now and then someone who was a gifted putter would win the green jacket such as Ben Crenshaw (twice), Billy Casper, George Archer and Mark O”Meara. On the other hand, sometimes a profound ball striker such as Bernhard Langer (twice) and Vijay Singh would win even though they had questionable reputations as bosses of the moss.
However, more often than not, the Masters champion was a long-ball knocker who was savvy enough around the greens to win the coveted green jacket. Multiple Masters” winners such as Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer, Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson come immediately to mind. Masters champions such as Raymond Floyd, Freddie Couples and Tom Watson could bash it long and putt lights out to win. Linksters such as Tom Weiskopf, Johnny Miller, Davis Love III and Greg Norman spent a great deal of time atop the Masters leaderboard over the years and although they were never able to don a green jacket on Masters Sunday, their style of play certainly fit the winning formula.
It”s a new era at Augusta National nowadays with the course lengthened to 7,300 yards. The old formula for success will no longer do. The top pros used to be able to bash the ball long and far off the tee, setting up relatively easy iron shots into the par-5 holes such Nos. 13 and 15. The original golf course was designed with enormously wide fairways and the rough was about as high as the fairways at the local municipal course. Golfers such as Seve Ballesteros, Nick Faldo, Craig Stadler and Ian Woosnam could hit it sideways and still find their tee shot in the right corner of the fairway or in very light rough. There wasn”t a premium put upon accurate ballstriking off the tee.
Those heady days at Augusta National are long gone. The fairways have been noticeably narrowed, the rough is real major championship rough, and fully-grown trees were transplanted in an effort to make accuracy off the tee a most important virtue. The 2007 champion, Zach Johnson, is an excellent case in point. A top-10 money winner last year, he was the PGA Tour”s 169th longest driver and yet was its eighth most accurate off the tee.
Once you find the ever-shrinking fairways at Augusta National, you”ve got to hit your approach shot in such a controlled and intelligent way so as to leave yourself a makeable birdie putt. Most of the time, a 20-foot uphill putt is a much more advantageous birdie opportunity than a downhill, sidehill 10-foot putt. Johnson, who is a statistical anomaly because he was ranked 77th all-around on tour and yet 16th in scoring average, is a course management guy who laid up on all of the par-5 holes, the only Masters champion in recent memory to win in such a way.
It used to be said that the time to watch the Masters at its best was during the final nine on Sunday afternoon. Golf fans recall back-nine crash and burns by the likes of Ken Venturi, Ed Sneed, Curtis Strange, Seve Ballesteros, Greg Norman and David Duval. Forever etched in golf fans” memory banks was Jack Nicklaus” final-nine 6-under-par 30 in 1986, when the 46-year-old went birdie-par-eagle-birdie-birdie-par over the final six holes. Nicklaus held off Greg Norman, who birdied four holes in a row before he fatally bogeyed the 18th to lose by one.
Today, the Masters is a grinder”s tournament. In many ways it mirrors the setup for a United States Open. True, every now and then at past Masters, Nicklaus, Raymond Floyd or Tiger Woods would go low, but usually 9- or 10-under was the formula for a winning number. When Mark O”Meara, admittedly a surprise winner, went birdie-birdie over the last two holes to win the 1998 Masters, he put up scores of 74-70-68-67 for a 9-under-par 279. Last year, Zach Johnson, a player with a style very much like O”Meara”s, shot 71-73-76-69 for a 289 total. It was 10 shots higher 10 years later and it wasn”t an aberration. Nowadays, par is a very good number at the Masters.
The favorite at this year”s Masters is obviously Tiger Woods. He”s won enough tournaments in the first quarter of 2008 to justify a rock-solid career. Nontheless, he will have to drive the ball accurately to be able to find the winner”s circle for the fifth time at Augusta. He”s also under the self-imposed pressure of winning all four majors this year, and it”s really hard to win all four if you haven”t won the first. Nonetheless, because he is better than anyone else, mentally stronger than his fellow competitors, and keeps adding his name to golf”s record books, he as to be considered the hands-down favorite to wear the green jacket on Sunday afternoon.
Others such as Phil Mickelson, Jim Furyk and K.J. Choi have to be considered because of the overall strength of their games. Highly ranked golfers such as Adam Scott and Sergio Garcia will have issues at Augusta because their putters don”t always behave, and in the case of Sergio, sometimes his lack of maturity gets in the way. Ernie Els always has to be highly regarded, and I figure if Angel Cabrera is good enough to win a U.S. Open on that kind of a setup, then he”s good enough to win a Masters. Finally, Steve Stricker has the putting stroke to win the Masters and maybe he”ll pull an O”Meara by winning his first majors as a 40-something. Whoever wins next week just better be aware that now, more than ever, par is something to cherish at Augusta National.
