The 75th edition of the Masters golf tournament concludes Sunday at the Augusta National Golf Club in Georgia. Because it is the year”s first major championship, the winner of the 2011 Masters will have that same ecstatic feeling that other great athletes experience when they win a Super Bowl, a Stanley Cup, a World Series or an NBA title. For someone currently residing near the top of the leaderboard, it will be a career-defining moment whether it”s a first career major or one of several.
Regardless of how Sunday evening plays out, it will be memorable simply because it happened at the Masters. It will be easy for fans of the game to look back upon the moment and recall all that occurred.
Obviously, the look back at past Masters tournaments has centered around the 1986 Masters, held 25 years ago this weekend. That was arguably the most dramatic of modern era Masters. Jack Nicklaus, then 46 years old and on the downside of his career, shot 6-under-par 30 on the final nine Sunday to win by one and claim his record-setting sixth green jacket as well as his 18th and final major championship. The ”86 Masters also had the advantage of a supporting cast of golfing icons, including Seve Ballesteros, Greg Norman, Tom Kite, Nick Price, Corey Pavin and Sandy Lyle, collective winners of 14 major titles.
Yet the weekend is also a natural anniversary of two recent Masters of the modern era, namely 15 and 10 years ago with the playing of the 1996 and 2001 tournaments at Augusta National. Both tournaments marked major moments in grand slam golf history.
The 1996 Masters was the last high water mark of the foreign invasion in golf that began in the late 1970s and most probably concluded on that Sunday in April. The Arnold Palmer-Gary Player-Jack Nicklaus-Lee Trevino-Tom Watson era ranged from 1968 through 1986 when Arnie won his first Masters until Jack captured his final Masters. When this fivesome began to age as well as lose its competitive edge on golf”s center stage, the power void was filled by a sixsome of Europeans as well as one dramatic and emotionally tinged Australian.
Seve Ballesteros led the European invasion with his first major win in 1979 and flamed out by 1990 with two Masters and three British Open triumphs. Nick Faldo was the anti-Seve as he coldly accumulated six grand slam wins. Sandy Lyle won a British Open and a Masters. Bernhard Langer and Jose Maria Olazabal each won a pair of green jackets. Ian Woosnam held off Watson to win his sole major at the Masters. Throw in the mix Australian Greg Norman, the most gifted of the lot, who won two British Open championships and found devastating ways to lose all four majors in playoffs.
The 1996 Masters had all the makings of Norman”s crowning career moment. At least that”s the way it seemed after 54 holes with the Shark leading the field by six strokes. Alas, Norman collapsed during his final round and shot a crash-and-burn 78 while playing partner Nick Faldo carded the low round of the day, a brilliant 5-under-par 67 for a five-shot win.
It was Faldo”s sixth and final major at age 38. For whatever reason, he never again seemed to play with the same detached determination that marked his brilliant run from the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s. It was also the end of Norman”s reign as the world”s No. 1 golfer. Norman had taken emotional hits in major losses throughout his career to the likes of Fuzzy Zoeller, Jack Nicklaus, Bob Tway, Larry Mize, Mark Calcavecchia and Paul Azinger. The ”96 Masters was his last, best chance to win at Augusta National, and in the end he fell flat on his face. That day marked the conclusion of the Ballesteros-Faldo-Norman era of golfing dominance.
It is interesting to note that in 1986, Greg Norman held the 54-hole lead in the Masters, the U.S. Open, the British Open and the PGA Championship. In the end, he could only seal the deal at the British Open at Turnberry. Golf pundits called it The Norman Slam.
At the 2001 Masters, just 10 years ago, Tiger Woods concluded golf”s most remarkable run by winning his fourth consecutive major and securing what was called The Tiger Slam. Woods won the last three majors of 2000 with runaway wins at the U.S. Open at Pebble Beach and the British Open at St. Andrews, and with an overtime win at the PGA Championship at Valhalla against Bob May.
Expectations were high for Woods at the 2001 Masters, but the pressure was just as excessive. Chris DiMarco opened with a 65 and Woods found himself five shots out of the lead. A second-round 66 by Tiger got him into a second-place tie with Phil Mickelson, David Duval and Angel Cabrerra, just two strokes off the pace set by DiMarco. A 68 on Saturday gave Woods a one-stroke lead over Mickelson and a safe and smart final round of 68 got Woods his second green jacket by two strokes over Duval.
Ten years ago Tiger Woods held all four major titles simultaneously, something that had never been done previously and may never happen again. It was a truly amazing accomplishment in an era where his chief rivals, Ernie Els and Vijay Singh, held a total of three majors during the course of their careers, and Phil Mickelson has only just recently accumulated his fourth major.
Finally, next weekend marks the playing of the 20th annual Lake County Open at Buckingham Golf and Country Club. It will also mark the 20th consecutive year that this columnist has played in the tourney. I stand alone in that regard although I”m never sure if it is a matter of longevity or just plain stubbornness. While I have never won the local Open, I have a handful of runner-up finishes to the likes of Gary Bagnani, Juan Lopez and Charles Creecy. Even my teenage son Nick has won the Lake County Open. Yet my time has passed as far as winning the Open, but then again, the only way you can win a tourney is to enter it, and I gave myself more than enough chances.
