The
Masters - In depth preview
Golf's annual
Rite of Spring is just around the corner, and with it comes a chance
for another historic milestone in the career of the game's brightest
star.
Tiger Woods,
the winner of last year's U.S. Open, British Open and PGA Championship,
would become the first player to hold all four of golf's professional
major titles at the same time with a victory in the 65th edition
of The Masters Tournament.
And this is
where the Grand Slam debate officially begins. While many people,
including Woods, believe that all four at once is enough to make
his achievement Slam-worthy, hard-liners such as Arnold Palmer will
tell Woods that he should go buy a calendar.
"That is ridiculous,"
said Palmer, a seven-time major winner. "If he wins it, he's starting
a new one. It's not a continuation of last year. That takes the
fun out of it. That takes away the kick out of winning the Grand
Slam."
Jack Nicklaus,
the winner of a record 18 majors, sounded a bit more on the fence.
"Grand Slam
is winning all four of them in one year," he said. "What is your
year, calendar or fiscal? It would be pretty special whatever it
is."
It's not Woods'
fault there is a controversy. Nobody within golf's governing bodies
nor in the press thought to come up with a catchy name for winning
four major championships in a row, but not in the same year.
Bobby Jones,
founder of Augusta National and The Masters Tournament, was the
only golfer in history to complete what was later coined the Grand
Slam when in 1930 he captured the four events that then made up
the major championship rotation: the U.S. and British Amateurs and
the U.S. and British Opens. Ben Hogan, the only other player besides
Woods to win three of the modern majors in a single season, never
had the opportunity to go for the Slam. In 1953, the year he won
his second Masters title and fourth U.S. Open Championship, Hogan
chose to bypass the PGA, an event that he had already won twice,
and instead went overseas for British Open qualifying, which was
being held at the same time. Hogan, whose subsequent triumph at
Carnoustie came in his one and only appearance at the British Open,
completed what is known as the career Grand Slam.
While it's
true that a win this week would make it so Woods has hoisted all
four major trophies in less than a year (nine months and 21 days,
to be exact), the pressure he may feel heading into this year's
Masters can't compare with the weight of expectations on a player
who enters a PGA Championship with the first three majors of the
year under his belt.
Not that Woods
hasn't dealt with pressure and expectations before. After leaving
behind a storied amateur career that included an unprecedented three
straight U.S. Amateur titles, Woods grabbed the professional golf
world by the throat with two victories and three top-10 finishes
in only eight PGA Tour starts in 1996. In 1997, his first full season
on tour, Woods collected four wins, chief among them his first major
conquest in a record-setting performance at The Masters. Woods lit
up the leaderboard that week, posting rounds of 70-66-65-69 for
a tournament-record total of 270. Woods' 12-shot victory set another
Masters mark, and was at the time the fourth- largest winning margin
in PGA Tour history.
Flash forward
four years, then back up one month. Woods, who forged one of the
greatest seasons in the history of the game in 2000 with nine wins,
including career-Grand-Slam-completing victories in the U.S. and
British Opens, had to entertain questions about a supposed "slump."
It seemed that at the ripe old age of 25, Woods had lost some of
the magic because he failed to win in the span of eight straight
starts dating back to the end of 2000.
He put an end
to the silliness last month with a successful title defense at Bay
Hill, then captured the last high echelon event to elude his grasp
with a win a week later at The Players Championship.
But there are
reasons why Woods struggled somewhat to start the 2001 season, and
those same reasons make him far from a shoe-in to win his second
green jacket.
Woods is currently
ranked 93rd on the PGA Tour in driving accuracy -- not a big deal
a few years back, before the introduction of (gasp!) rough at Augusta
National. But the fairways are more defined today, and the incredibly
tricky green complexes won't accept the run-of-the-mill approach
from the higher grass. However, Woods has hit over 70 percent of
his greens in regulation this year (ranked 17th), so he obviously
has been able to overcome some of his wayward shots off the tee.
Should he find the fairways this week, his superior length will
leave him with shorter irons into the greens, which is just the
ticket when the goal is to land a ball on surfaces as slick as linoleum.
Putting is
always an issue at The Masters, and one of the reasons Woods romped
through the azaleas back in '97 was that he didn't suffer a single
three-putt. But while he has wowed the crowds with some miraculously
swerving and curving long putts this year, Woods is still prone
to the four-foot lip-out. He stands in 58th place in putts per round
(28.86) and 68th in putts per green (1.761).
The best news
for Woods fans is that he is ranked fourth on the PGA Tour in par-five
performance. He is a combined 65-under par on the long holes, where
he has made 61 birdies in 105 attempts. Look for Woods to make a
number of birdies -- and maybe even an eagle or two -- on Augusta's
shortish par-fives, which ranked as the four easiest holes on the
course last year.
Speaking of
last year, defending champion Vijay Singh looks primed to become
the first back-to-back winner of The Masters since Nick Faldo won
successive green jackets in 1989 and '90. The tall, dark man from
Fiji is off to a terrific start to his 2001 season, with five top-four
finishes in eight PGA Tour events. After taking second at the Pebble
Beach Pro-Am in early February, Singh joined the European Tour's
Far East swing and recorded consecutive wins in the Malaysian Open
and the Singapore Masters. He picked up the PGA Tour in Florida,
notching a tie for third in Doral and joint fourth two weeks later
at Bay Hill.
Singh was right
in it with Woods on the back nine of the Monday finish at The Players
Championship, but pulled his drive into the water at the 14th hole
on his way to a triple-bogey. Singh recovered two strokes at 16,
where he played a brilliant shot out of the rough with the toe of
his putter, bumping his ball into the cup for an eagle. He went
on to birdie the treacherous island green at 17, but in the end
fell one shot short and had to settle for his second runner-up of
the season.
Prior to last
year, Singh's struggles on the green were a reason not to list him
as a favorite at Augusta. And while he managed to come out on top
in 2000, his 124 putts over the four days were the most ever by
a Masters champion. That's bad news for the rest of the field, as
Singh has elevated his putting game to the point where he is currently
third on the tour in putting average (1.691).
At last October's
Presidents Cup, an event that, unlike the ultra-patriotic Ryder
Cup, is about as likely to stir controversy and hard feelings as
a scramble at the local pitch-and-putt, Singh's caddie showed up
for their singles match versus Woods wearing a cap with the question
"Tiger Who?" stitched on the back. Now it's been said that the two
players are not the best of friends, so things got chilly early
in the match when Singh was prepared to pick up his 1 1/2-footer
and Woods, arms folded impatiently across his chest, made Singh
putt out.
Suffice to
say it would be great golf theater should Woods and Singh be paired
together in Sunday's final round. And it's not a stretch to believe
that they will.
Phil Mickelson,
whose picture may be in the golf encyclopedia under the heading
"Best Player Without a Major," comes into The Masters on a bit of
a shaky streak. Sure, he survived a playoff to defend his Buick
Invitational title in February, and has posted three other top-threes
to boot. But "Lefty" lately has turned in some pretty interesting
scorecards rife with a mixture of birdies, eagles, bogeys and worse.
One thing Mickelson
has going for him is his past performance at Augusta National. The
18-time PGA Tour winner has finished in the top-10 four times in
eight appearances, including a third-place showing in 1996. He was
one shot off the lead after two rounds a year ago, but shot a third-round
76 and wound up tied for seventh. But if Mickelson is in the midst
of working out some kinks in his game, The Masters may not be the
best remedy for what ails him.
Davis Love
III, whose win at the 2001 Pebble Beach Pro-Am marked his first
victory in nearly three years, collected a $500,000 bonus for his
overall performance on the PGA Tour's West Coast swing, which included
three other top-10s in his five early-season starts. He finished
sixth at Doral, but missed the cut three weeks later at Sawgrass.
Love tied for 11th this past week at the BellSouth Classic.
Love, the winner
of the 1997 PGA Championship at Winged Foot, is playing his best
golf in years and is about due for a second major title. The Georgia
native is third in scoring average behind Woods and Singh, and his
success over the early part of this year should give him the confidence
at Augusta, where he is a two-time runner-up (1995, '99).
David Duval,
who was one stroke back of Singh through two of the three holes
of Amen Corner in last year's final round, knocked his second shot
at the par-five 13th into Rae's Creek and finished tied for third
place, his third straight top-10 showing in the event. Despite his
relative success in The Masters, it's tough to say how Duval will
fair this year, as he bowed out of the Nissan Open due to fatigue
and withdrew from the Bay Hill Invitational and The Players Championship
with a wrist injury. His best finish of 2001 was seventh at the
Mercedes Championships, his first event of the season. He went on
to miss consecutive cuts at the Phoenix Open and Pebble Beach, followed
by a tie for 51st at the Bob Hope event and a tie for 63rd at Doral.
Perhaps the
hardest player to get a handle on is Ernie Els, the two-time U.S.
Open winner who finished second in three of the four majors last
year, including The Masters. Els kicked off 2001 with a fourth-place
finish at the season-opening WGC-Match Play Championship in Australia,
then added a couple of third-place showings at the Mercedes and
the Sony Open in Hawaii. In fact, Els' quick start to the season
saw him place second behind Love for the West Coast swing bonus.
Over his next
five events, however, Els missed two cuts and finished as far back
as 62nd and no higher than 25th. The low point may have come this
past weekend at the BellSouth, where he posted a third-round 81
for his worst score since he shot 84 in the second round of the
1993 Honda Classic. Like Mickelson, it's hard to pick Els to win
if he is struggling with his game.
Some past winners
of major championships to watch out for include: Nick Price, Paul
Azinger, Tom Lehman, Justin Leonard and Hal Sutton. Sutton, the
1983 PGA Championship winner, has missed 11 cuts in his 14 appearances
at Augusta National, but registered his best finish last year with
a solo 10th.
The former
major winner who may be one of the more intriguing names come Thursday
is 40-year-old Mark Calcavecchia. The 1989 British Open champ won
his 10th PGA Tour title and his first since 1998 with the all-time
PGA Tour record score at the Phoenix Open. Calcavecchia's 72-hole
total of 256 broke the Tour's long-standing mark of 257 set by Mike
Souchak in the 1955 Texas Open. He failed to qualify for the weekend
the last time he played in The Masters in 1999, but has seven top-25
finishes including a second behind Sandy Lyle in 1988.
Of the strong
international contingent invited to Augusta this year, a pair of
two-time Masters champions have as good a shot as any to grab a
green jacket. Spain's Jose Maria Olazabal and Germany's Bernhard
Langer both have played exclusively on the PGA Tour so far this
season, and their preparation for The Masters seem to be paying
off. Olazabal carded impressive weekend rounds of 68-69 to vault
into a tie for 12th at The Players Championship, while Langer shot
68-68-67 over the final three rounds of that tournament to finish
in third place behind Woods and Singh. Langer is currently 25th
on the season money list, his highest ranking since he finished
in the 23rd spot after winning his second Masters title in 1993.
Swedish eccentric
Jesper Parnevik, a five-time PGA Tour winner after capturing the
Honda Classic a month ago, is on the threshold of breaking into
the elite golfer category. However, his fellow Europeans Colin Montgomerie
and Lee Westwood, while far more successful than the Swede on the
other side of the Atlantic, haven't fared as well in the U.S., although
"Monty" has finished second three times in majors in the States
and Westwood won in New Orleans in 1998.
Robert Allenby,
a mortal lock to win in extra holes if he finishes tied for the
lead in regulation, heads the list of darkhorses in this year's
field. The Australian captured his third PGA Tour title after a
six-man sudden death at the Nissan Open, running his playoff record
to 7-0 worldwide. Putting virtuosos like Brad Faxon and Loren "Boss
of the Moss" Roberts are always safe picks to hang around through
the weekend, while folk heroes such as Bob May and Joe Durant would
simply make great stories should one of them manage to pull it off.
While on the
subject of great stories, it should be noted that three-time runner-up
and sentimental favorite Greg Norman is 46 this year, the same age
as Nicklaus when he delighted the golf world with his sixth Masters
victory in 1986.
Now wouldn't
that be something?
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