Even without golfers, Augusta National is a wondrous place. Invite the best players in the world, present them a challenge to die for and you have the tournament that has enthralled us all. This year it is different, much less predictable and rich with possibilities. Once, in the not so distant past, it started and ended with Tiger Woods. Not any more.
If inclined, you can back Woods at 8-1. One firm offered 9-1 yesterday and there wasn’t a stampede. He used to be even money for these things.
You wonder, does he still have Jack’s 18 major titles pinned to his bedroom wall? Do they now drive him, or haunt him? He always wanted more than he had, always believed he could get better. Maybe he still believes it.
Everyone else wonders if he can recover what he had.
In our part of the world, this is a particularly exciting Masters. Six of the world’s top eight players are now European: Martin Kaymer (1), Lee Westwood (2), Luke Donald (3), Graeme McDowell (4), Paul Casey (7) and Rory McIlroy (8). Perhaps wishfully, we believe it is again our turn.
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Augusta changes golf lives. Sarazen, Nelson, Snead, Hogan, Palmer, Player, Nicklaus, Watson, Ballesteros, Faldo, Woods, Mickelson — they all won it at least once. It is hard to name the great player who hasn’t won it. In what is now considered a golden generation for European golf, the need to win at Augusta has become desperate. But desperation is a double-edged sword and in this game it can cut you more than the enemy.
This year is also different because we can now speak of an old guard.
Ernie Els is 41 and fading, Phil Mickelson is the defending champion but at 40, you begin to wonder. Brilliant in his overtaking of Westwood last year, it is hard to imagine that he can again drive so inaccurately and continue to escape. What did Johnny Miller say at the Ryder Cup in Wales? “If Phil couldn’t chip, he’d be selling cars in San Diego.” What a compliment to Leftie’s short game and only once in his 12 Masters has Mickelson not been in the top 10. He will be there or somewhere very close.
So, too, should Westwood whose recent record in major championships is exceptional; so much so that he alone stands as the exemplar of the one who hasn’t got his just deserts. How can Todd Hamilton, Ben Curtis, Lucas Glover, Michael Campbell and Louis Oosthuizen all have a major championship and Westwood not?
We now know he can prepare himself like a racehorse, fit and ready to produce his best on the biggest occasions. Despite not getting into contention at Houston this weekend, he will be better at Augusta five days from now. He has what it takes but is now 37 and if he doesn’t win in the next two years, he will start to run out of time. Not now or never, but getting close.
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Golf is beguiling for many reasons, not the least being the capacity for an in-form player to make it all seem so easy. What did Nicklaus say soon after Woods won his first green jacket, that he could win 10 of them?
Now there are many who believe he may not add one to the four he’s got.
As Luke Donald crushed most of his opponents on his way to winning the World Match Play at Tuscon in February, you thought: “How can this guy not become a major winner?”
With his exquisite short game, Donald should thrive at Augusta but the sobering reality is that he has won just twice in five years and has only once finished high on the leaderboard at Augusta, when he secured a distant third in 2005. Against that, he has improved hugely over the past year and it will be a surprise if he doesn’t contend this time.
Of the other Europeans, you wonder about McIlroy’s putting on the uber-fast greens and not whether Casey can get into contention but how his game will stand up to the pressure of Sunday afternoon. Two shots off the lead at the start of the final round in 2004, he shot a miserable 74 and left us with questions that weren’t answered by his final round and drive at the 12th hole in last year’s Open Championship at St Andrews.
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Who else? Kaymer is perhaps the greatest European player but he has yet to make the cut at Augusta and until he does, we must wait.
McDowell is like Kaymer, he must prove he can get into the firing line on this course. Ian Poulter showed us last year that he can play Augusta but with Poulter you question if he values enough what it is to be a champion. And there are interesting young Americans; especially Dustin Johnson, Nick Watney, Rickie Fowler and Anthony Kim. All of them have talent and Kim has proved he can compete at Augusta. If you were thinking of a bet, he’s 50-1 in places.
Harrington two off Houston open lead
Padraig Harrington trailed leader Chris Kirk by two strokes at halfway in the Shell Houston Open, the last event on the PGA tour before the Masters starts on Thursday. The Irishman’s second-round 69 left him tied for fourth on seven under, with Anthony Kim and Johnson Wagner between him and Kirk. Lee Westwood, Francesco Molinari and Phil Mickelson were all three shots back from Harrington. The Englishman’s level-par round of 72 left him four under after 36 holes.