National Post (National Edition)
From the couch, Masters still has magic touch
Four perfect days in an imperfect year
Let's be honest, we're all pretty sick of the couch. We've reached the point in this never-ending year when the sun seems to set just after lunch, and we finished everything on Netflix sometime around May.
But this week is different. It's Masters Week.
Sure, it's seven months late, but it's the one week each year that the couch is more than a couch. It's a magical golf cart that takes us to a lush green land both familiar, yet mysterious. We are five years old and our parents dropped a giant cardboard box in the middle of the living room. And we know exactly where our couch will take us this week.
Augusta National Golf Club.
In this most imperfect year, we're more than ready to spend four days in a perfect place.
But will the Masters be perfect this year? No.
Not even close. There will be no spectators, no roars, no azaleas, no par-3 contest, no Sunday trophy ceremony on the 18th green.
The list goes on. It's a tradition unlike any other, minus the traditions.
And the forecast is calling for rain, lots of it. Also lightning, especially during Thursday's opening round.
Three-time champion Phil Mickelson was asked what he will miss most this week.
“Nothing, in the sense that this is the Masters and doesn't matter,” he said. “It doesn't matter if it rains. It doesn't matter if it shines. We get to compete for a green jacket. As a player, that's all we care about. I'm just thankful that we have that chance this year because it's been very challenging and a lot of extra work to put this tournament on.”
That's the common sentiment among players this week. Lots of questions have been asked about what's missing, about the course playing softer, about the greens being a touch slower. None of it matters.
“It's not the same as what it is in April because it can't be,” Rory McIlroy said.
“I mean, you guys can do a lot of things here at Augusta, but I don't think you're magicians. ... I think everyone is just so grateful that there is a
Masters this year and we're playing it.”
In a way, that's how we've felt about the entire sport of golf during the pandemic. Just as we finished up all of Netflix in May, most golf courses started opening their doors. Until then, the most interesting sport around seemed to be neighbourhood beard-growing contests. After months of cooped-up solitude, golf made it suddenly possible to go outdoors, to socialize with friends, to share a drink, all while playing a game and getting some exercise. It was like a cheat code to getting your life back.
Was the golf normal, was it perfect? Of course not. There were strict rules once you arrived at the course, there were masks, you couldn't share a golf cart, there were even contraptions stopping the ball from dropping into the hole, which last I checked, is the main goal of playing golf. It didn't matter.
Golfers quickly adapted, realizing after hitting their tee shots that social distancing is easy when nobody in your group hits the fairway. All that mattered was you were outside, getting some semblance of normalcy back.
“A lot of things that people love have been taken away, and that's got to be brutal,” Mickelson said of the pandemic. “It's even hard for me to fully empathize with that because I've been able to continue doing what I love, which is play golf, even if it was not in tournaments, just being able to play.”
During this difficult year, many of us have learned to appreciate the small gifts. Golf has reminded us that fresh air, camaraderie, and recreation are as much a part of the sport as birdies, bogeys, and obsession.
“I think it's been a refuge for a lot of people,” McIlroy said.
“You look at rounds of golf played is way up this year. The golf equipment business is booming. ... Hopefully, it's not just something that people pick up in the middle of a pandemic and then they set it aside. Hopefully, people continue to play golf and realize what a wonderful game it is.”
With golf season over, many of us will be heading back indoors. We have all winter to dream of a vaccine and look toward another Masters in April, just five months away. But this weekend, no matter our age, we will be reminded what it was like to have a cardboard box to transport you anywhere.
All we need is a couch.
WILL THE MASTERS BE PERFECT THIS YEAR? NOT EVEN CLOSE.