CANADIANS READY TO PLAY A MASTERS LIKE NO OTHER
Even in November without fans, Augusta tournament remains golf's iconic event
The wait is almost over. The Masters is just days away.
Ever since the tournament was rescheduled for fall in this crazy year, golf fans have been looking ahead to November and wondering how Augusta National will look with its dazzling azaleas replaced with autumn's softer palette.
For Canada's Nick Taylor, who qualified for the Masters by winning the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am in February, the wait has been more than months — it's been a lifetime.
“I feel like I've had to wait forever with what's going on,” Taylor told Postmedia before leaving Sunday for Augusta,
Ga. “I'm excited to see the golf course for the first time.”
Taylor, 32, is a two-time winner on the PGA Tour, a former world No. 1 ranked amateur, and a Ben Hogan award winner for best player in U.S. college back in 2010.
Yet he has never stepped on the grounds of Augusta National.
“I've always wanted my first time there to be playing the Masters, not knowing if that ever was going to happen,” Taylor said. “It's not like I was turning down opportunities to go play there, but I always hoped my first opportunity would be playing the Masters and experiencing it.”
The native of Abbotsford, B.C., showed his north of the border roots, adding, “it's not like I was, `Don't touch the Cup' or anything like that, but I think the way it worked out is best-case scenario.”
Taylor will be joined by three other Canadians in the Masters field. As a past Masters champion, Mike Weir, 50, will jump away from his rookie year on the Champions Tour to play against the youngsters and make sure his green jacket still fits. Corey Conners, 28, will be playing in his third Masters and second in a row. It will also be the third Masters for Adam Hadwin, 33, who qualified this year by finishing 2019 inside the top 50 of the world rankings.
“Going to the Masters is always special,” Hadwin told Postmedia before leaving for Augusta on Saturday. “It's a special place, you get certain feelings when you get to drive down Magnolia Lane again, something that I haven't experienced now for a couple of years.”
Hadwin played in the tournament in 2017 and 2018 and says it's not just fans who have a special place in their heart for the famed tournament.
For Hadwin, the accomplishment of making it into the exclusive field is one of the things that separates the Masters from golf 's other majors.
“You've got to do something special to get into it,” Hadwin said. “Whether it's through a year-long FedEx Cup, or year of playing well enough to get in by world rankings, or winning. Some of the other majors — the U.S. Open, the British Open — they kind of have one week or one-day qualifiers. Now I'm not saying that those aren't special events, but I just feel the Masters is a smaller field and you have to have these special qualifications to get in. So there is a uniqueness to it.”
This year's edition will have 93 golfers in the field, after 21-year-old Chilean star Joaquin Niemann was forced to withdraw on Friday after testing positive for COVID-19.
The four Canadians have been chatting by text and plan to play a practice round together on Tuesday, prior to Thursday's opening round. As the only Masters rookie in the group, Taylor expects to spend a lot of time listening to Weir in hopes of picking up some tips around Augusta National's famously difficult green complexes.
“I'll probably be asking enough questions that he'll be ready to leave me alone after the round,” Taylor said. “We've got to know each other a little better over the years.
“That's going to be really cool. I'll try to pick his brain as much as I can. I've played with Corey and Adam a bunch but they've played there before as well.
I'll definitely be the newbie in the group and I'll try to soak up as much as I can.”
When it comes to most memorable Masters moments, basically every Canadian you ask will bring up Weir's putt to force a playoff with Len Mattiace in 2003, and one of a number of Tiger Woods moments.
Taylor and Hadwin are no different when it comes to standout memories.
“Weir's putt to make par and then to go on to win in a playoff, as well as the chip shot from Tiger on 16,” Hadwin said.
“Those stand out. Two guys who have contributed a lot to Canadian golf.”
Woods is back at Augusta National this year as defending champion after capping off his comeback last April by slipping on his fifth green jacket to end an 11-year major drought.
The scene this week will be a stark contrast to last year's Roar for the Ages since there will be no spectators in attendance. The greatest stage in golf will be playing in front of an empty house.
“It has been a weird year and I feel like we're all ready for it to be over and to move on to a bit of normalcy, but I also think it's going to be pretty weird not having fans at the Masters,” Hadwin said. “One of the things I always talk about that is so unique about the Masters is the roars that you can hear echoing throughout the golf course and it's not going to be there this year.”
With or without patrons, in a year that will be impossible to forget (no matter how hard we try), golf fans are certain to remember the time Augusta National opened its doors to the golf world in November.
And it's finally here.
I've always wanted my first time there to be playing the Masters, not knowing if that ever was going to happen.