Different feel at Augusta
Masters week officially started Monday, seven months later than usual, and Dottie Pepper was on the scene early at Augusta National Golf Club.
Pepper, the Saratoga Springs resident who parlayed a 17-year LPGA career into a prominent role on the CBS golf broadcast team, started at 8:15 a.m. on the 13th tee, an area separated from patrons because of its location.
Except this year, all areas of the course are off limits to spectators. The Masters is being played for the first time without spectators and with limited media, which means I’ll be watching from my living room for the first time since 2003. So we rely on those who are there to tell us about it.
“It was a different walk in a sense that the spring color didn’t just smack you in the face, but the touches of fall,” Pepper said. “There’s a little bit of camellia that haven’t started to completely bloom out, but they ’re there. It’s different.”
A lot will be different about the 84th Masters, the annual rite of spring that will be challenged to keep its traditions going at a different point on the calendar.
Moved off its usual early April slot by the threat of COVID -19, the Masters moved to a time when the azaleas aren’t blooming and the daylight is considerably lessened. College
football is in the air, in the heart of the Southeastern Conference. Defending champion Tiger Woods got to keep his green jacket for an unprecedented 19 months. The next major golf championship is just five months away — back at Augusta National.
The course, arguably the most famous 365 acres known to man, at least to golfers, may or may not play the same as it does in the spring.
“I know people might be expecting some completely different vista, where it looks so different than it does in the spring,” ESPN golf reporter Tom Rinaldi said. “That really isn’t the case. There are splashes of fall color, but largely it looks like the Augusta National that you would expect.”
Those who follow the Masters closely will recognize some differences.
The television windows are much earlier. ESPN will be on the air from 1 to 5:30 p.m. Thursday and Friday. There isn’t enough daylight to play any later.
The CBS coverage is 1-5 p.m. Saturday and 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Sunday. Instead of ending just before “60 Minutes,” the Masters will be a lead-in to an NFL game.
Players will be starting on the 1st and 10th tees all four days, and they ’ll be in threesomes. It is possible, although unlikely, that the eventual winner will play “Amen Corner” — the 11th, 12th and 13th holes — at the beginning of his final round. That threehole stretch usually is part of the back-nine Sunday drama.
Other changes might even be beneficial. You won’t have the roar of the patrons, but they also won’t be blocking anyone’s view.
“You’re going to appreciate, especially with these camera angles, the expansiveness of this golf course,” Pepper said. “(Instead of ) having the patrons form corridors, you’re going to realize just how big the golf course is and, maybe for the first time, really understand how much elevation change part of what this place physically is.”
As for a mid-afternoon fitting of the green jacket, many may have forgotten that’s how the 2019 Masters ended. The threat of late afternoon thunderstorms prompted Augusta National officials to start early. They sent players off two tees and in threesomes, bringing the final round to a close at 2:37 p.m. — about the time the leaders normally would begin the final round.
There is nothing normal about 2020. The hope is for the final round to end no later than 3 p.m., giving CBS room heading into its NFL telecasts.
“It’s a major championship, you can tell that,” said Rinaldi, who, like Pepper, has been there for practice rounds. “Yes, folks are social out on the practice ground, but they understand this is Augusta National. Even though it’s at a different appointment time on the calendar, it’s for a green jacket, and it will end the same way with that being awarded to the winner.”
Years from now, few will remember if there was a fall Masters. All that’s important is that the tournament was played, a feat in itself.