The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
This Masters like no other
Not even that much was certain when the COVID-19 pandemic began shutting Nothing about this Masdown sports around the ters will look familiar unworld a week before the til the champion slips his first day of spring. The arms t hrough a green Masters was postponed — a jacket. relief to those who initially
The purple, pink and feared cancellation — and white blooms of azaleas then rescheduled for Nov. and dogwoods, which pro12-15, the final major of an vide such a magnificent acunforgettable year. cent to Augusta National in When the pandemic did spring, give way to the ornot loosen its grip, the club ange and gold hues of auhad no choice but to close tumn. The course might the door to its patrons. look familiar with its emNo need for those green erald green fairways, blaz“Golf Traffic” signs posted ing white sand in the bunabout the city, or people linkers, towering Georgia ing the streets of Washingpines and the still water of ton Road looking for tickets.Rae’sCreek.
It just won’t sound the here won’t be a Par 3 same, not without thouContest, with players dresssands upon thousands of ing their children in white spectators framing each coveralls. The first-time hole and sending those players might not know piercing roars from all corany better. ners of the course. For the veterans, it might It won’t be the same. not be much different from What makes this Mastheir scouting trips to Auters unlike any other is the gusta National. They will calendar. Golf’s annual rite know what they’re missof spring is now two weeks ing, the sights and sounds. before Thanksgiving. And “You walk through the without its patrons, the cagates at Augusta, there’s thedral of golf will never be that energy, that anticipaquieter. tion,” said McIlroy, mak
“It’s going to be eerie. It’s ing his 10th appearance going to be different,” Rory at the only major keeping McIlroy said. “But at least him from the career Grand we’re playing for a green Slam. jacket.” “T here’s still a golf course there. There’s still a golf tournament to be won, and you’ve got to make the most of it.
“But they’re playing,” he said. “And that’s the most important part.”
Tiger Woods had to wait 19 months to play another Masters.
He won his fifth green jacket, as significant as any of his 15 majors considering where he had been. His one-shot victory last year capped one of the more remarkable comebacks in sport, which included four back surgeries and a DUI arrest from a bad mix of medicine while trying to cope with pain.
Woods ended the year by winning in Japan for his 82nd career victory, tying the PGA Tour record held by Sam Snead. Excitement was building toward this year, especially the Masters.
And then it stopped. Woods, keeping a limited schedule to get the most out of his 44-year-old body, had played only two tournaments when the pandemic stopped sports.
And then he hardly played at all — one time before an ordinary performance at the PGA Championship, two FedEx Cup playoff events before he missed the cut at the U.S. Open, and one tournament in the two months leading to the Masters. Las Vegas set his odds of tying Jack Nicklaus with a sixth green jacket at 35-1.
“The entire year has been different for all of us,” he said. “And my run-up to Augusta is unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. That’s just the way it is.”
But it’s Augusta National, a course he knows as well as any. His optimism hasn’t waned.
“My game is definitely better than it was at the U.S. Open,” Woods said last month. “I feel a little bit more prepared, a little bit better, and hopefully that translates into playing the golf course.”
Even as the defending champion, and golf’s biggest star, Woods is playing second billing at this Masters.
Bryson DeChambeau has been the talk of golf since golf returned. He added some 40 pounds of muscle and mass, all designed to enable him to swing faster and harder and hit drives farther than anyone imagined.
It carried him to a sixshot victory in the U.S. Open with a game that defied convention.