Masters in November a distant memory

AUGUSTA, Ga. — No one needed to see the colorful blooms at Augusta National to realize this will be a much different Masters than the last one. It was the color of the greens.

They were yellow. On Wednesday.

The excitement of the first major of the golf season was mixed with no small measure of trepidation about the test Augusta National might present this week without intervention and a little precipitation.

Fred Couples, who played his first Masters in 1983 and is competing for the 36th time, played a practice round Wednesday with Rory McIlroy.

“Rory said it five times: ‘Have you ever seen the greens like this on Wednesday?’ And five times in a row I said, ‘No,’” Couple said. “He was laughing. So I think if it stays like this, come even Friday, Saturday, Sunday, I mean, honestly, a 70 or 71 will be a heck of a score.”

A score like that would have meant getting lapped in November, when the Masters had to take an autumn date after it was postponed because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Dustin Johnson played conservatively along the back nine because he had a big lead, and he still finished with a record score of 20-under 268 to win by five shots in the lowest-scoring Masters in history.

“I’ve seen some young guys this week have a slightly deer-in-the-headlights look because they’ve walked out on a couple of those greens and they’ve seen the

visit to a major league ballpark on opening day, with nothing but possibilities open to a favorite team.

“It’s hard to know what we’ll see from the rest of the (Berkshire League),” said Werkhoven.

“Nobody knows anything,” said Richardson.

The best clues come from two years ago, so they’re stale, but, in addition to Shepaug in the BL, Northwestern, Nonnewaug, Thomaston, Housatonic and Terryville all had solid teams.

Wolcott, from the NVL, was the Class M State Runner-up and Woodland, St. Paul, Naugatuck and Oxford were all good.

Mostly, that’s irrelevant two years later.

Wednesday at Fuessenich Park was a brand new day in a brand new year.