Woods favoured, nothing’s certain
AUGUSTA, GA. — There is no such thing, any more, as a golf tournament that is Tiger Woods’s to lose, even if that’s what Paul Azinger — who actually predicted Tiger’s first Masters win, in his first try as a pro, in 1997 — says about this week’s 77th running at Augusta National.
There are too many good players now, too many fearless ones, too many not yet dented and nicked and wearing scar tissue from defeats inflicted by the longtime and current world No. 1.
So the list of potential winners of any given tournament, even a major, could be 20-deep.
Then again, maybe there is just this one exception.
It’s not so much that Woods can’t lose this Masters; anyone could. It is more that he dare not waste this opportunity, if he hopes to break Jack Nicklaus’s record of 18 major championships. He has been stalled at 14 for going on five years.
It is more that all the stars are aligned for him to do it: his attitude sunny, his confidence high, his golf game in impeccable shape, his putting stroke fine-tuned thanks to a practice session last month with golf’s current Boss of the Moss, Steve Stricker, who many of his fellow pros no doubt wish had kept his big mouth shut and told Tiger to figure it out for himself. But you know all that. Let us, instead, look at some of the perfectly good candidates to recover the fumble if Woods happens to wake up on the wrong side of the bed and opens with a 75, or sneezes up a lung in an allergic reaction to all the pollen hanging in the air, or gets struck by lightning while putting for eagle on the 8th hole during Friday’s thunderstorm.
Start with Phil Mickelson, who has won the green jacket three times, twice since Woods last did in 2005, has 14 top-10 finishes at Augusta (an incredible eight of them top-3s), and probably wins last year’s edition, too, if he doesn’t push his tee shot at the par-3 fourth hole off the grandstand and into the bamboo, where he tries to hit it right-handed, twice, and ends up making a triple-bogey — and loses to Bubba Watson by two strokes.
“It comes from knowing I don’t have to play perfectly to play well here,” Mickelson said this week. “If I get up by the green, I’ll get it on close to the hole and make a putt for par. And knowing that, I relax, because I don’t have to be perfect.” Or take Watson, for that matter. He’s left-handed, like Mickelson and Mike Weir, which seems to make a difference here recently, for reasons mostly unexplained — and he already knows what it takes to win, though only three men in the tournament’s history have successfully defended the title: Jack Nicklaus (1965-66), Nick Faldo (1989-90), and Woods (2001-02).
Watson may say his first goal is just to make the cut so he gets to play the weekend, but deep down, he knows he has the game and the imagination to win.
“It wouldn’t shock me,” he said. “I would still cry, but it wouldn’t shock me.”
There is Adam Scott, who tied for second two years ago and tied for eighth last year. He may be an Aussie and long putter user, and no one of either species has ever won at Augusta, but he’s not conceding it to Woods.
“I think we all know what he’s capable of doing. But he’s far from just running away with it at the moment,” said Scott.
“I mean, there are so many players playing well, and some of the guys, I think the biggest thing is they weren’t out here when he was in that (game-dominating) space. I think that’s the difference. I think he’d have to put the runs on the board again to get back to that.” Maybe so. “Well, I mean, you can’t really put anything past him,” said Watson. “Everybody said he’s in a slump, and he’s still winning and Top-10-ing. I wish I was in a slump like him.
Matt Kuchar, winner of last year’s Players Championship and this year’s Accenture Match Play ought to be in the mix come Sunday.
So should Rory McIlroy, maybe the most talented player in the game not named Tiger or Phil. He’s had a rocky start to his season, after being Player of the Year in 2012, but he is starting to zero in on it.
“Would anything less than a win be a disappointment this week? Yeah, it would be,” he said. “Every time that you don’t win, it’s another chance missed. The ultimate goal is getting one of those jackets.”
Justin Rose, who was so good in the Ryder Cup and has won nothing but first tier PGA Tour events, tied for 8th last year and in his most recent Tour start?
“I feel it’s a golf course (where) I’ve played some good rounds of golf, and when you’ve done that you have some confidence that you can do it again,” he said.
“So I feel like it is a course that I can win on. I think it suits a lot of players though. I think it suits Bubba obviously, Tiger, Rory, Keegan (Bradley), Phil. It suits a lot of guys. Dustin Johnson, guys who hit it well and far.”
Lee Westwood, Ian Poulter, Brandt Snedeker, even Argentine Angel Cabrera, who seems to have deeper valley and higher peaks than your average great player, could win. There are 19 past champions in the field.
It shouldn’t be Tiger’s tournament to win. Really.
If only Stricker had told him it would be $1,000 for the putting lesson. Tiger would never have paid.