TEARS AND HOPE
It’s a blooming shame the Masters isn’t being played this week, but at least it has been rescheduled for November
This Sunday was supposed to be a race against the clock between Easter dinner and the green jacket ceremony.
Golf fans were supposed to be expertly debating with the rest of the family why Jim Nantz’s dulcet tones should be allowed at the table. Instead we got this.
Easter and the Masters are a very special time of year for most Canadian golfers. It’s supposed to mean we’ve made it through another long winter and the golf season is days away. Instead we got this.
A Masters week unlike any other, indeed.
The sports networks and the Golf Channel are doing their best to lift our spirits by showing Masters tournaments from years past. Here in Canada, TSN released a Masters Rewind broadcast schedule that began Monday with Mike Weir’s 2003 win and ends Sunday with Tiger Woods’ return to glory win last year.
It’s a handy schedule assuming you can remember what day it is today.
Amid the deathly serious news surrounding the COVID19 pandemic, the golf world brought some hope to sports fans this week with a revamped schedule that hopes to see three majors and the Ryder Cup played in late summer and fall. The 2020 major championships are set to begin Aug. 6-9 at TPC Harding Park in San Francisco with the PGA Championship, then head to Winged Foot in New York on Sept. 17-20, before finishing at Augusta National for the Masters Nov. 12-15.
Golf has always seen itself as an aspirational sport and this is what could be called an aspirational schedule. While it seems perhaps overly optimistic that a major international sporting event could be held in early August, it’s nice to know that decision-makers see it at least as a possibility at the moment. In home isolation terms, it’s good to finally see some light at the end of the hallway.
Getting back to the Masters, the folks at Augusta National have a knack for getting things right. Granted, nobody in the world can give a pandemic timeline at this point, but their mid-November date feels fairly possible. Whether there are spectators or no spectators, or if players have to be sequestered at Augusta National for a month ahead of time eating nothing but pimento cheese sandwiches, you know chairman Fred Ridley and his team will do everything in their ample power to play the tournament. We’ve had plenty of time this week to imagine how the Masters will look and play in late fall. No golf course has as much control over growing conditions as Augusta National, and it’s a safe bet that should the tournament be played it will look perfect. The sub-air system underneath the greens allows them to suck moisture out of the turf and control the growing temperature. The drainage system under the fairways is directly linked to the club’s weather monitoring system.
Of course, without the azaleas in bloom there will be less red, pink and white and more of the colour green in November. The 13th hole alone has more than 1,500 azalea bushes. We got a glimpse of what an azalea-less Augusta looks like in 2012 when the famed flowers bloomed a week early and were gone by tournament time. “You’re kidding. No flowers?” Ian Poulter said at the time. “I can’t believe that.”
Somehow the tournament went on.
One of the reasons Augusta National always looks so picture perfect is that the course is closed every year from late spring to early fall, giving plenty of time for annual subtle, but substantial renovations while avoiding play during the hot Georgia summers.
There will be many logistical and operational hurdles in mid-November. There is roughly three-and-a-half fewer hours of sunlight in November compared to April so getting the entire 96-player field around the golf course won’t be easy. The green jacket likely will be decided by five in the afternoon with sunset expected just before 5:30 p.m.
Golf legend Jack Nicklaus told the Golf Channel this week that he expects a fall Masters to be just fine.
“The golf course will be freshly overseeded, unless they decide to wait until after the Masters to overseed it,” he said. “So the playing conditions will be different. Obviously it won’t have any flowers. But the greens will be fine, and the Masters will be good.”
If anyone is up to the challenge it’s Augusta National.
The same year as the horrifying early azalea bloom an overnight storm damaged the course on Tuesday. Wednesday morning, then-Chairman Billy Payne explained that winds blew a tree onto a restroom near the 16th hole, crushing the small building.
“We hope to have it rebuilt and up and running by the end of the day,” Payne said matter-of-factly.
Give these guys until November and they will have a plan for catching falling leaves before they hit the ground.