MIND OVER MASTERS FOR THE BIG THREE
Crunch time for Rory, Tiger and Rose
The 83rd edition of the Masters will begin today under blessedly blue skies with as much focus on the daunting nature of the mental challenge as the difficulties of Augusta National.
Mind over Masters, you might say, as we await to see whether one of the sport’s highest-ranked performers can overcome his inner difficulties in recent years at the world’s most beautiful course, as well as a curious epidemic of mental block.
Thanks to Rory McIlroy, the value of a beautiful mind is front and centre when it comes to the season’s first major, but it is not just the Northern Irishman who has been juggling with heavy expectation.
In recent years, it has proved so overpowering for the favoured that the last three wearers of the green jacket went into the tournament with odds of 80-1 (Danny Willett), 66-1 (Sergio Garcia) and 80-1 (Patrick Reed) against their names. No world No 1 has won the Masters since Tiger Woods way back in 2002. Between them, the current world top 10 have played in this event 58 times without mustering a single victory.
Perhaps it is the anticipation following the eight-month wait since the last major that kills them. Certainly, the forbiddingly high standard these days is a factor, with so many players capable of winning. All the same, it’s such a glaring oddity that it is no wonder McIlroy has started juggling balls and looking skyward in his ceaseless search for a solution.
This year, the stakes could hardly be higher for the three men who have been dominating the headlines: McIlroy, Woods and Justin Rose. For all three, this Masters surely represents a tipping point, where everything gets much harder from here on.
This is the last major McIlroy will play before he reaches the age of 30 next month. he could hardly be starting his latest quest for the career Grand Slam in a richer vein of form, with a victory and six top 10s in his last seven starts. Furthermore, his record at Augusta is so good, with five top 10s in a row, that if he isn’t in contention come Sunday the only feasible explanation is that it has all proved too much. And if it’s too much this year, with all that’s going for him…
At 38, Rose has reached a rare age for a player to win the Masters for the first time. Only Mark O’Meara, who was 41 when he won in 1998, was older. Like McIlroy, he heads into the event with seemingly everything going his way. he has a win under his belt this season already and is fresh having taken a month off in February.
Over the past four years at Augusta, Rose has finished second each time when it comes to hitting greens in regulation but has been let down by his putting. Only once since 2009 has he taken fewer than 120 putts for the event.
encouragingly, Rose’s putting stats so far this year show a vast improvement on those figures — 4.2 strokes fewer per round, would you believe. If he could split the difference, we would surely be looking at the 2019 Masters champion.
Right now, Rose stands alongside ernie els and Greg Norman as one of the tournament’s unlucky triumvirate, the players who have contributed the most without ever finding their way into the champions locker room. It’s hard to imagine he will ever have a better chance of changing the narrative. Time is slipping away from 43- year- old Woods as well, of course. One of the nice traditions of the Masters is that players are not allowed to wear their caps at their pre-tournament interviews, but it did Tiger few favours. All the wear and tear of a colourful life was evident in the face of a man who certainly does not look young for his age.
The great comfort for Tiger is that he will always have 14 majors to his name, whatever happens, whereas Rose is certainly at least a couple light with one.
Woods is still driven by the twin peaks that have defined his entire career — the 82 PGA Tour wins for Sam Snead, and 18 majors for Jack Nicklaus. While the former will remain well within reach if his health holds up — he is currently only two behind — any last vestige of reaching the latter total will have gone unless he starts winning
again this year. There could be no more appropriate venue to resume than the one where he won his first major as a pro in 1997. He was runner-up in the last major of 2018, so there remain reasons for his vast army of fans to dream.
Augusta used to be the place where experience proved a vital commodity but right now we are on a run of four first-time winners, something that last happened in 1971. If Rose or McIlroy were to win, it would take the sequence into uncharted territory.
Looking at the former champions, Woods might be the best bet, which seems amazing given his last victory was in 2005. But the blessing of a Masters victory has proven something of a mixed one for the recent winners. Certainly, the past four — Jordan Spieth, Willett, Garcia and Reed — appear unlikely to win it again.
As for the rest of the world’s top 10, Brooks Koepka is perhaps the most interesting. A winner of two of the last three majors and three of the last six, the 28-year- old is doing his usual trick of going into a Grand Slam event under the radar. That is partly explained by his mediocre recent form and relatively poor Masters record, but if he is on the leaderboard come Sunday, no one will look forward to taking him on over the fabled back nine.
As ever, the English challenge looks strong on paper, with a number of contenders to become only the nation’s third Masters champion after Sir Nick Faldo and Willett.
Not only Rose, but Paul Casey must be one of the best each-way bets, given his recent win at the Valspar Championship and Augusta record of three top- six finishes in the last four years. Tommy Fleetwood has also shown enough both recently and here last year to encourage his supporters.
And so, the long wait since Koepka’s epic duel against Tiger at the USPGA last August is almost over. The focus now switches to the importance of today’s first round, where the value of a fast start is shown by the fact that only once in the last 13 editions has the winner been placed outside the top 10 following the opening day.
As ever with the Masters, it will make for essential viewing over the next four days. As ever in golf, the only certainty is that someone’s life is about to change for ever.