Can anyone shoot down the big guns who have dominated for America?
FIVE months after a Masters like no other comes a more customary edition filled with the usual pastel shades and the sound of a game slowly getting its voice back.
In the sleepy Southern town of Augusta, we are probably halfway from where we were last November back towards the usual April clamour, where the air is filled with constant chatter about golf and the endless promise of another majors season.
On the deficit side, losing Tiger Woods always feels like a grievous blow when the Masters comes around, and there are still many thousands of patrons who are missing as well. There are no grandstands to generate the roars that spook the faint-hearted come Sunday afternoon. The grand old oak tree in front of the clubhouse, the usual gathering point for all the great and good in golf, stands as a lonely sentry.
But the spectral silence that made the November Masters such an eerie experience is thankfully gone and there is a spectacular profusion of azaleas and dogwoods in all the typical haunts.
The course is playing firm and fast, not seeking to punish Bryson DeChambeau but because that is how it is supposed to be at this time of year.
‘It was always the intention of Bobby Jones to make this an inland links in terms of how the course plays but this might be the first time since 2013 when nature has allowed us to have it this way,’ explained Augusta National chairman, Fred Ridley.
As always, the first tee will be humming with anticipation today. How fascinating that Lee Westwood, at the age of 47, gets to play as an equal alongside defending champion Dustin Johnson.
Is there anyone not intrigued by where DeChambeau is going to be aiming when he gets there shortly after lunch?
In echoes of Masters from long ago, the place has become an American stronghold once more. The last 11 majors held in the United States have all been won by American golfers, a run of dominance not seen since the days before 1980, when Seve Ballesteros stormed the gates and led the European conquest.
Perhaps it will prove a good omen this year is filled with anniversaries of times past when international players claimed the Green Jacket. It is 30 years, for example, since Ian Woosnam took on the crowd and Tom Watson to win; 25 years since Greg Norman and Sir Nick Faldo fought out their final round for the ages; a decade since Charl Schwartzel took advantage of Rory McIlroy’s final-round collapse. Most pertinent of all, it is 60 years since Gary Player became the first overseas champion.
Who is the Player or Seve for this age, the global ambassador the game needs and the focal point to counter American firepower? McIlroy was that man for a while until he lost his sorcery. The hope remains he can rediscover it under the wise tutelage of Pete Cowen but you surely need a vivid imagination or glasses of the azalea-tinted variety to believe it will come at this event.
Cowen light-heartedly suggested recently that another of his charges, Ian Poulter, has more chance of winning this week. It was a sensible, low-key strategy adopted by McIlroy himself in his press conference on Tuesday, thereby allowing himself something of a free hit rather than being burdened as he usually is with all thoughts of glory. It will be interesting to see if he can prosper from the lowering of expectation.
Jon Rahm? Now 26, the new father has reached that age where players of his calibre claim their first major and go on to win several more — or fall short and accumulate some destructive scarring. Time moves awfully fast without a major to your name.
Further afield, South Africa and Australia have become barren wastelands. No player from either nation has won a major since Jason Day claimed the 2015 US PGA Championship.
Like the Europeans, they have struggled to cope at the game’s highest level with this golden age for American golf, filled with truly destructive hitters such as Johnson and DeChambeau, great iron players in Collin Morikawa and Justin Thomas and wonderful putters like Patrick Reed and Brooks Koepka.
The return of the best putter of all in Jordan Spieth and at his favourite course as well, adds yet another string to the American bow. When you look at the ages of these players, and the fact there is another strong group waiting in the wings, it is hard to see past this being another week when a player from the host nation finishes up clothed in green.