The Masters 2014

[It's looking like sports posts this week for a change.]

I was surprised to see that the Masters was on on Sunday.  I had been informed by ESPN that the Tiger Invitational at Augusta had been canceled, because he was unable to play.  I immediately assumed that the coverage was just a replay of a previous year when Tiger won, but, no, it was live!  Of all the nerve, holding a Masters tournament without Tiger. 

I can’t believe they actually handed out a green jacket to the “winner” at the end, like it was a real Masters.  I thought they had stripped the jackets away from all of the previous winners who had won before Tiger appeared.  At least, that’s the impression I had gotten from sportstalk radio.  There’s a reason they want the circus side show that is Tiger Woods at golf tournaments.  Just in case the on course action isn’t great, they could can just sit around and gossip about Tiger.  That’s what he’s good for at this point, a distraction.

Even more than other personality-driven sports, the PGA’s fortunes have risen and fallen on one individual.  Every other golfer on tour has been ignored and dismissed for the sin of not being Tiger.  NASCAR may have had the same problem with Junior, but at least there, every other driver has their fans.  If they win, they’ll get attention.  If you win a bunch, you’re Jimmie Johnson.  He may be hated by most fans, but he’s still got plenty of fans of his own. 

At some point in the near future, the NBA may have this problem.  Jordan left and begat Kobe, who had feet of clay, who begat Lebron, who’s basically a jerk.  A downward spiral of likeability, regardless of accomplishments.  Worse, NBA commentators have been actively running down other good players in the league to make Lebron look bigger.  When he’s gone or irrelevant, they’ll be scrambling for the next big thing. 

The NFL, to their credit, is not personality-driven.  Fans root for the name on the front of the jersey, not the back.  Sportstalk would love to reduce baseball down to a couple of teams (namely Yankees, Red Sox, and Dodgers) and a couple of players and ignore everything else.  Unfortunately, baseball is a game of near constant failure and losing.  It’s really hard to hype up individual baseball players and teams without ending up looking like an idiot, given that they’re going to slump, and badly, at that at some point in the season (not that that stops most sportscasters).  See my own picks for last season.

I can’t help but notice how the Masters are shown with very limited commercial interruption, in spite being a major sporting event with a world-wide audience.  If Fox Sports was running the coverage, they’d be breaking for commercial in the middle of golfer’s backswings.  “Do we really have to show the entire back nine?  Can we skip a few holes to put in a few more breaks and just show them in replay?  NASCAR viewers don’t mind seeing incidents only in replay.” 

Maybe I should talk about the actual golf.  I saw some really bad fashion choices there on Sunday, including some old, hippie dude with ponytail out on the course.  I’d name names, but I don’t follow golf and don’t know who these people are.  Okay, maybe this is why I don’t write about golf. 

Okay, actual golf talk.  The British Open is about battling the elements.  One wonders how the game came to be invented in Scotland under the conditions of a constant cold, blustery wind and driving rain.  The US Open is about fighting a golf course designed by golf sadists.  They don’t trim the greens there; they polish them.  (“You might want to leave this one left.  If you go right, it goes straight into the ocean.  You probably won’t be able to play it from there.”)  At the Masters, you’re battling your nerves.  Don’t rip a guy for “choking” there.  Even the winner gets broken at the end and will have a very emotional reaction.  Nobody in contention plays the final round of the Masters “loose.”

Rookie Jordan Spieth did a good job of being in contention.  He just had a couple of bad holes.  He didn’t crumble at that point, but wasn’t able to rally.  His emotions came out on course, but he showed some definite poise afterward.  Whenever rookies make good showings like this in major events (in any sport), but fall short, you hope that this isn’t the last you see of them.

Bubba Watson not only showed steady calm in seizing opportunities and taking the lead, he didn’t even let up.  With the tournament in his hands, Bubba took some risky shots, not because he needed to, but because he could, and he could make them.  The emotions that came out at the end showed what kind of strain he was under, regardless of cavalier play.  The shot of the match was obviously the camera shot of his toddler son going out to meet him on the 18^th green.