The Masters 2020

 

Hello, Friends.

So it finally became time to stage The Masters for 2020 this past weekend, after a seven and one-half month delay.  The Masters is always must-see-television for golf fans, and even for non-golf fans, and especially more so in this crazy year of 2020.  However, unlike most years, this version offered very little drama or edge of the seat excitement.  World Number One Golfer Dustin Johnson  seized hold of the tournament by the end of the second round and had a four shot lead after the end of the third round.  Bogies on 4 and 5 for yesterday caused his lead to slip to two strokes early on, and that made it look as though DJ would be seriously challenged, but a birdie on number six righted the ship, and Johnson would go on to earn a five stroke victory and set a Masters scoring record of twenty under par.  He recorded only four bogies throughout the 72 hole event.  That is astonishing.

He is a most worthy Champion.

Some other thoughts and takeaways from this year's toon-a-mint....

The sight of Augusta National without fans Patrons was pretty astonishing, although we have gotten used to such sights at sports events in 2020.  If possible, seeing it in such a natural state made it - in my mind, at least - even more beautiful, even without the azaleas and other flora in full bloom as they are in April.  I suppose sports are always better when played before packed houses, so let's hope that full galleries of fans Patrons will be on hand come April, but for this one year only, I am glad we got to see Augusta National as we did this past weekend.

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Runner-up Cameron Smith finished at -15, a score that would have won the Masters in 78 previous years, and had all four rounds with scores in the sixties.  Was anyone else as surprised as I was to learn that that was the first time that that had ever happened at The Masters?

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As always, CBS coverage of this Tradition Unlike Any Other was superb, even if Jim Nantz always appears to  be close to openly weeping when talking in hushed and reverential tones when speaking of the Augusta National, Bob Jones, Alistair MacKenzie and the hallowed Traditions of The Masters.   I loved the drone shots of the golf course.  I didn't miss Peter Kostis.  I did miss David Feherty, and I liked Dottie Pepper and Trevor Immelman on the coverage.  Verne Lundquist on 16 is truly a CBS Tradition Like No Other.  I am willing to bet that he knows the contours and quirks of the 16th green better than any of the golfers who play in the tournament every year.  And Nick Faldo is always good, too.  Doesn't take himself too seriously as so many of the other ex-golfers now doing the TV gig.  I was, however, wondering what the deal was with his sideburns.  Looks like he's trying to bring back 1968 again.

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This will go down as a mere footnote to the tournament, and if it happened to any other golfer in the field we wouldn't be talking about it all.  I am referencing the 10 that Tiger Woods took on the Par 3 twelfth hole yesterday.

The five time winner and defending champion started the day at -5 and was something like T-24.  Seven shots back and with over twenty guys ahead of him, he wasn't going to win The Masters this year, and who could blame him if all he wanted to do was go out, play quickly, and get it over with.  On the infamous twelfth hole, the shortest hole on the course, he rinsed his tee shot into Rae's Creek, put it into the water two more times, and ended up with a septuple bogey 10 on the hole.  Now at this point, no one, but NO ONE, would blame him if he really did check out both physically and mentally after that.  Didn't happen though.  He played those final six holes in five under par, going birdie-par-birdie-birdie-birdie-birdie.  The mental strength it took to do something like that is as amazing and as impressive as almost anything Woods has ever done on a golf course.  If you play golf, even if you are a hacking amateur like me, you know how mentally hard it is to recover and play even decently after thoroughly screwing up on a hole.

Tiger Woods, six weeks short of his 45th birthday, is still one of a kind.

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Bryson DeChambeau was the talk of the golf world, positively and negatively, coming into The Masters.  If you follow the game, you know that he's a bit of an oddball in his approach, and he talked openly about a course like Augusta National would play like a "par 67" for him.  Karma can be a bitch, and it bit Bryson in the butt this weekend.  He finished the tourney at -2 and way down the track, and was never really a factor at all.  I softened my opinion of DeChambeau after reading the cover story on  him in the current month's Sports Illustrated, but I was still glad to see him served up some humble pie this weekend.  At the same time, I'm sorry that it turned out the way it did.  Golf in general is a lot more interesting when he is in the mix on the weekends, and this Masters would also have been bit juicier if it was DeChambeau, instead of Cam Smith or Abe Ancer, chasing down Johnson on Sunday.

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Heard this interesting tidbit on the Tony Kornheiser Podcast this morning.  Dustin Johnson now has both a Masters Championship and a US Open Championship on is resume.  How many other golfers currently active in the PGA Tour can make that same statement?

The answer is TWO.  Tiger Woods and Jordan Speith.  Are you as surprised as I was that this is such a short list?

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Finally, a $7.50 investment on Fan Duel made by me last week on Dustin Johnson to win The Masters turned into a $78.75 payout, so you know for whom I was  rooting.

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One great thing about a one-time Masters in November is that we only have to wait a little less than five months until we get to do it again!

All Hail DJ!

 

How about that run Dustin Johnson had leading up to the Tour Championship and winning the FedEx Cup?

In the first tournament of the Playoffs, he shot 30 under par - THIRTY UNDER PAR!!!! - and won by eleven strokes.

In the second tournament of the Playoffs, he forced a playoff by making a miraculous thirty-two foot putt on the seventy-second hole, only to lose on the first sudden death hole when the other guy, Jon Rahm, made an even more miraculous sixty-six foot putt.

In the Tour Championship, he led from the opening round and had a five stroke lead going into the final round.  He got pushed by a couple of guys in that round, but no one ever got closer than two strokes from the lead, and he ended up winning by three shots.

He is the Number One player in the world right now, and he will no doubt be heavily favored in the US Open at Winged Foot next week.  He's a terrific player who has overcome a lot in his past, and while he may not be the most charismatic guy on Tour, he's one who is easy to root for.

How the USGA Almost Screwed the Pooch

Picture this scene.  On a cold January Sunday evening, the Pittsburgh Steelers are playing the New England Patriots in the AFC Championship Game.  In the second quarter, the Steelers score a touchdown, but Bill Belichick challenges the play.  The zebras go to the hood, examine the play, and deny Belichick's challenge.  Touchdown Steelers.  Then, midway trough the fourth quarter, with the Steelers clinging to three point lead, with nothing less than  a trip to the Super Bowl at stake, the officials come to Mike Tomlin and say something like, "We've been thinking about that touchdown, and maybe Belichick was right, so we may have to take that touchdown off the board, but we'll let you know after the final gun and the game is over."

You would say that such a scenario is ridiculous, and you would be absolutely correct, but, essentially, that is exactly what the USGA did to Dustin Johnson in the final round of the US Open at Oakmont yesterday.  If you missed it, here is what happened:

• While getting ready to putt on the fifth green, Johnson saw his ball move.  At that point, he had not "soled his putter" behind the ball, a critical point.
• Johnson stopped and called over a USGA rules official to confer.  The official asked him if he, Johnson, had "caused the ball to move".
• Johnson said that no, he had not.
• Rules official said, okay, you're good to go, no penalty.
• On the twelfth hole, another USGA functionary approached Johnson and said that they were taking another look at what happened on the fifth green, that they might assess a one stroke penalty on Johnson, and that they would let him know at the completion of the round.

Now, before the golf rules nerds gang up on me, I know that the rules of golf are sacrosanct, and that the integrity of the golfers, who call penalties themselves, are at the very heart of the game, so don't tell me about Bobby Jones calling a penalty on himself in the woods that cost him a US Open title. I get it.

However, in this case Johnson did nothing wrong.  If he said that he didn't cause the ball to move, then the bedrock integrity that the game, and the USGA, prides itself, must be taken at it's word.  Also, and here is the key, JOHNSON CONFERRED WITH A RULES OFFICIAL AT THE TIME who said No Penalty.  What is the point of having rules officials on the course if the governing body doesn't back them up, and if they don't, the time to "get it right" is at the time of the alleged infraction, not three hours later after the round has been completed.

In the end, it didn't matter, but is that really the case?  Knowing exactly how many stokes you are in the lead, or how many you are behind, certainly affects your on course strategy and how you play the game.  Credit Dustin Johnson for having the fortitude to play through with the possibility of a penalty awaiting him.  On thing for sure, though, is no one was happier that Johnson ended up finishing four strokes, later reduced to three strokes, clear of the field, than the USGA itself.  Had that one shot penalty forced a tie that would have resulted in a playoff  that would have resulted in someone else winning the Open, this would have haunted the USGA for years and years.  As it is, the entire final two plus hours of the telecast, which should have been a celebration of the USGA's showcase event at a venerable golf course, that was producing an exciting and attractive young champion was overshadowed by the Keystone Kops methods of the stuff-shirted Blue Blazers from Far Hills, NJ.

Enough of that.  Let's just salute the new Champion, Dustin Johnson.  It has been quite a journey for him to get to this point, and that second shot onto the eighteenth green was one for the ages.  Well played, Dustin Johnson!

Catching Up - Spieth, Pirates, and Warriors

The finish of the US Open at Chambers Bay yesterday certainly was one for the ages.  A four way tie to begin the fourth round, Dustin Johnson (my predicted winner) holds the lead for most of front nine, Rory McIlroy makes a charge and folds, Louis Oosthuizen makes six birdies on the back nine and is tied for the lead in the club house, Jordan Spieth takes a three shot lead with a spectacular birdie putt on sixteen, gives the lead away with a double on seventeen, makes another great birdie on eighteen, only to see Johnson birdie seventeen and have a putt for an eagle to win on eighteen, and a for-sure two putt birdie to force a playoff.  Amazingly, heartbreakingly, Johnson misses a two footer for birdie, and Spieth wins.

What is the fallout from this Open?

• Spieth now holds the first two legs of golf's Grand Slam.  This hasn't happened since 2002.  The hype leading to the British Open next month at St. Andrews for Spieth and his Grand Slam chances will be incredible.
• No doubt about it, Jordan Spieth is now THE pre-eminent golfer in America, if not the world, and he doesn't turn 22 until after the British Open.
• He is the youngest winner of the US Open since 1923, when an amateur of some note named Bob Jones won it.
• For Johnson, it was a heartbreaking defeat.  As much as I like Spieth, as Johnson stood over that birdie putt, I said to Marilyn, "I hope he makes it because no one should have to live with what will happen if he misses."  He has had close calls in Majors before, but this one is going to be a hard one to overcome mentally.  I hope that he does and gets his Major sooner rather than later.

I am going to forgo commenting on the Chambers Bay golf course and the TV coverage by Fox Sports.  Enough has been said about those two things already.

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The disastrous weekend in Washington DC for the Pirates takes away a bit of the luster from what has been a pretty special streak for the Pirates.  Prior to that Nats series, the Bucs had won eight in a row and, I believe, twenty-one of their prior twenty-six games, and had been doing it with pitching that was nothing short of spectacular.  While you hated seeing them get swept, perhaps what happened this week was inevitable.  As well as the Pirates had been playing, that's how poorly the Nats, a good team, had been doing, so some "market corrections" were due.  Next on the docket are three games with the division rival Reds, a team that the Pirates have had trouble beating.  Win two of three against them, and spirits will be lifted, no doubt.

By the way, I am stunned, although maybe I shouldn't be, at the over the top coverage of the Jose Tabata's HBP that broke up Max Scherzer's perfect game on Saturday with two outs in the ninth.  You'd have thought Tabata was responsible for snatching the Lindbergh Baby.  That is the ESPN-24 Hour Media culture in which we live, I suppose, but really...

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A final comment on the NBA Playoffs that concluded last week with the Golden State Warriors defeating the Cleveland Cavaliers in six games.  (I believe that I had that, although I did say it would go the full seven.)  The Warriors are deserving champions, and Steph Curry and Finals MVP Andre Iguodala were phenomenal in the Series, so Congratulations and Hail to the Champion Warriors.

Congratulations also to LeBron James who, essentially, dragged the injury riddled Cavs through six games in this series.  When he was doing TV announcing back in the '70s, I once remember the great Bill Russell saying that "Injuries are a much a part of this game as free throws."  He was right, of course, and the Cavs chances were severely hurt when Kevin Love went down early in the Playoffs, and whatever chances they had left were pretty much submarined when Kyrie Irving went down and out after the first game of the Finals.  What was left was a team consisting of LeBron James and four guys named Joe.  Minus James, that Cleveland team that took the court against the Warriors after Irving's injury was one that would have trouble winning 35 games in an NBA season.

U.S. Open Forecast

It was my intention to write a Grandstander post Wednesday evening or Thursday morning that would offer my prediction for the US Open that is currently being contested at Chambers Bay in University Place, Washington.  However, I never got around to it, so, better late than never, here goes, and, yes, these were the names I would have written had I done this post on Wednesday night.  Honest.

Rather than make a flat out prediction, I was instead going to offer a short list of names and state that the winner would come from among those golfers.  The names were:

Jordan Spieth
Dustin Johnson
Rory McIlroy
Patrick Reed
Jason Duffner
Rickie Fowler

As I type this, they are about midway through the second round with half the golfers not yet out, and here is how it's looking for my boys.

Spieth and Johnson are part of a four way tie for first at -5.  Reed is one back at -4, Duffner is at -2, McIlroy is +2, and Fowler is at +13.

Of interest is 45 year old Phil Mickelson who is searching for the only Major title that has eluded him.  He sits at -1 after one round.  It would be a great story, and I would be pulling for him, but I am doubtful that Lefty will be able to hang on. He hasn't teed off yet for today, and we'll know more about his chances tonight after he signs his card.

The good new for Tiger Woods is that he is keeping right up, shot-for-shot, with one of the bright lights and Young Guns on the Tour today.  The bad news is that this particular Young Gun is Rickie Fowler.  Yep, Tiger is +13 through fifteen holes today.

I have been calling for Dustin Johnson to win a major for just about every one of these over the last three or four years now, so that's who I am picking for this one come Sunday.

As always, watch, but don't bet.

US Open is Underway

So, I am sure that many of you are clamoring for a Grandstander prediction for the US Open now underway at Olympic Country Club in San Francisco.  After his win two weeks ago at The Memorial, Tiger Woods is the betting favorite and the trendy pick, and I suppose he has as good a shot as anyone.

Fans of Phil Mickelson, and I am one, wonder if Lefty will ever be able to capture a US Open, after he has finished second five times in this Championship in his career.  At the age of 41, time might be running out for Lefty, but I see one thing that might spur him on this week.  If there is anything that gets Mickelson's juices flowing it's major championships and the chance to put a beat down on Tiger Woods, and the two of them, along with Masters winner Bubba Watson will be paired together in the opening two rounds this week.  That can work against you, too, since you can get caught up playing the golfer in your group rather than the course, but I think Mickelson is smarter than that.  So is Woods, for that matter.

In fact, I will ooffer one prediction: Woods will finish ahead of Mickelson this week.

I have  not been able to muster up any kind of feeling to register a learned prediction other than this: an American will win the US Open this week.  Sorry about that Rory, Luke, Lee, Ian, and all you other Internationals. 

 And if you want to go with karma for a pick, how about this?  Earlier in the week, as a promotional gig before a Giants game at AT&T Park, Dustin Johnson and Giants pitcher Matt Cain were hitting drivers from home plate over the right field seats and into McCovey Cove.  We now know that Cain responded by pitching a perfect game last night.  Will some of that same karma rub off on Johnson?  Johnson has contended in majors before and he's coming off a nice win in Memphis last week.  Hey, it's as good a reason to pick him as anyone else.

Enjoy the Open.  With it being played in California, we will be seeing it in Prime Time here in the east.  I like that.