Trevor Immelman winning the Masters is a feel good story and congrats to him for a major accomplishment. No disrespect to the South African, but the media and the public are obsessed with Tiger’s failure to win at Augusta and the derailment of his Grand Slam bid. Oh well, there’s always next year. A few observations on the 20087 Masters:
ESPN did a very nice job showing the par three tournament on Wednesday. Live shots of aces by Couples and Azinger, coverage of Palmer, Nicklaus and Player were interspersed with nice little features. Quick memo to Ian Baker Finch: Never say “fans” at Augusta. It’s “patrons.” Finch caught his mistake and corrected it immediately.
I have a real problem with ESPN and CBS in that they do not show the leader boards often enough during the telecasts. Is there something in the contract that prohibits the use of either an alphabetical scroll (preferable) or a scroll by score? A scroll doesn’t take up much space or much time. They should run it every 15 minutes.
The lack of low scores on Sunday and the lack of drama shows that the Masters is now paying the price for lengthening the course. Yes, scores were down because of 35 mph winds. But the reason the Masters used to be fun and exciting and different from other majors was that players could aggressively attack the course on Sunday afternoon on the back nine. There was great risk-reward in going for those two par fives. The added length has taken that out of the equation. Snedeker was the perfect example. He had to make something happen so he went for the green and rinsed his ball. Certainly watching his fellow competitor hit it in the creek affected Immelman’s decision not to go for it even though he was much closer (that and the wind). The green coats cannot make the course 9,000 yards so now they also are growing rough to defend the course, but they do so forgetting what made the tournament unique. I liked it the old way.
Hitting range balls while wondering whatever happened to Brian Tennyson.
