Masters week begins in Augusta. The pressure and drama can wait
There might be better places to be than Augusta National Golf Club on Masters Monday, but the list is short.
Men’s golf’s first major championship of 2019 looms on the horizon. The climax of March Madness in Minneapolis, college spring football practices or early season baseball games might be in another universe.
The living is easy this day on the emerald acres that make up one of the most famous — and, yes, revered — stages in the world of sports. The anxiety and pressure of the championship can wait.
Cameras click. Players wax and wane between the serious business preparing for Thursday’s start of the 83rd Masters and smiling in the autograph line. Fans strive to get an up-close glimpse of some of the game’s best players.
Question No. 1: Where’s Tiger?
Tiger Woods is easy to find; just find the biggest crowd — on the practice tee, then the chipping area and putting green and finally amid a phalanx of security personnel on his way to the clubhouse.
Tiger “moves the needle,” Kevin Kisner said, re-inforcing the reason for Monday’s top question.
Brooks Koepka, Bubba Watson and J.B. Holmes head out together in a practice round that could turn into a long-drive contest, and players fill the putting green in search of the magic touch on those devilish 4- and 5-footers that lead to success. Martin Kaymer teed off on No. 15 from well behind the markers in anticipation of the championship setup.
Dustin Johnson and Rory McIlroy played 18 holes together Monday in a heavyweight round that prompted the idea that the same pairing might be the last to tee off on Sunday.
Perhaps the greatest on-course question prior to Thursday involved the lengthened fifth hole, and Johnson reduced the problem to the basics: “Just a matter of hitting the fairway and getting (the ball) on the green somehow,” he said.
Like the others, those two — on the short list of Masters favorites — left nothing to chance in their preparations. Dustin, the Columbia native who is ranked No. 2 in the world, tested three different wedges from behind the 10th green, and Rory, sizzling in 2019, tried to zero in his putter from all angles.
One Monday discovery: Give Tommy Fleetwood’s dad an A-plus for his looking in to the future.
In discussing his first memories of the Masters, Fleetwood, a 28-year-old Englishman who is ranked 13th in the world, recalled Nick Faldo’s triumph in 1996. “The first one I remember watching — the proper one I first watched — was in 1997 when Tiger won,” he said. “I remember my dad saying something like, ‘This guy’ — meaning Tiger — ‘is going to be good.’ That was the start of not just my Masters memories, it was also the start of Tiger’s era for me.”
Justin Rose eased past Johnson to take the No. 1 spot in this week’s world rankings and danced around the idea that the world’s No. 1 had not won the Masters in recent years.
“The ranking between Brooks, myself, Dustin, even going back to Justin Thomas, it’s bounced around a lot,” he said. “From that point of view, I’m not going to take on that story.”
But experience is a great teacher, especially at Augusta, and Rose has that. He has nine straight rounds of par or better in the Masters, the best streak in the field.
He called making the cut his first Masters “a good positive experience.” In his second, he led after two rounds, then “shot 81, which was obviously disappointing but taught me a lot about this golf course.”
Going forward, “I’ve just continued to be learning and trying to apply what I’ve learned year-on-year ... and I’ve given myself a couple of good chances being in that final group on Sunday a couple of times and playing well on both occasions.”
In the first, “Jordan (Spieth) was making everything” in 2015,” he said, “and Sergio (Garcia) and I, it was a coin flip who was going to come out on top.”
On top this year? Guesses are as plentiful as the azaleas on Monday, a time that the living is easy at Augusta National. Intensity and pressure must wait.
How to Watch 2019 Masters
TV
Thursday, 3 to 7:30 p.m., ESPN
Friday, 3 to 7:30 p.m., ESPN
Saturday, 3 to 7 p.m., CBS
Sunday, 2 to 7 p.m., CBS
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