It’s Masters week, which means many things in the world of golf: first major championship of the season, the return to the beauty and splendor of Augusta National Golf Club and, of course, a de facto start to spring. Whether you’re bathed in warm sunshine or digging out from a late-season snow this week, the tinkling of piano keys on CBS signals it’s time for “a tradition unlike any other.”
Global Golf Post’s Ron Green Jr., John Hopkins, Scott Michaux and John Steinbreder convened for a virtual roundtable to preview the 88th edition of the Masters Tournament. Among them, they have covered 131 Masters over the years, with Green and Hopkins having rolled into Augusta earlier this week to chronicle No. 42 each. That’s a lot of pimento cheese, and even more perspective on the week ahead.
Players from LIV Golf and the PGA Tour are competing against one another for the first time this year as negotiations on the business side continue, but will there be something to prove this week at Augusta National?
Green: It’s an unavoidable storyline, but it’s more about the individuals than playing one side against the other. It was noteworthy last year when Brooks Koepka, Phil Mickelson and Patrick Reed finished in the top four, but that took a backseat to Jon Rahm winning. Does that mean LIV can claim four of the top five last year?
Hopkins: It is how exciting top-class, full-field golf is. The best against the best. It also will prove how disappointing it is when the best aren’t playing the best. And it will be a reminder that negotiations between the factions in golf’s civil war are still mired.
Michaux: There’s always something to prove because it’s the Masters. I thought last year was more of an “us vs. them” mentality between the two factions. This year I think only the green jacket matters. And Brooks Koepka really wants that green jacket – for himself, not for LIV.
Steinbreder: More than anything else, this week is about the Masters and what is arguably the most prestigious tournament for a golfer to win, thanks to the course, the club, the green jacket, the rich history and the lifetime exemption. But you can be sure that if someone from LIV comes out on top, there will be plenty of crowing from that contingent.
Finish this thought: The Masters is the best tournament in golf because …
Green: So many things. Think about how the television commercials that start airing in the dead of winter make you feel when you see them. It’s like nothing else, and it starts with the golf course. Having been fortunate to have covered 41 Masters, I still stand atop the hill and marvel at what I see.
Hopkins: Sorry, but I beg to differ. It’s equal best with the Open Championship. The Masters is a riotous, colorful, memorable, annual festival of worthy traditions that produces dramatic and thrilling golf, but it lacks one testing characteristic. While some parts of the exam players must pass is to do with their own performance against their rivals and the golf course, another part is demonstrating their ability to cope with the elements, however unwelcome those elements are. Golf is an outdoor sport, remember.
Michaux: Traditions … all of them. It’s got the perfect course for major drama. Winners come back every year for life. Even the small field is great because it places such a premium on just being there. Egg salad. No cellphones. Every major is cool. The Masters is just cooler.
Steinbreder: As much of anything else, it is the setting, which golf fans know so very well from all the Masters tournaments they have watched over the years, whether on site as patrons or on their television sets, computers and smartphones. For one week a year, Augusta National is everyone’s home course, and we get to watch the best players in the world compete on it.
What’s your favorite hole at Augusta National, and why?
Green: The 13th hole looks like something Monet might have designed, especially when the azaleas are in bloom. It asks hard questions of players and offers a spicy bit of drama in the perfect spot during the round. It’s nice to know that lengthening it last year didn’t hurt my favorite hole in golf.
Hopkins: The 15th because the top row of the stand beside the green is the best viewing spot in golf. From there you can observe players arriving at their drives on one of the most devilish holes in golf, see their second or third shots reach (or not) the green and suffer with them if their ball either dribbles back down into the pond or speeds over the putting surface. From there, it’s only a shoulder turn to watch them tangle with the 16th.
Michaux: Golden Bell, No. 12. While 13 is a supreme risk/reward par-5 hole, with funky fairway lies and the tributary of Rae’s Creek looming on tee shot and approach, it’s the wee little 12th that tests the mettle of Masters contenders more than any other. Green jackets are so often lost on such a short little gem that gets in players’ heads.
Steinbreder: There is something special about Pink Dogwood, the par-5 second hole. The drive, with a bunker right and piney woods left, demands distance, precision and, if at all possible, a slight draw. And that second shot, whether one is going for the green or not, provides one of the most stirring views on the layout, down an emerald-green hill to a putting surface guarded by two bunkers. Though it comes early in the round, this hole puts pressure on players, especially those in contention, because they know they need to make birdie if they have any chance of winning. Another factor: I happened to be standing by the green on the final day of the 2012 tournament when Louis Oosthuizen holed his second shot for the only double eagle recorded there in Masters history. The roars that arose after his Titleist trickled into the cup still resonate in my head.
Got a favorite Masters tradition?
Green: It’s more a rule than a tradition, but I love that the Masters does not allow patrons to bring their cellphones onto the property. It forces people to look up rather than down and encourages conversation. Whatever inconveniences it creates are more than outweighed by the freeing feeling of being disconnected at Augusta National.
Hopkins: Being able to say to friends “see you under the tree at the Masters.” The big, spreading live oak at the back of the clubhouse. If it could speak, what stories that tree could tell. Breakfast or lunch on the clubhouse veranda. My own parking space. The winner’s green jacket, though that tradition has given rise to some dreadfully garish jackets for winners of other tournaments.
Michaux: The Champions Dinner. It’s because of Ben Hogan’s institution of this exclusive celebration ritual that the past winners return year after year. Their presence in green jackets under the tree for even one day every April along with every other mover and shaker is what makes it ground zero in golf.
Steinbreder: The honorary starters. For the sheer beauty of the first tee at Augusta National as the sun rises and the anticipation of yet another Masters about to begin. For the chance to watch and listen to legends such as Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus and also Gary Player, Tom Watson and for one wonderful year, Lee Elder, participate in that ceremony. And for the collective and very palpable love of the game that emanates from that special spot each Thursday morning of Masters week. Has there ever been a better way to kick off a major?
What’s your best piece of advice to a first-time Masters patron?
Green: Wear good walking shoes because the hills, even if you’ve been told they’re substantial, are formidable and they seem to get bigger as the afternoon plays out. Breathe it all in. Have a doughnut for breakfast, try pimento cheese if you’ve never had it and save your plastic cups, the most underrated souvenir at the Masters.
Hopkins: Stick to the right-hand side of the course on the outward nine and understand that there is 150 feet of difference between the highest and lowest points. Don’t follow the play but select a viewing place and watch the field go through. Never run. Smell the flowers on the way ’round.
Michaux: Walk the course back to front starting at 10. Set a spell in someone’s unused chair perched in Amen Corner just to bask in it and the 16th hole when players are skipping balls in practice rounds. And walk up the quiet paved road between Nos. 2 and 8 to see the only native azaleas on the property.
Steinbreder: Jim Nantz once told me that he liked walking the second nine of the golf course on Wednesday afternoon during Masters week, when most of the attention – and the crowds – were focused on the Par 3 Contest. So, I tried it myself one year and quickly came to relish the quiet comfort of that amble. You no doubt will as well. And while you are there, you might consider stopping at the concession stand in Amen Corner for a Crow’s Nest Wheat Ale and a pimento cheese sandwich.
Who will post the better finish: Tiger Woods or Phil Mickelson, and why?
Green: Tiger. From what little we’ve seen of him, he seems to be better physically than he’s been in a while, and he’s been pointing at this for a while. Mickelson is often transformed at the Masters, but given the recent state of his game, it’s tough to be optimistic about his chances.
Hopkins: Hard to know just how fit Tiger is. Hard to know what state Phil’s game is in. And does it matter? Let’s wish they are paired together on a sunlit afternoon so we can watch two men with eight green jackets between them fighting anno Domini and physical decrepitude.
Michaux: Tough call. Augusta brings out the best in both even when they’re nowhere near their best. If they make it and get paired together Sunday, I’d take Tiger based on his competitive stubbornness. But in a vacuum, I’ll take Phil because he’s in better playing shape.
Steinbreder: Phil, but only because walking 72 holes on that hilly Augusta course is a tall order for Tiger these days, given all the injuries and surgeries over the years.
Presuming that you don’t like Woods or Mickelson to add another green jacket to his collection, who’s your pick to win?
Green: Brooks Koepka. The master of the majors finally gets his Masters.
Hopkins: Rory McIlroy because he has given us more than just occasional brilliant golf and deserves to become the sixth man to win all four of the game’s major championships. He’s the Roger Federer of our sport with his leadership and diplomacy. But he won’t win, though. There is little room for such mawkish sentiment in golf.
Michaux: My heart wants Rory McIlroy or Shane Lowry to win a first for Ireland. But my head says it’ll come down to Scottie Scheffler (consistency), Jon Rahm (heart), Brooks Koepka (determination) and Joaquín Niemann (form). Rahm will repeat.
Steinbreder: Viktor Hovland. It is finally his time.