the masters

I am not a big TV golf watching guy. I put golf on TV in the same category as ice skating and bowling as watching events (translated that means watching golf on tv is chinese water torture tv style) . But. The Masters is different. It’s kind of addictive. And someone at the network must have gone to the ESPN school of coverage in never lingering on one player for long but skipping from shot to shot which keeps up an amazing pace of shot making (it almost makes it feel like a fast  game).

Tiger

Tiger is Tiger. I don’t care if he shacks up with an entire Hooters restaurant of waitresses he can still play golf. And I think he also realized the way to shut up (or shut down) the negativity over his marital transgressions (but libido that transcended) was to play some good golf. So he didn’t win. So his last round wasn’t that Tiger of old. So the guy was in the running to win for 3+ rounds. So this guy can play golf. So if you expected him to be happy afterwards you were nuts. Family stuff was family stuff. Winning is winning. He came to win.

The old guys

I love the senior golf tour.  Well. Let me say … I know there is one. And I know they play a lot of tournaments. And I know that a lot of golfers who I grew up with and knew about are still playing somewhere on that tour. And I bet someone out there actually watches it.

I guess to translate this means I don’t love it as a golf watching event but I love it for the fact it keeps these old guy’s games honed to a point where they can compete with the kids. At least for awhile. It gives everyone some perspective. And perspective is good.

Getting in a groove

Mickleson’s three hole almost three eagles stretch. Couples birdie birdie birdie. The Anthony Kim run. I could go on. It seems like the great players while they can play an entire round well get into these three hole “grooves.” And it is fun to watch. Because the really good ones feel it and go with it. And those are the times you see shots that no one should be able to make. And certainly not when the entire world is watching and the Masters is on the line.  This is what makes me want to actually watch this game on television.

Groove part 2

As the groove tails off (and it is actually not a slope it is a cliff at the Masters) you wait for the inevitable. I don’t know why but it seems more often at the Masters than anywhere else that the end of the groove is some disastrous fall off. Makes for great television. Makes for ulcers on the tour. Anyway. Maybe that is what makes Mickelson’s last round so awesome. A couple of little grooves and no cliff dive (although he teetered on a couple).

That golf course

I could go out there with three of my best buddies and 4 cases of slightly warm PBR and our Wal-Mart mixed bag of clubs and our shots would look frickin’ awesome as they rolled and skipped their way down the fairways. I have been fortunate to play on a number of PGA golf courses (when they are in tournament ‘cut’) and they are always beautiful and unplayable to normal human beings. I have never played at Augusta. All I know is I wouldn’t have enough balls in my bag to finish a round but there couldn’t be a more beautiful course out there to lose all those balls. TV shot to TV shot the course looks stunning. Oh. And difficult. Oh. And Mickleson shot back to back 67’s on it. Oh (as in oh my god).