Tag: augusta national

Falling Short at the Masters: Tom Kite Can Relate to Rory

Each time Rory McIlroy arrives at Augusta National, the burden of expectation is a little heavier. It’s been that way since 2011, when he lost a four-stroke lead on Sunday. He won the very next major by eight shots and three more since, but those trophies may as well be checked at the public end of Magnolia Lane. The Masters is a major onto itself – what you accomplish elsewhere doesn’t subtract from the pressure of anticipation, it only adds to it.

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Spieth’s Masters Nightmare Should Scare Others Too

Superman teed off with a one-stroke lead in the Masters Tournament on Sunday, but as is often the case in the final round at Augusta National, it was a shell-shocked and defeated Clark Kent who staggered home.

Jordan Spieth had been atop the Masters leaderboard for the better part of three years. On his debut in 2014, he finished second. He won wire-to-wire in 2015, a dominance that continued through the first three rounds this year. By the time he turned for home at 5:05 p.m. this Sunday, Spieth’s lead was five shots. But for every dream realized on the closing holes at Augusta National, several nightmares are made real. By 5:50 p.m., the coronation had become a crucifixion.

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Superman Spieth unexpectedly turned into Clark Kent in the Masters final round.

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The Agony of Ernie Els

Major championships are golf’s most unforgiving coliseums, exposing every weakness and insecurity in order to identify and then celebrate the player most worthy of a victory that both defines and elevates a career. But only on Sunday evening. And only for one player.

For the rest of the competitors, majors usually bring varying degrees of misery, battles against expectations they can’t meet, elements they can’t control or demons they thought vanquished. Especially at the Masters, which began Thursday in Augusta, Georgia.

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Ernie Els with his troublesome putter at Augusta National.

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An Old Master Fades Away

The Masters Tournament, the 80th edition of which begins Thursday in Augusta, Georgia, attracts the drive-by golf fans, those who tend toward an abridged, Augusta-centric version of history. In this CliffsNotes chronicle, Jack deposed Arnie in the ’60s and ruled until his epic Masters victory at age 46, 30 years ago.

Après Jack? A period of unremarkable parity until the Tiger era commenced.

Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods will be at Augusta National this week for the Masters, but physical frailty—induced by age and injury—consigns all three to ceremonial cameos. That leaves the role of sentimental favorite to Tom Watson, who will make his 43rd and final Masters appearance. His farewell offers a timely reminder to casual fans that Nicklaus was himself overthrown by a young rival, one who has aged into the sport’s most durable and complicated icon.

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Play It Again, Sam (& Co.)

Yesterday I posted a photo on Twitter that seemed of interest to many people, though admittedly fewer than were drawn to Mrs. Kanye’s latest overexposed selfie.

It was a handwritten fax I had received from the great Sam Snead. That it was a fax dates the document almost as much as the identify of its author. Snead died May 23, 2002, four days shy of his 90th birthday.

The single page—sent at 6:34 P.M. on July 14, 2000—recounts the eight strokes Snead took on the last hole to lose the 1939 United States Open at Philadelphia Country Club. Sixty-one years had passed and the wound was no less fresh.

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