Reflections on The 2008 Masters

That grand Spring ritual that heralds the beginning of the golf season for us northeast floggers - The Masters - has come and gone for 2008. All the tradition and ceremony remained intact, like the schmaltzy theme song, like Nantz' schmaltzy commentary, like the tributes to the past and the connecting threads woven to the future (does it get any better than Player passing the torch to Immelman? You couldn't write a script like that...)

The Masters looks a little different than in the past - it was my first Masters in high definition, and it looked fantastic. CBS, by the way, clearly has the best quality hi def of any network. The pictures on my 42" LCD looked almost three dimensional. How about that computer-generated ball-flight tracker, which shows the curvature of the shot from the player's perspective? Pretty edgy stuff for a tournament that won't allow a blimp (a rule I am strongly in favor of.)

There were new players and plot twists added to the continuing story of The Masters, but here's the rub: Most of the key moments were disappointments of one kind or another. Couples misses the cut. Tiger's hopes (and ours) for a modern, single-season grand slam are dashed. Heroics are few and far between - Tiger's pitch from the 10th fairway to the 18th green on Friday was about as good as it got. This Masters Sunday back nine was all about failure, and failure is an ingredient used only sparingly in the recipe for memorable competition. If failure were salt, this tourney left us parched (to stretch the metaphor...)

We seem to have entered a chapter in The Masters' story in which this grand old tournament comes to resemble the U.S. Open - and that's a bad thing. The thrilling Sunday back nine has looked more like an episode of Survivor; "Who will make it through the wind and water challenge?" Instead of the roars for which this tournament is known, we heard hushed moans when Sneds dunked it on 13, when Flesch splashed down on 12 before imploding, when Immelman fell short and wet on 16. There were no smiling faces coming up the 18th fairway, even from the leader! Following his tee shot on 18, Immelman let out a sigh of relief. After making his final, winning par, instead of jumping for joy, he had the look of a man who just got a repreive from the Governor! Hats off to Trevor, he played great, withstood the pressure, and earned his first major, but he and a few others might need a little counseling to avoid any PMTSD: Post Masters Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Perhaps this will change with the weather, and even Augusta National's management can't dictate that, but we already have a golf-war-of-attrition every June, ending on Father's Day. The folks at Augusta need to pay a little more attention to how The Open is set up (British, that is) where they seem to continually strike a balance between challenge and reward. Come Spring and the daffodils, the azaleas, that music, and the green jacket, we want to be thrilled! We want to be reminded of what makes The Masters the premiere golf event of the year! We want to be reminded of why we are anxious to make our first tee time of the season! We want to be reminded of how good it can get!

Bring back the roars!

GF