 "Augusta National shows its teeth")
Saturday opened chillier, windier and sunnier than the Friday, promising still drier, harder and faster greens, and consequently higher scores.
Some sane advice for the Masters under these conditions: If one misfires on the green from even ten feet, one could drift several feet away presenting a testing return putt, therefore be very careful. It is a given that players will miss greens as their approaches drift in the wind gusts and up and downs will be very difficult; therefore bogeys will come but accept these and don't despair; whatever you do don't take a double. In these conditions, a par 72 is excellent so don't get ahead of yourself and, if you have a couple of successive brilliant holes, don't allow the rush of blood to drive you to aggression: hubris is waiting. Don't try to create high risk opportunities but let opportunities present themselves to you and then take advantage of them. Don't forget that Tom Weiskopf, four times T2 at the Masters, in 1980, on Golden Bell (or Jezebel), the par three twelfth, shot the highest score ever recorded on any hole in the history of the Masters....unlucky thirteen!. In this wind ,the too brave are the foolish as there are other disasters waiting to happen; the automatic urge to reach the moat protected par 5s (13 and 15) in two, in search of Eagles, when a lay up would yield a safe birdie, is pure folly. Nick price holds the course record of 63 (9 under) by getting lay up birdies on all the par 5s. Patience is highly recommended...but who listens?
By the end of the day there were only four persons under par and all had up and down rounds. By Sunday night there may be none! Even Jordan Spieth disregarded the above sage advice (not mine, by the way... this is from past Masters champions turned expert commentators) and ended bogey - double bogey to leave himself only a one shot cushion. The despondent spirits of at least eight players have been raised as they are now only 3-4 shots back. Each is dreaming of a dream round on Sunday while hoping all the others flounder. Jordan has left the gate wide open; while he is no doubt disappointed, he has done the spectators great service by creating a final act in the drama where all endings are possible.
Dustin Johnson and Jason Day have received a lease of life after having basically "failed" to take advantage of opportunities in the last two days. They need to come good and challenge the leader and provide a great contest. Hideki Maruyama, much improved and capable of 'Zen' concentration (incidentally, zen comes from the Sanskrit 'Dhyan'), would be a very worthy and popular winner; golf crazy Japan would have a first time major winner and it could actually lift the sagging Japanese economy! We will surely see much more of him.
Rory, sadly, pushed too hard too fast and, remarkably, did not get a birdie in the entire round. He lost ground to Jordan early and when he had a super opportunity to narrow the gap, he became aggressive in trying for a two shot swing birdie from ten feet but ended up three putting and gaining nothing. The change of his putting grip just four weeks ago has not yielded any fruit and now he will be caught betwixt and between. No hope for the Green Jacket this year then. By the way, many Americans of Irish descent were rooting for an Irish win, so all the US force was not with Jordan. Such split loyalties made for some amusing and interesting sotto voce comments from spectators.
Dustin is far and away the best athlete among all the top golfers. His seemingly languid walk gives the impression of great, uncoiled, hidden power. As he steps up to the first tee, he acknowledges the applause, not by lightly tipping his cap as most players do, but by raising his lower arm, palm outwards, as though conferring a blessing. There's nothing pretentious about it; it seems almost shy and defensive. His turn develops enormous torque in his upper body, and unleashing that enormous pent up power, flies the ball easily 330 yards and then it rolls a bit. Some years ago, Tiger Woods called that length 'stupid long'.
This gives one to think of the right balance between length of drive and fairways hit. Jason Day can drive 330 yards but then he hits on an average 38% fairways; when he chooses to drive 300 yards, he hits 75% fairways. One can obviously hit better shots from the fairway than from whatever quality of rough. He has won with both methods but on Saturday, playing alongside 58 years old, two times Masters Champion, Bernhard Langer, he received a master lesson in course management under such windy conditions. Day outdrove Langer by 40-50 yards but it was Langer who set himself up for more birdies and is now a stroke better than Day. A Langer victory, which seems feasible now but was unthinkable at the start of the tournament, will be hugely popular and give hope to those who retire early at 50 to the Seniors tour. Old will indeed be gold and set a target well beyond Nicklaus's win at age 46. Tom Watson who retired, with great dignity and without theatrics (aside from a few tears), from participating in future Masters championships at age 66 had almost set the bar impossibly high by narrowly missing winning The Open at age 60.
On that note, let's wish Jordan a peaceful sleep so that he can fend off all those who are nipping at his ankles.
Till the denouement then, tomorrow.
