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If It’s The Masters It Must Finally Be Spring
Regardless of the weather, in my mind, it’s not really Spring until golf’s Masters Tournament begins. And here we are! I watched some of the play today, and the best pros in the world make it look soooo easy. But I recall a few years back, on another Masters Kickoff Thursday, listening to some sports-talk radio guys interviewing a former pro. They asked him the following question:
“We both play golf. Suppose a regular guy — a hacker like one of us — went out there on the course at Augusta and found it set up the way it is for the Masters. What would we shoot?”
The reply was fascinating. He said:
“Forget about the length. Forget about the tight fairways. Ignore the deep rough… and trees and water and bunkers. We’ll go around the course like this…
“I’ll drop a ball 50 yards from the front of the green, in the middle of the fairway, and you can start every hole from there. If we go around the course that way, a regular golfer like one of you would be lucky to break 100. The greens are just soooo fast! And treacherous! Starting from 50 yards out, you’ll pitch it onto the green and it will roll all the way off the backside. Then when you chip it back up, it will roll all the way off the front. When you finally get it to stop on the green, you’ll three-putt.”
Clearly, he’s seen me play.
But watching the pros on the gorgeous course… Hope springs eternal. It’s golf time again!
Published in General
Do they have golf during baseball season?
Why?
The big difference is that I’ll never get to play on the field at Yankee Stadium. But if I’m willing to spend the money, I can play on a course that the pros play on. Not Augusta necessarily … it’s a private club… but there are many around the world that anre public. Like St Andrew’s. And if I’m brave enough I can hit from the professional tees.
Not a golfer any longer, never got my handicap below 39, but still always enjoyed playing, especially when our foursome agreed that at 7 strokes, you could pick up your ball and move along. Heh. Of course that round could not be counted in the handicap calculations….
Hello, friends. It’s a tradition unlike any other…
Watched Cantlay put two in the water from close range on 15, and then Rory did it once on the same hole. Once the ball rolls just a little past the hole, it’s gone.
And if you sink a putt from 20 feet, you know you have done it as well as it can be done. Even if you can’t do it very often!
Here is a portrait painting I did for Canterbury Golf Club in Beechwood, Ohio, of Henry Picard, the 5th winner of the Masters Tournament in 1938. He was a pro at the club in the early 20th Century. I used old black & white photographs of his face and a lanky guy working at the club today to stand-in for his body. In the background is Canterbury.
Our rule was pickup after triple bogey . . .
Firethorn (#15) is my favorite hole to watch. In fact, I have DirecTV, and watch their coverage of holes 15 and 16.
What makes this hole fun is that it’s feast or famine for the pros. The big choice is whether to go for the green in 2, or lay up for a wedge shot to the hole. Making the green in 2 gives you a chance at an eagle, while laying up gives you an good shot at a birdie (the average score on this par 5 is 4.77 strokes). Going long is dangerous, with water in front of and behind the green. The green is also guarded by a bunker on the right (facing the green). But what makes it hard is that the putting surface is somewhat convex, meaning balls that land with high backspin (from a wedge) tend to roll back into the pond in front. Second shots tend to hit the green and roll down the back, often reaching the pond behind the green (or land in the bunker). Even if the ball stops short of the back pond, getting your next shot to land and stay on the green is tricky.
This hole makes for great drama, and I look forward to watching it every year . . .
Update: I forgot to mention that even if you make it safely on the green in 2, putting is a nightmare as the green is so fast, it’s easy to overshoot the cup and roll your ball off the green . . .
Here’s my portrait of Arnold Palmer, the Masters winner in 1960, 1962, and 1964. Around the early 1960’s he too, was a pro at the Canterbury Golf Club. This was my first painting for Canterbury. When I started the picture, I had painted normal-looking grass on the ground. The guys at Canterbury told me “Whoaaaa! that is what is called ‘rough grass,'” or something like that. I don’t know a damn thing about golf, only painting. They had to show me what grass looks like on an actual green. I swear it looked like it had been shaved by a barber!
These are wonderful. So lifelike that I feel they are going to start talking to me.
Absolutely!
It’s not The Masters but one of my favorite golf souvenirs is from the U.S. Open commemorating Palmer’s win in 1960. These pins came attached to our credentials.
I’ve got another one for ya. I did this painting about four years ago for Canterbury Golf Club. It is six-time Masters Tournament winner Jack Nicklaus. He won in 1963, 1965, 1966, 1972, 1975, and 1986. His connection to Canterbury is that he won his 14th Major Tournament there, the PGA Championship in 1973, thereby setting the all-time record for number of Majors wins, surpassing Bobby Jones.
The back story:
Nicklaus was walking on the green after the 2nd round of the 1973 PGA Championship at Canterbury in Beechwood, Ohio. His older son Jackie, mischievously coerced his younger brother Gary, only four years old, to crawl under the security ropes and run onto the green to his father. When Jack saw him coming, he reflexively picked him up and hoisted him onto his shoulder, proudly carrying him away. Cleveland Plain Dealer photographer Ray Matjasic alertly snapped a Black & White photograph of Nicklaus carrying his son. This later proved to be Nicklaus’s favorite photograph, as he says on his Facebook page.
Because I was working from a black & white photo, I had to provide my own color. Luckily, there were color photos on the Internet, taken at the event on the same day, showing Jack and his son Gary inside a tent, wearing the exact same clothes as in the famous picture. So I didn’t have to invent much. I only had to add-in the missing bottom part of the picture that contained his right leg. Renting a pair of white golf shoes from a vintage clothing store, and having my brother pose in seersucker pants, provided the model that I needed to complete his leg, and crafting a miniature figure of Jack out of clay and shining a light on it gave me the proper shadow configuration on the grass to complete the picture.
If this painting looks familiar, I wrote a post about it on Father’s Day, 2021.
The Masters is the most appropriately named event in sports. Everything about it is first class.
Exactly.
It was exclusively white men until leftists’ progressive winds began to blow.
They’ll get it changed eventually.
Great article, @ekosj.
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