2024 Masters: The (Point) Missers
The not-so-bright spots from a wonderful week in Augusta.
We’ve covered the Champions and Cutmakers.
Now it’s time to address the folks who will be eyeing their mailbox for a summertime letter postmarked Augusta.
(Point) Missers
Zach Johnson. The vulgar salutation to Amen Corner patrons applauding his triple bogey tap-in was unbecoming of a former champion. Funny, but unbecoming. And sure, there might have been a few lubricated jeers mixed in with stock golf claps that are not ideal but no reason to tell patrons to F off. One dubious-sounding Reddit post claims the 2007 champion was heckled when arriving at the tee, but the one-liners cited sounded identical to February’s Scottsdale heckling that prompted his meltdown there (Johnson also gave a new spin on that episode last week). Unfortunately for Zach, the incredibly nice and golf-knowledgable people who attend the Masters, (A) would like to return year so they never heckle, (B) are generous in applauding anything short of someone falling on their face, and (C) Amen Corner patrons sit far away from the 12th green and often lose track of how many shots a player has taken if they are at all distracted by action on the 11th green or the 5 p.m. Crow’s Nest sales cutoff. Par putts at 12 sometimes get the same applause as a birdie putt. It’s the dynamic of the Corner. Still, Johnson put himself in position for quote of the year when, after the incident, he offered this beauty. “If I've said anything, which I'm not going to deny, especially if it's on camera, one, I apologize, and two, it was fully directed towards myself entirely because I can't hear anything behind me. Does that make sense?” Oh it does. Especially since it was on camera.
Tyrrell Hatton. Spitting on the greens? This isn’t a LIV stop. A T9 means you’ll be back but not before hearing from the Chairman’s office. Let us know what he says and be thankful Clifford Roberts is no longer around.
Phil Mickelson. Lefty wants to be Lefty and in some ways he’s more of a Cutmaker than a (Point) Misser at this point. Tuesday night, Mickelson reportedly did his best Marcel Marceau impression during the Champions Dinner (according to Sir Nick). On the course, Mickelson received nice-but-hardly rousing receptions reserved for former champions. The Patrons who once adored him have moved on. I witnessed one of the light ovations when he came up to the 12th tee Friday. He then proceeded to slaughter any goodwill by taking over three minutes to hit his tee shot. Despite last year’s T2, Mickelson passed up a pre-tournament interview and is offering only vanilla post-round quotes at this point to avoid losing even more fans. Though he did concede LIV is likely headed toward four round events after pimping for 54 the last year-and-a-half. “We’ve got mini-tours playing 54, Champions Tour playing 54,” he said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if some or all of LIV events went to 72. I don’t know, but it doesn’t matter. I enjoy the competition.” Mickelson wrapped his week playing into the first hole from the 9th tee.
15th hole. Before the tournament we focused on the front nine’s increasingly defensive nature. But with this year’s extreme winds, the two back nine par 5s played much tougher than normal. The setup crew kept the greens playable through Friday’s winds without calling in the hoses. That’s a tribute to the prep crews knowing the course, the weather and the data. But the 15th was all just a bit much. Even with more sunlight hitting the fairway after some selective right side pine pruning, the tee shot remains too difficult given a combination of narrowness, right-to-left fairway tilt and the left side’s fortified forest. The green complex has also grown too severe. The closer cut this year accentuated the pond’s influence and led to a lot of double bogeys. Throw in the crazy winds, extreme green speeds and pros hitting never-had-a-chance wedge shots and the hole was more of a survival test than risk/reward fun. Final stats: 5.007 average, 1 eagle, 37 birdies, 14 doubles and two others.
17th hole. The uphill 440-yarder ranked first in difficulty Sunday, yielding just one birdie.