(Point) Missers, 2025 Masters
Those who almost had a good week in Augusta.
It was a special year. And there is still plenty to kvetch about.
Scottie Scheffler. Dude, what’s with the brooding and general misery? You hosted a successful Champions dinner and made a strong title defense without your A game, missing the Rose-McIlroy playoff by only three strokes. Patrons I spoke to were hoping you didn’t contend again. Some of that antipathy comes from winning two of the last three Masters and folks wanting to see Green Jacket wealth spread around. Some of it can be pinned on the Rory effect. But a surprising number sounded a little bored with scenes like this from the trees on 18 where the free relief didn’t arrive this time around. Cheer up!
Phil Mickelson. The haggard billionaire angel investor and three-time champion played well until the second nine’s three-shotters sent him home to Florida Rancho Santa Fe on Friday night. In Thursday’s first round, Fred Couples received an impassioned standing-O arriving at the 12th tee. A few minutes later, the patrons reluctantly rose for the three-time champion but the Mickelson affinity wasn’t there. For someone who couldn’t go 15 feet in Augusta without shouts of affection, the cooling of patrons should be a wake-up call. At least the beloved pitchman-turned-54-year-old-who-spends-his-days-toiling-on-Twitter can still read the Tuesday night room. “Phil stayed quiet,” Fuzzy Zoeller told the Augusta Chronicle. “He just watched his beard grow.” When Fuzzy’s launching jabs, you know it’s time to reassess.
Youth like we’ve never seen before in the history of humanity. Only four 25-and-under golfers made the weekend, and they’re all 25. In Ludvig Aberg’s case he’s 25 going on 40 the way he plays Augusta National. Only 23-year-old Akshai Bhatia could carry the hopes of the ageists. Look, there are many stout prospects and golf is not struggling to develop budding talent. But as 21-year-old Nick Dunlap shows signs of strain from unrealistic expectations and the pressure of big stages—opening with a 90 before admirably coming back to shoot 71—he offered a reminder that golf is asking a lot of young players for no sound reason.
Par 3. Calling it a Contest seems iffy and that’s fine if everyone involved deems the playground approach necessary to game growth, upholding family values, life on Earth and keeping wee jumpsuit makers in business. Thankfully, watching the Par 3 is 100% optional. But it’s also a painful exercise for anyone who remembers the old contest when Masters contestants and former major winners of all ages took a spirited-but-speedy spin around the nine to the delight of patrons.
Jose Luis Ballester. The Tributary Tinkler is certainly on board with countryman Jon Rahm’s pleas to add restrooms at every tournament hole in the world. But doubling down when speaking to reporters (who tried to steer him to safe ground) may relegate the U.S. Amateur champion to a future toiling on the LIV circuit. But Ballester should survive this. He’s very fortunate that no photographers captured the lapse in judgment, preventing a New York Post back-page appearance.
Jon Rahm and Cameron Smith. Maybe Brooks Koepka, too. When you think of players who bolted for LIV that showed a genuine passion to perform on grand stages and their potential to great things this decade, it’s beginning to feel like they’re not the same having been relegated to 54 holes and small-time venues. But still TBD with three majors to go.
Fall Events. A huge field meant the Honorary Starters started 15 minutes before the sunlight magically hits the first tee at 7:40 a.m. All of last fall’s PGA Tour event winners getting invites for winning glorified KFT events contributed to the starting size of 95 (it might have been worse had two amateurs and two former champions took their spots). While it’s unfair to look at the results of those fall winners, we will anyway! Patton Kizzire (MC), Kevin Yu (MC, Matt McCarty (T14), J.T. Poston (T42 +1), Nico Echavarria (51, +8), Austin Eckroat (MC), Rafael Campos (MC), and Maverick McNealy (T32) didn’t exactly light it up. At least McCarty came close to earning an invite back (he needed a top 12). “We think it's important to win a PGA Tour tournament, and we have for many years recognized that by granting an invitation to the winner of each tournament,” said Fred Ridley when asked about possibly exempting the winners of international events instead. “Some years we do make changes, some years we don't. I think your comment about a couple of international tournaments is well-founded, and that will be part of our examination.” Seems like a good time to drop the PGA Tour fall events and exempt winners of the BMW PGA, Irish Open, and Australian Open instead.
15th Hole. Augusta National has always been able to defend itself better than some of its tinkerers seem to believe. Even after all of the modifications over the years, the ingenuity of the course is found in its ability to give players just enough leeway to either pull off the shot or create a totally preventable mess. Reducing options is antithetical to the design philosophy and makes for less interesting golf to watch. As fairways have been widened, the second cut minimized, and a more balanced course setup presented (as it was this year, hallelujah), the par 5 15th still seems wildly over-engineered. The Hootie-era pine forest replacing fairway bumps down the right side still looks wrong. Furthermore, the super-shallow green complex is more Mt. Vesuvius than a MacKenzie masterpiece. It grew even more intimidating this year with the loss of two pines behind a green. That’s cool. But it features steepened falloffs on three sides and turf incompatible with reliable ground game recovery possibilities. Round one this year one saw eight doubles or worse (5.032 avg). Overnight rain and maybe a little extra irrigation decreased round two debacles to 3 doubles and one other. On Friday, No. 15 still managed to take down grizzled veterans who took on a left hole location in a noble bid to make the cut. That’s a good thing. And Rory McIlroy’s unforgettable Sunday shot was made possible thanks to the green holding better than it did on Thursday. But needing to be kept soft says a lot about the greens’ severity. At the 13th last week, players hit the fairway 77% of the time and the green at a 78% clip. Yet up at the 15th, the field hit the narrow fairway an impressive 82% of the time, but the GIR only 66% of the time. That’s compelling evidence that something is amiss.
Four hours and 20 minutes. That’s generally how long it took twosomes of leaders to play the weekend around a course with no rough, no lost balls, and the field averaging around par. On Saturday, first-out Tom Kim took 3:45 playing with a marker. A healthy 1,200 yards of walking backwards to tees is certainly not helping rounds break four hours like they did not that long ago. So are greens rolling 14 where every putt needs to be treated with caution. Any wind seems to entitle the player to believe a shot can be played only when they feel like it, highlighted by Scheffler waiting on the 11th tee as the telecast watched him wait out his wind in painful fashion.
AimPoint Express. It was a rough week for the cult symbol-flashing mishegas even though longtime proponent Justin Rose nearly won. A shot clock is coming to the Drive, Chip and Putt and there were rumblings the Rules of Golf folks are “looking at” the absurd-looking two-step. I feel bad for the young DCP kids who were singled out as the worst offenders since they are only doing, as Chairman Ridley said, what their heroes have been allowed to do. Ridley eloquently pointed out the rudeness of slow play and straddling lines near the cup. “Golf is a special game because it requires us to be considerate while also being competitive,” he said. “Respecting other people's time, including, importantly, the fans who support the game, is a fundamental courtesy. Therefore, I want to encourage continued dialogue on this topic, especially at the professional levels which serve as the most visible representation of our sport.”
