AUGUSTA, Ga. – Phil Mickelson delivered the final word -- in two types of English (standard and body) -- on the belabored subject of the most recent alterations to the tournament course at Augusta National Golf Club.
“Let me just say that I love the changes,” Mickelson said Sunday evening.
The laudable left-hander said it more emphatically throughout the day with his physical gifts, playing 31 holes in 4 under par, including a final-round 3-under 69, which earned him his second Masters title in three years.
“I like the way it looks to my eye,” Mickelson added.
The results undoubtedly put a bit of a gleam in the eye of Masters and club chairman Hootie Johnson, a unilateralist who has been a proactive force in sparing the sacred turf over which he resides from long-hitting hooliganism. The 155 yards that were added to Augusta last year marked the third significant expansion in seven years and brought the current course dimensions to 7,445 yards.
Further embellishments aren’t just possible; they are anticipated. Only the boundaries of the contiguous 48 states in the union can confine Johnson’s imperialist tendencies. It has become quite apparent the man believes that the Masters course should more accurately reflect the second word in the club’s name -- Augusta National.
For now, however, he’ll have to be satisfied with the fact that his tendentious tinkering paid dividends. Flora still blossomed. Four-ball type scores were stunted.
Mickelson’s 281 aggregate score, 7 under par, equaled Weir’s winning effort from 2003 -- just after the previous changes were instituted -- and it was the highest aggregate to earn a Green Jacket since Nick Faldo’s 283 in 1989. Not surprisingly, Lefty’s 4-under 212 pole position was highest 54-hole score to lead since Ben Crenshaw’s 213 total in ’89.
While no one knows if course architect Tom Fazio applied the cream or the clear to the grand old dame, it was abundantly clear over four days that beefing up the Masters track resulted in more perilous playing areas, tentacles of unseen tedium, oscillating fortunes, and, most importantly of all, the parochial protection of par.
Augusta was more impish than impious, however. The greens remained fairly receptive Sunday. But swirling winds abetted whatever conundrums brought on by the changes. “They weren’t the hardest winds ever, but they were trickiest I’ve ever seen here,” Weir said. Nevertheless, Augusta National was not impervious to brief spasms of brilliance. The field collected its share of crystal goblets, the prize for scoring an eagle, by registering 29, eight short of the record and nearly twice the 15 tallied in 2005.
Nor did the new configuration dampen the down-the-stretch drama. “I think you have to say the course was fair,” said defending champion Tiger Woods, who ended up tied for third. “They (the tournament committee) moved the tees around, gave us some different looks. And the greens were receptive enough that if you hit a good shot you did have chances.”
Jose Maria Olazabal, a two-time Masters champion but also one of the medium length hitters thought to have little chance this year, fired a closing 66 Sunday. It was the low round of the tournament and another plum in Johnson’s bonnet. So was the performance of runner-up Tim Clark, who’s short off the tee but wields a long putter deftly.
|
|
| Phil Mickelson acknowledges the gallery on the 18th green during final-round play of the Masters. (AP) |
There also was room for disaster, as is always the case at Augusta. Rocco Mediate discovered that at the dangerous little demon hole, the par-3 12th. When he birdied three holes in a row starting at the sixth, Mediate found himself one of five players tied for the lead at 4-under par. Some 45 minutes later, after a bogey at No. 11 and three balls in the water at the 12th, he had dropped from second to 27th.
Not a player in the field escaped without a bogey Sunday. Only four players all week went 18 holes without a blemish.
The endgame proved fascinating even as Mickelson’s steady play (now there’s a passage golf journalists haven’t had to conjure often) produced breathing room he wasn’t able to enjoy in his first two major conquests. Lefty’s playing partner was 1992 Masters champion Fred Couples, who was attempting to reprise the 46-year-old wins storyline Jack Nicklaus authored 20 years ago. Olazabal, Woods and Singh, all former champions, finished in the top 10, the most since 1965.
Veterans flourished but relative babes like Clark and Chad Campbell, who crowded onto the taxi stopping at third place with Couples, Woods, Olazabal and two-time U.S. Open champion Retief Goosen, were viable contenders.
Then you can’t ignore the fact that the top five players in the world -- Woods, Mickelson, Singh, Goosen and Ernie Els -- all began the final round Sunday afternoon within four shots of one another. Arthur Fielder never orchestrated such sweet music out of the Boston Pops.
“The course was hard, but it was also there to be had, too,” said ’87 Masters winner Larry Mize. “There were some softer greens, but hard pins. And the greens, of course, are never slow. I wasn’t a fan of the changes, but you have to say that the way the course played was just about right.”
That should make Hootie Johnson smile, but not as much, probably, as when it’s time to commence with appropriating more ground for the National.
