LIV rebel rolled back the years with a final round flourish but futures of the two biggest names in golf are up in the airMasters week in April is always a long one in Augusta. The Monday before the major, all the talk around the course was about Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy, who were out playing a practice round together. Whether it really was or not, their pairing felt like a pointed rejoinder to the LIV golfers who were still arriving at the course. Woods and McIlroy aren’t just the two biggest names in the game, but the two most outspoken critics of the breakaway tour. And here they were, taking ownership of the biggest stage.Augusta National is a...
The player who won four majors in three years was an ice-cool closer but he has not yet fully recovered from kneecap accidentIt was just gone four o’clock when Jon Rahm and Brooks Koepka made it to Juniper, Augusta’s precipitous little par-three 6th. The sun had come out, the clouds had scattered and the mercury was finally rising. Koepka had only just given up the lead he had been holding since he made a birdie to pull one shot clear on Friday morning. He and Rahm were tied in first place now, 10 under par, four shots clear of the field, and the gallery all around was waiting for Koepka to come back at him. Rahm had the honour. His...
The five-times champion had some good moments in his first round, but too many mistakes led to a two-over-par finishIt’s an odd truth that if you’ve got to ask someone who it is you’re watching at Augusta National then you already know the answer. At a quarter-to-ten, half an hour before Tiger Woods was even due on the 1st tee, the crowd was packed four or five deep down the length of the fairway, and three times as thick again up by the clubhouse. So anyone who arrived hoping to see him afterwards needed to be awfully comfortable up on their tip-toes, or else try to find a vacant pine tree root to perch on so they could peer over...
Players on both sides of golf’s divide appear to be attempting to bury the hatchet for the duration of competition at AugustaNothing around Augusta National is exactly what it seems. You’ve maybe read, here and elsewhere, all the old stories about the place. Those bird noises you hear on the TV coverage? They say they’re dubbed in by the broadcaster. That azure water in the ponds? The groundskeepers are supposed to dye it just the right hue of blue. And all that immaculate grass? The whisper is they spray paint the bare patches. The club have always refused to confirm or deny any of it. Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain, just enjoy the azaleas and have...
The true feelings of those in charge at Augusta remain hard to read but one thing is clear – locking out players is not good for businessThe air of mystique surrounding Augusta National ensures a captive audience even when there is precious little to say. It would have been major news had the host club of the Masters announced that LIV rebels would be banned from the 87th staging of the major. Instead, in somewhat grudging and opaque terms, the tournament chairman, Fred Ridley, confirmed LIV players already eligible for April in Georgia – 16 of them, to be precise – will not encounter roadblocks at the end of Magnolia Lane.The Masters is looking after itself. This is the same...