By Art Spander
Featured Columnist
There’s a saying in golf that no person is bigger than the game…unless that person is Tiger Woods, who turns logic inside out and upside down. And his presence at the 2015 Masters, now that he confirmed his participation, will do exactly that.
Copyright © 2015 Bleacher Report, Inc. Turner Broadcasting System, Inc.
By Art Spander
Featured Columnist
Only Tiger Woods knows for sure if he's ready to conquer another Masters. The rest of us are only left to guess. More than guess. We can anticipate. He didn’t spend all these weeks working on his game, didn’t fly to Augusta to get in a presumed practice round for nothing.
Copyright © 2015 Bleacher Report, Inc. Turner Broadcasting System, Inc.
By Art Spander
Special to Newsday
AUGUSTA, Ga. — He was close, and that did mean something for a 50-year-old in a sport where most of his competition is a decade or two younger.
Miguel Angel Jimenez didn't beat Bubba Watson, who won the Masters for the second time in three years. Nor did he finish ahead of Jordan Spieth or Jonas Blixt who, both being in their 20s -- Spieth 20, Blixt, 29 -- are young enough to be Jimenez's sons.
Copyright © 2014 Newsday. All rights reserved.
By Art Spander
Featured Columnist
AUGUSTA, Ga. — He's won that second major, and do not forget the adage: Anyone can win one, but it takes a great golfer to win two or more.
What Bubba Watson won't forget is how he reacted to the first.
Copyright © 2014 Bleacher Report, Inc.
By Art Spander
Featured Columnist
AUGUSTA, Ga. — Never mind who isn’t here, and, yes, we’ll get to that. Look who is here: the kid who may be America’s next great golfer, the lefty who won two years ago and a 50-year-old pot-bellied Spaniard.
And look where they are, high on the leaderboard, each with a legitimate chance of taking the 78th Masters.
Copyright © 2014 Bleacher Report, Inc.
By Art Spander
Featured Columnist
AUGUSTA, Ga. — On the bubble. A bad place to be. But that’s where Phil Mickelson was. “Looking at the cut line,” he said.
And then off the bubble and under it and looking at a weekend without golf.
Copyright © 2014 Bleacher Report, Inc.
By Art Spander
Featured Columnist
AUGUSTA, Ga. — They made history, but only one made birdies. The first father and son pair to play in the same Masters went their own ways on the scoreboard, which, according to others, is what they’d already done in their lives.
Craig Stadler, the dad, and Kevin, his first-born, were separated by 40 minutes Thursday on the pairing sheet of the 78th Masters and were separated by 12 strokes when the first round was over.
Copyright © 2014 Bleacher Report, Inc.
By Art Spander
Featured Columnist
AUGUSTA, Ga. — Suddenly the kid from nowhere, from the Australian backcountry, from the tough childhood, is everywhere.
Suddenly, Jason Day is in the The New York Times and Sports Illustrated.
Copyright © 2014 Bleacher Report, Inc.
By Art Spander
Featured Columnist
The clock ticks. No one wants to hear the sound. Few pay attention, particularly athletes. They believe they’ll always be young. Until suddenly they’re not.
A golfer’s career is long, longer than careers in other sports, but it is not forever. The opportunities get fewer as the months and the tournaments go by.
Copyright © 2014 Bleacher Report, Inc.
By Art Spander
Featured Columnist
The pain is physical, a back that aches when Tiger Woods swings a golf club, which he must do if he is to play the game.
The pain is mental. The Masters is just over a week away, a tradition like no other, as we’re so often reminded by Jim Nantz, a tradition to which Woods has contributed greatly. And Tiger, winner of four green jackets, is wondering whether he’ll compete.
Copyright © 2014 Bleacher Report, Inc.
By Art Spander
For GlobalGolfPost.com
AUGUSTA, GEORGIA — Jack Nicklaus summarized the situation and the event. The other majors, he reminded, are championships, The Masters is a tournament. What he didn't say, and what we all have come to understand, a tournament of privilege and unique rules interpretations.
Status counts, as does reputation. After all...
Copyright 2013 Global Golf Post
By Art Spander
Special to Newsday
AUGUSTA, Ga. -- He was under an umbrella but under no illusions. Tiger Woods didn't win the Masters he was supposed to win, and there would be no talk on this rainy Sunday about bad breaks or anything except his inability to gauge the speed on Augusta National's vexing greens.
Woods played a decent back nine Sunday with three birdies after an indifferent front nine, and his two-under-par 70 moved him up to a tie for fourth at 283, four shots shy of first.
Copyright © 2013 Newsday. All rights reserved.
By Art Spander
Special to Newsday
AUGUSTA, Ga. -- Beyond the controversies and penalty strokes, the slow play of 14-year-old Tianlang Guan, the debate over Tiger Woods' non-disqualification, this Masters has become a compelling tournament.
Going into Sunday's final round, the competition is about as wide open as the eighth fairway at Augusta National.
Copyright © 2013 Newsday. All rights reserved.
By Art Spander
AUGUSTA, Ga. — The mad rush of humanity, for hours waiting, working to get on the hallowed ground of Augusta National and then, with Tiger Woods coming off the course and a “Weather Warning” sign going up on the scoreboards, the desperate and successful attempt for most of those people — the Patrons, they’re called — to get off.
Fleeing, departing, as if warned of some onrushing tide. But this was not time to get to high ground, but rather a reality check on what and who counts at the Masters — and if it’s not Mr. Woods, it’s the fans’ own survival.
It wasn’t raining yet, but the threat of lightning and with Tiger finished, let’s get to one of those taverns on Washington Road.
Woods is the story even when Thursday, for the first round of this 77th Masters, he wasn’t the story. That is if you go by the leader board, on which he failed to earn a place, because there’s room only for the low 10 and ties. At 2-under 70, Tiger was among the group sharing 13th.
Marc Leishman, trying to become the first Australian to win the Masters, and Sergio Garcia, the Spaniard who had insisted he was not good enough to win a major — hey, we all make mistakes — were tied for the lead at 6-under-par 66. Dustin Johnson was at 65.
Golf tournaments, however, are like mile runs, four rounds instead of four laps. The guy in front after 18 holes may not be the one who’s in the lead after 72. Everyone knows that, especially Tiger Woods. The idea is not to lose touch, to stay close enough.
Tiger would be fine with two rounds to play, even with one round to play. With three to go, he’s in great shape, if not in first place, where those thousands of spectators, the Patrons, were hoping he would be before they hastily took their leave.
It’s been Tiger’s year so far in golf, three victories on Tour, a return to the top of the world standings. Yet, Tiger, as Jack Nicklaus, is all about major championships, because in his sphere — as in Jack’s — there’s little else. The rest of the tournaments, Torrey Pines (unless it’s a U.S. Open there), Doral, are merely obstacles to get past.
Nicklaus brought this about, although he contends it was unintentionally, after his win in the 1972 Masters.
Jack reached a point in his career, as now at age 37 Tiger has in his career, where nothing matters except one of the big four. Nicklaus seemingly didn’t care about and rarely entered any of the rest, which aggravated the late, great sportswriter Jim Murray to produce a column headlined, “Majoring in Golf.”
“I never counted my majors,” Nicklaus said a couple of days ago, “until (the late Associated Press golf writer) Bob Green told me at St. Andrews in the ‘70s, ‘Hey Jack, that’s 10. Only three more to tie Bobby Jones.’
“I said, ’Really?’ I never counted them. All I did was try to be the best I could be.”
Some of the facts are incorrect, if perhaps because of the passing of time. Jack’s win in the 1970 British Open at St. Andrews was his eighth, not his 10th. His win in the 1978 Open at St. Andrews was his 15th.
Irrelevant? Possibly. The ultimate total became 18, while Tiger, who has 14 but none since the 2008 U.S. Open, remains second.
“He’s got to win five majors,” Nicklaus said of Tiger’s quest, “which is a pretty good career for most people to start at 37. I still think . . . still he’s got to do it. If he wins here, it would be a very large step towards regaining that confidence that he has not won a major in three and a half years.
“He’s going to have to figure it out. But I think if he figures it out here, it will be a great boost for him. If he doesn’t figure it out after the spring he’s had, I think will be a lot tougher for him.”
When Tiger after his round Thursday stood relaxed behind a protective rope that separated him from the recorders and notepads of the press, he seemed contented if not elated.
“It’s a good start,” said Woods, who as others surely is concentrating on the finish. “Some years, some guys shoot 65 starting out here. But right now I’m only four back and right there.”
Tiger has played the Masters, Augusta National, since the mid-1990s when he was still an amateur. He won in 1997 as a rookie pro and then three more times, but not since 2005.
“I feel comfortable with every aspect of my game,” Woods said on Tuesday. “I feel I’ve improved, and I’ve gotten more consistent, and I think the wins (before the Masters) show that.”
What the first round in 2013 showed was Tiger can break par and draw a huge crowd that isn’t interested in much else other than Woods and not getting caught in a storm.
By Art Spander
For GlobalGolfPost.com
AUGUSTA, GEORGIA -- It always works, doesn't it? What they've got going at Augusta National, at The Masters -- and we'll cut to the chase and cut out the complaints -- somehow always produces a sporting event that seems more than a mere golf tournament. Mainly because as proved once more it isn't a mere golf tournament.
It's a festival, a fascinating concoction of flowery prose...
Copyright 2012 Global Golf Post
By Art Spander
For RealClearSports.com
AUGUSTA, Ga. -- He's not exactly a good ol' boy. But Bubba Watson is from the South - Bagdad, Fla., to be exact. And he did go to the University of Georgia. And he does button his golf shirt to the top, for neatness. So if the fans at Augusta National late Sunday afternoon were acting as if they were at, say, a Georgia-Florida game, that was excusable.
"Bubba, Bubba, Bubba," they were chanting. He had just won a playoff for the Masters, and while he was crying, they were screaming, "Bubba, Bubba, Bubba."
© RealClearSports 2012
By Art Spander
Special to The Examiner
And now we wait and hope, hope the next major golf championship of 2012, the U.S. Open at San Francisco’s Olympic Club in June, can be as full of tension and greatness — and, of course, drama — as the Masters.
What an ending Sunday, in the shadows after the setting sun dipped below the Georgia pines, a day of history, only the fourth double-eagle in 77 Masters and, because the winner couldn’t be determined until a sudden-death playoff, mystery.
By Art Spander
For RealClearSports.com
AUGUSTA, Ga. -- The signs, posted after the rain, offered a warning: "Caution, slippery when wet.'' What they neglected to say was: "No less dangerous when dry."
Such a beautiful place, Augusta National, with those tall Georgia pines, finely mowed fairways and rolling greens. Such a troublesome place, Augusta National, when playing from under those pines or the wrong spots on those greens.
© RealClearSports 2012
By Art Spander
Special to The Examiner
Augusta, Ga. — For a few hours Wednesday, the most important person at Augusta National was not Rory McIlroy, Tiger Woods or Phil Mickelson. It wasn’t a pro golfer. It wasn’t even a “he,” which is the reason Ginni Rometty and her status has become important.
They’ll be teeing off this morning in the 76th Masters. The entrants that is. On Wednesday...
Copyright 2012 SF Newspaper Company
By Art Spander
Special to The Examiner
AUGUSTA, Ga. -- This is where it begins, on the fairways and under the pines. This is where the golfing year starts. It’s all been a warmup until now, until the first weekend of April, until the Masters.
Jack Nicklaus defined his year by the majors, and if that idea were good enough for Jack, still the greatest until proven differently, it’s good enough for the rest of us. And the rest of the pros.
Copyright 2012 SF Newspaper Company