Heard some noise outside my home office window this morning. Looked out to see a sanitation truck and what looked to be a guy walking around the other side of it with a driver in his hand. Sure enough, I saw the suburban sanitation swing. The swing speed is a little slow, but all-in-all I’d say it’s a pretty good swing.
Happy Cinco De Mayo today.
Today is a day I think about two good friends. First, Johnny, the bass player in my long time band. Johnny is one of a kind. Second, Rich from the blog Eat Golf, which is no longer operating. Rich was in that first group of 4-5 golf bloggers to exist in cyberspace. We became friends through blogging and later on he helped me learn my first programming language, PHP. Since then I’ve transitioned from poor golf blogger to successful software engineer.
Hat’s off to John and Rich, and happy Cinco de Mayo to all.
The Masters Tournament almost always delivers and it sure did in 2021. I say “almost” because of 2018, but we won’t go there right now. The 2021 version was exciting and produced a lot of new faces who had legitimate chances of winning down the Sunday stretch. Hideki Matsuyama played some incredible, solid, consistent golf and was clearly the champion golfer. His focus was tremendous. Hats off to Hideki, who became the first ever male Japanese winner of a major golf tournament.
Other interesting new faces included Will Zalatoris, who came very close to winning in his debut appearance at The Masters. His 2nd place finish nets him life-changing cash in the bank, and an exemption into next year’s Masters. Fantastic.
Xander Schauffele looked to be on track to tying or overtaking Matsuyama after making four consecutive birdies on holes 12-15. Had he not stumbled with a triple on the par-3 16th, the outcome may have been quite different.
Jordan Spieth isn’t a new face, but his resurgence of late is notable. Spieth tied for 3rd place with Schauffele.
The absence of Tiger Woods was also worth mentioning, as Woods is at home in Florida recovering from his strange auto accident in Los Angeles a few weeks ago where he was traveling nearly 90mph.
Don’t Mess With the Golf Gods
Before this year’s Masters started, the cancel culture was in full pitch fork mode calling for boycotting the Masters tournament, led by the likes of Keith Olbermann. One of their reasons is the word “Masters” which they thought was rooted in racism. The tournament’s original name was “Augusta National Invitation Tournament,” and was changed to The Masters in 1939. “Masters” meaning masters of the game.
Anyone who has played the game of golf knows you don’t mess with the golf gods.
I find it hilariously ironic that The Masters produced the first ever male Japanese major golf champion while cancel culture was trying to shut the tournament down. Imagine if they had succeeded. And that’s a week after Augusta National hosted the Augusta National Women’s Amateur. Oh, perhaps I should mention it was also four days after The Masters honored Lee Elder (the first black man to compete in The Masters), by having him take Arnold Palmer’s place in the “Big Three” (with Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player) who open up the tournament with the ceremonial tee shot.
The cut fell at +3 this year and a few very notable players failed to better that mark:
Rory McIlory will have to wait another year to attempt to win the career grand slam.
Matt Kuchar has been solid for years at the Masters despite not winning, but this year he missed the cut.
Another player who has historically been a factor deep into the weekend at Augusta National is Jason Day, until this week.
Former champions who missed the cut include Dustin Johnson, Danny Willett, Mike Weir, Sergio Garcia, Zach Johnson, Ian Woosnam, Sandy Lyle, Fred Couples, Vijay Singh, Larry Mize, Bernard Langer.
Bruce Koepka was visibly struggling to read putts and walk following a recent knee surgery.
Lee Westwood has been one of the hottest golfers on the planet recently, but couldn’t carry that momentum into Augusta.
HOGWire – Golf Industry News
