AUGUSTA, Ga. – The combination of major championship pressure and a golf course that severely punishes the tiniest mistake makes the Masters a tournament to be approached with bowed-head respect and sweaty-palmed trepidation.
Rae’s Creek. Magnolia Lane. Greens shaved shorter than a Marine’s boot-camp haircut. Jim Nantz’s tradition-unlike-any-other syrup, poured slowly over disasters down in Amen Corner.
It’s enough to quicken the pulse, which quickens the swing, which in turn quickens the dazed golfer’s departure from the leader board _ or the premises.
That’s the commonly held belief, anyway, reinforced by countless examples over the years. Only veterans win the Masters. Only players with iron-lined stomachs and years of experience can slip into the green jacket.
Except, really, it no longer applies.
Almost anyone can win the 76th Masters, which begins Thursday at the Augusta National Golf Club.
If little-known Charl Schwartzel could emerge from a pack, birdie the last four holes and win, as he did in 2011, what’s to stop a Keegan Bradley or even a Patrick Cantlay from doing the same this week?
Despite the enormous pre-Masters hype built around Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy, this is not a two-man show. Not only could someone else win, the odds are good that someone else will.
“Rory has never won here,” Lee Westwood pointed out. “Tiger hasn’t won it since 2005. I think everybody in this room would be naive to think it’s just a two-horse race, wouldn’t they?
“I think Phil (Mickelson) may have something to say about that. Luke (Donald) might. I might.”
Westwood could have named a dozen other players. Maybe more.
“No question,” said Mark Wilson, a five-time PGA Tour winner from Menomonee Falls, Wis. “That’s why we tee it up, right? That’s why we play the tournament. I think 30 or 40 guys could win.
“(Woods and McIlroy) are the guys that have the hype and maybe a little more of the personality and all that kind of stuff. But the rest of us can play golf, too.”
The 22-year-old McIlroy, who rebounded from his final-round Masters collapse last year to win the U.S. Open two months later, agreed.
“It’s not just about two guys or three guys or whatever,” he said. “It’s nice to be getting all the press and everything, but you have to take it with a pinch of salt.”
McIlroy is Exhibit A in the argument that young players today fear neither established champions nor major championship mystique.
They’re better prepared, physically and mentally, for big moments. A dozen years ago, you could have poured Ernie Els into a thimble when Woods walked by. And it wasn’t just Els who melted. Woods had the same effect on almost everyone.
Today, players such as Bradley, who won the 2011 PGA Championship in his first-ever start in a major, and Cantlay, an amateur who shot 60 in a PGA Tour event before he turned 20, show up thinking they can win. Even at Augusta National.
“Well, I’ve won every major I’ve ever played in,” Bradley said with a laugh.
“I do feel like I can win this week,” said Cantlay, the runner-up at the 2011 U.S. Amateur at Erin Hills. “I feel like any tournament I tee it up in, if I play well, I have a chance to win.”
Happy talk? Perhaps, but the fear factor at Augusta National isn’t what it once was. This week, especially, there is less reason to stress out. The course has been softened by rain, including a downpour Tuesday night and Wednesday morning that deposited 1.4 inches. More rain fell Wednesday afternoon.
“Clearly, the golf course will not be as firm and fast as it would otherwise be,” said Fred Ridley, chairman of the Masters competition committee.
Augusta National will play extremely long, which will eliminate some of the shorter hitters. But the greens will be receptive, which takes the edge off the entire course.
“When the subtleties don’t come out the experience of playing here in the past is not as important because you don’t have to fear the greens,” Mickelson said. “You don’t have to know where the ball will end up, and you don’t have to fear certain shots because you can get up and down from the edges. Those shots are not as hard.
“Therefore, I believe there’s a very good chance that a young player – an inexperienced, fearless player who attacks the golf course – can win.”
Mickelson said he would throw parts of his game plan out the window because of the course conditions and predicted low scores and plenty of them.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen here this week,” he said. “It seems that some of the planning I have made may go by the wayside. As soft as the golf course is, you can fire at a lot of the pins. The greens are soft. I don’t want to say they are slow, but it’s just not the same Augusta. It’s wet around the greens and there’s no fear of the course.
“You’ve got to attack it this week. Unless something changes it’s going to be a birdie-fest.”
On the flip side, it’s getting harder and harder to win the Masters because so many players are capable of pulling it off. The fields are deeper and more talented every year. Fewer players are eliminated on the first tee.
Woods and McIlroy are favored for good reasons, but golf is one of the hardest sports to handicap. There is no explaining short-hitting Zach Johnson laying up on every par-5, playing them in 11-under and winning in 2007. There is no explaining Schwartzel last year.
The green jacket doesn’t know the player’s name. And yet, somehow, it always fits.
