With memories of Martha Burk expunged like unwanted Christmas fruitcake, attention at the Masters focuses again on the truly burning question of the age: Is this the line for the pro shop or the rest room?
I kid.
It's just that there are more lines at Augusta National than in the "before" photos at a face-lift clinic. Lines for parking. Lines for food. Lines for souvenirs. Lines to get in line.
PHOTO: REUTERS
But if you agree to play along and pretend Burk's attack on Augusta National's women-need-not-apply policy was just a one-time blip on the radar screen inside the bunker at the Green Jacket Command Center, the real issues this year are so much more worthy of the fun-and-games page:
1. Is Tiger slowing down?
2. Is the Masters speeding up?
PHOTO: REUTERS
The current wave of anxiety over Tiger Woods, still the top-ranked golfer in the world and the winner again this year of the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship, is roughly on par with the outpouring of concern the average orphaned orca gets on local TV news.
Woods hasn't won a stroke-play tournament this year and his recent finishes at the Bay Hill Invitational (tied for 46th) and The Players Championship (tied for 16th) have left the golf world wondering if the old Tiger, the one with the laser focus and the deadeye drives, is ever coming back or if his fiancee, Elin Nordegren, is -- how shall we put it? -- causing him some sort of distraction.
Too fast?
Meanwhile, the likelihood that dry weather finally will make Augusta National play faster than a Nascar track have some touring pros considering regular novenas at Amen Corner to keep their games and their psyches from rolling into Rae's Creek.
All of which makes Jack Nicklaus shrug.
As the only six-time winner of this little invitation-only gathering Bobby Jones dreamed up during the Depression, Nicklaus, at 64, is the refreshing voice of reasonable assessment amid the Masters hyperbole -- a pimiento cheese sandwich in the lobster-bisque line.
On the plight of Tiger Woods, he says: "We all would like to struggle like Tiger is struggling."
And on the prospect of not being able to keep a ball on greens that Woods says have a "sheen" to them, Nicklaus says: "You have to do something to protect your golf course, and that's what they have tried to do here."
Greens at Augusta have always been asphalt slick, but this year's tournament is likely to be the first real test of the longer, narrower course created in 2002 to keep the Masters ahead of the technological curve. Dampness two years ago and a deluge last year had the course playing softer and slower than designed. This week, with only a chance of light rain, inaccurate drives will find more rough, balls hit from the first cut will be difficult to hold on the greens, and scores may soar.
Some find it unfair that Augusta's redesign, expressly to keep it from becoming a par-3 course for big hitters using high-tech clubs and longer, straighter golf balls, will ruin a tournament famous for final-round charges on a relatively "easy" back nine.
Ah, to be young again
Nicklaus will have none of that.
"It's all relative to who you are and how you play," he said. "If I were 35 years old, I would think the golf course would be a tremendous amount of fun. As a matter of fact, I would have preferred to have it this way when I was in my prime than the way it was. I always preferred a tougher course. It eliminates more players."
Logically, then, Nicklaus thinks the course favors Woods if he brings his "A" game.
"He's the best player," Nicklaus reasoned, "and if he plays well, there will be enough guys that won't play well that this golf course will eat up."
He added: "I got a little frustrated at times when I went a few tournaments without winning a major. I don't think it will be long again before he does. I wouldn't worry too much about him, frankly. I think he'll do just fine."
Having missed the cut last year and in 2001, and after not participating in 1999 and 2002 for a variety of health reasons, Nicklaus might be excused if he just showed up for snapshots and exchanging pleasantries with Arnold Palmer, who is playing in his 50th, and possibly last, Masters.
That, to Nicklaus, is completely unreasonable.
"I'd have to play awfully well to finish in the top 10," he said yesterday on the eve of his 44th Masters, "but that's sort of a goal. I guess I've just got that much confidence or I'm that cocky or whatever you might want to think. But I do believe in what I can do."
Ironically, Nicklaus believes in himself at Augusta because of the technological advances the tournament has tried to mitigate. He says the latest advances in golf balls -- he plays the new Callaway HX Tour -- have brought the course back into play for him.
And just imagine what the lines will be like if Nicklaus and Woods are both in the hunt Sunday afternoon. Completely unreasonable.
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