Prayad Marksaeng of Thailand hits his second shot on the first hole during the first round of the Masters golf tournament at the Augusta National Golf Club in Augusta, Ga., Thursday, April 9, 2009. AP Photo/Morry Gash
George Plimpton, the author of Paper Lion, a wonderful Walter Mittyish book on gridiron, once noted that “the smaller the ball, the better the sports writing.” He was talking specifically about the rich literature on golf.
From Wodehouse to Updike, there have been numerous classic works of fiction on golf.
Golf journalism, too, from Bobby Jones through to Henry Longhurst, and more recently Peter Thomson, has fulfilled Plimpton’s dictum.
These thoughts were occasioned by a lovely article in the Sydney Morning Herald a day or so ago on the Masters penned by Peter Thomson, arguably Australia’s greatest golfer (with five British Opens to his credit) and undoubtedly our finest writer on golf.
The article was a scene-setter for the 2009 Masters tournament at the fabled Augusta course.
Thomson gives a history of the course and how Bobby Jones built it out of “an apple orchard on the side of a hill with a creek on the bottom.”
No earth was moved, apparently, with Jones “following the least line of resistance to find 18 practical holes.”
Then Thomson gives us an insight into why the Masters is so dramatic. Jones made some “tricky potential destroyers of scores,” he writes. This means that “the Masters has been mostly lost by someone leading before it is won.”
This is a beautifully expressed notion that generally some players have to lose the Masters for the winner to take out the victory.
Greg Norman would understand this sentiment all too well.
The article finishes with a reference to Tiger Woods: “all eyes will be on Tiger Woods again, and he will give us his serious best,”‘ and a insightful conclusion that “Augusta will win again.”
Until a few years ago, the Masters only allowed television coverage of the back nine holes. These holes attained an iconic status as players lost their way on them, especially on the last day, and a winner stormed home.
Now we get all the holes televised and something of the drama has gone with this extension of viewing.
There is also the fact that the course has been made so long and so much harder.
Tiger Woods has made the point that the back nine won’t give up scores of, say, 31, that have enabled Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus and other greats to storm home for an unexpected victory.
As Peter Thomson says about the Masters: “Is there a better show on earth?”
Right now, there isn’t. And hopefully the tendency to make the course so tough that everyone is cut down to size by it will stop.
The best players should win the Masters, and not the player who comes in at par figures and wins by default, as the course levels the skills to a common denominator.
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