Fore Please. 2024 Masters Thread

Anybody on the course right now is just white-knuckling it into the house.

 

Danny Willett’s finish on 18, a triple bogey after a horrible sculled bunker shot, reminded me why I would never want to play at Augusta.

I’m happy to watch the pros play there. But I would shoot 150 plus in perfect conditions, let alone in strong winds like today.

 

His putting has deteriorated considerably late in this round.

 

Bogey on 18 to give up the lead.

 

Exactly this. It would be very cool to hit some of the shots on that course (12, tee shot on 10, 16), but I think overall it would be a painful experience.

Played some media day outings on courses set up for USGA events, and some courses right after they hosted PGA Tour events, and when it was over, I felt like I had just gotten my ass kicked for 4 hours straight. Surely a lot of that was because my game is garbage, but still ...

 

The late Joe Gordon, who was golf beat writer at the Herald when I was there, was a good player, a 10-12 handicapper. He was one of the winners of the Masters media lottery and played the course (they use the members' tees). He had a blast and shot in the low 80s. He said he was hitting shots way above his regular skill level, and that his caddie kept him pumped from start to finish. So it could work both ways. The few times I have played tournament courses, I have done either not too horribly, or real horribly.

 

It'll never happen with the direction my career has taken, but then and now I'd jump at the chance to play Augusta. To paraphrase, and experience unlike any other.

If things went ultra poorly (they would) I'd still keep score just to see the number. And enjoy the experience.

I've been fortunate to weasel my way into a lot of media days for PGA Tour events. It's always fun, no matter the difficulty.

My game is so-so, like a lot of us hacks. Can shoot from the low 80s to, well, sky's the limit. I've been able to play Bethpage Black dozens of times. It's a total ass-kicker. But it really, really teaches you to take your medicine to keep bogeys/doubles from turning into triples or worse.

 

The terrain and course planning makes it challenging. But man, if you can manage to keep it in the fairway on a quality layout like this, the ball just sits up so nicely for you. The few times I've played on good courses, I've looked forward to hitting fairway irons.

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Looks like the real cut question here will be McIlroy. +3 and really not striking the ball great.

 

Not sure how other PGA events do it, but the John Deere Classic used to have a pro-am event where three corporate and/or media types were paired with a pro. He hit the drive on each hole, the other golfers all played from there.

That's the kind of format I would need to play a PGA-caliber course, because these days, hitting it 200 yards anywhere in the fairway is a great drive. More often it's 175 or so with accuracy issues.

And Deere Run, where they play the JDC in the Quad-Cities region of the Midwest, is one hell of a tough course for us hackers. Very easy, even starting with a 250-yard drive in the fairway, to find disaster.

Yet the pros make it look easy compared to other PGA or major championship courses. That's what I was referencing with Augusta National.

 

One last comment on this threadjack: If I could play just one hole at Augusta, it would be the 12th. First of all, because it's a hole I could (in theory) actually par with a good tee shot, and second, so I could better understand how some of the best golfers on the planet so often misjudge their tee shot.

Every year it amazes me that (I believe) the shortest and seemingly most straightforward of the holes at Augusta National causes so much trouble.