AUGUSTA, GEORGIA | Of all the captivating elements about Augusta National and the Masters – from the spellbinding scenery to the greatest gathering of golf course logos in the world – the best may be the irrepressible notion of imagination.
It pulses like blood through this place and it feels almost as essential.
The magic of Augusta National and the Masters isn’t about what can’t happen.
It’s about what can happen.
Kiradech Aphibarnrat could win this Masters. So could Justin Harding or Corey Conners.
Brace yourself.
Stranger things have happened.
Charles Coody won. Tommy Aaron won. Danny Willett won.
And John Daly is still signing autographs out of his RV at Hooters down the street.
That may not be the stuff of dreams, at least not the general public’s dreams, but it conjures up the possibilities of what could happen over the next two days, particularly if Mother Nature decides to cooperate and keep the bad weather away until after sundown Sunday.
Dream, baby, dream.
The thing about the Masters is the way Augusta National dangles possibilities not literally around every corner but around enough of them to get us playing connect the dots in our minds.
There’s not a patron on property who hasn’t imagined their home course in the condition Augusta National is. (Let’s be honest, that’s just a fever dream.)
Or what they would hit to the 12th green. Or the 13th green. Or the 14th…
Augusta conjures up more ideas than Netflix and we’ve arrived at another Masters weekend sprinkled with dreamworks.
It’s easier to name the stars who aren’t in contention – Justin Rose, Sergio García and Rory McIlroy – than to list all of them who are close enough to the front to, yes, imagine slipping on the green jacket late Sunday.
Who among the top 30 can’t win at this point?
Can you imagine Brooks Koepka strong-arming his way to a fourth major championship in 22 months?
Of course you can. He said Augusta National plays like a par-69 to him and he’s right.
Can you imagine Dustin Johnson sheriff-strolling his way to his first green jacket?
Darn right.
Can you imagine Ian Poulter winning?
Wow … that’s almost too fun to imagine.
Tiger Woods?
Just stop…
The thing about the Masters is the way Augusta National dangles possibilities not literally around every corner but around enough of them to get us playing connect the dots in our minds.
It goes like this:
If Tiger can birdie all four par-5s and pick up another birdie or two and a security guard doesn’t slide into him like he’s trying to break up a double play…
Or, if Jason Day’s back doesn’t seize up and he can get through the first nine OK, he could eagle No. 13 or No. 15 or both…
Or, if Adam Scott is trying to set a fashion trend with those double-pleated, high-waisted pants he wore on Friday, I’m about to be woefully out of style again.
Though he didn’t have a good Friday – maybe his air-density readings were off or his terminal velocity was messed up – Bryson DeChambeau has done his best to turn golf into a scientific equation and he has a collection of trophies to validate his approach.
Still, DeChambeau relies on a measure of imagination when he plays, picturing the shot he is going to hit because golf isn’t played on graph paper. That is critical to the Masters experience, though DeChambeau blamed part of his struggles Friday on miscalculating the spin rate and angle of deflection off the clubface – you can’t make this stuff up.
This is the place that gave us Gene Sarazen’s albatross and Billy Joe Patton, Arnold Palmer making double bogey on the 72nd hole to lose by a stroke and Charl Schwartzel closing with four straight birdies to win.
It gave us Tiger by 12 in 1997 and Bubba Watson by a sweeping stroke of brilliance from the trees at No. 10. And there was that Sunday in ’86 when Jack Nicklaus was better than anyone imagined he still could be.
That’s where we are midway through this Masters, taking stock of what has happened and imagining what the weekend holds.
Look at the names at the top of the board and just look down the list.
Imagine how good the next two days might be.