AUGUSTA, GEORGIA | In the 144 days since the only November Masters ended and this almost normal Masters began, so much has changed.
The color of the leaves.
Jordan Spieth’s trajectory.
The menu in the concession stands around Augusta National.
This week, the few thousand patrons fortunate enough to be on the grounds have the fresh option of a chicken salad sandwich on a brioche, a popular addition to the familiar menu of pimento cheese, egg salad and barbecue sandwiches that are as traditional here as green jackets.
There’s also a new wheat ale called “Crow’s Nest,” raising the question of whether the club is curating the best hops for an Augusta National IPA down the line.
“I think it’s really cool how it was playing. I hope we don’t get any rain. It’s a super-stressful grind is the best way to describe it.” – Kevin Kisner
As for the matter at hand – the golf tournament itself – it’s as if it’s being played on a different course than the rain-softened, autumn-hued Augusta National deconstructed most effectively last fall by Dustin Johnson, to the record-rewriting tune of 20-under par, though no one apparently told Justin Rose.
Rose played a 10-hole stretch in 9-under par on his way to a 65 that stood out like a bonfire at night and was four strokes better than anyone else could manage.
With Rose as the exception, the Thursday edition of Augusta National was the Masters version of the bills coming due after a holiday birdie spree. It was like petting a porcupine, the combination of firm greens, breezy conditions and Augusta hot sauce conspiring to turn 18 holes into a hard day’s work.
“I think it’s really cool how it was playing,” said Kevin Kisner, who apparently likes to chew rocks. “I hope we don’t get any rain. It’s a super-stressful grind is the best way to describe it.”
For that faction of the golf establishment that gets rankled by suggestions that the game needs a distance rollback, Thursday was like a gift from the golf gods. It didn’t matter how far someone hit it. What mattered was hitting to the right spots, particularly going into the greens which weren’t entirely green.
For more on that, let’s go back to Kisner, a sage voice on all things Augusta given he lives about 25 minutes away and has played here more than 100 times.
“As you can see on TV, there’s brown spots and green spots,” he said. “If your ball lands in the brown spot, it makes a little more thud than the green spot. How do you judge that from 180 yards?”
If you remember last November, Augusta National wasn’t in full flower, as the saying goes. The fairways were soft, and the greens were softer. There was no wind and the fear factor, a huge part the Augusta mystique, was missing.
It was like target practice at times. There were some pretty pictures (most of which were snapped around a particularly colorful tree near the bend in the 13th fairway) and there was a sense of reassurance that the Masters was played at all given the pandemic’s sweeping impact.
This is more like it, though. It had a little of everything including Rose flashing back to his world No. 1 form, skating around and through the dangers that lurked like spyware around the property.
How quickly could things go sideways?
Consider Sungjae Im, who put his second shot just over the green at the par-5 15th and walked away with a 9. If you must know, his third shot went across the green into the pond, he opted to play his fifth from the opposite side of the pond, dunked it and, well, you can figure it out from there.
When asked on Wednesday about any takeaways from November that may apply to this and future Masters, chairman Fred Ridley talked about the challenge of getting the seasonal course ready to host a fall event and how it led to this being what Ridley called the best conditioned course in his 20-plus years at the club.
Part of that – a big part of it – is the firmness of the greens. The way they were Thursday had players bouncing between offense and defense, leaning toward conservatism more than aggression.
“The par-5s you can birdie, but then you have to be happy with giving yourself 25-, 30-footers every time,” said Rory McIlroy, whose opening 76 included bouncing a shot off his father Gerry’s leg on the seventh hole.
Let’s contrast that to what Phil Mickelson said earlier in the week about the Augusta National we’ve seen – before Thursday.
“I would say for the last decade, the greens here are in the top 25 percent of the softest we play on tour,” he said. “And the golf course’s only defense is the greens, right?
“So, when the greens are firm, the precision, the course management, the angles, the leave where the ball is left, all of this stuff becomes incredibly important in your ability to play this course effectively. When the greens are soft, it’s irrelevant because you can fly the ball over all the trouble. Angles don’t matter. I plugged a 5-iron last year or last November into the second green. It plugged.”
The only thing that got plugged Thursday was the tacky display by Gary Player’s son, Wayne, who held up a box of golf balls behind honorary starter Lee Elder during the first tee ceremony, an unfortunate decision that got him justifiably roasted on social media.
There are still no grandstands (actually they’re called observation towers at Augusta National), there’s no serious traffic on Washington Road in front of the club and the patrons who are on site aren’t allowed to set out their folding chairs then leave them unattended, one more Masters tradition on a pandemic hold.
Otherwise, the Masters edged back to normal on Thursday. It’s April, after all.