Has it really been only a year? It seems like forever ago when we convened for a Masters Tournament truly unlike any other. Dustin Johnson’s record-shattering victory already feels sepia-toned as the world still deals with a pandemic that continues to disrupt the rhythm of time.
Perhaps it should feel this way, this disorienting. The “November Masters” will always feel a little out of place in golf’s historic register – like some kind of collective fever dream that we aren’t quite certain was real. A major championship unicorn. Did DJ really shoot 20 under? Did he actually cry? Was that really Tiger Woods draping a green jacket on the champion’s shoulders on an empty putting green in the middle of a bright Sunday afternoon?
Did College GameDay really broadcast a football preview show from the Par 3 Course? That had to be a dream, right?
For those few among us who were actually there, it still seems more surreal than real. Surely we weren’t really standing directly behind the Sarazen Bridge seeing long-iron approaches raining down on the par-5 15th green with a sickening “SPLAT!” that left golf balls embedded deep below the bentgrass surface. That would never happen at Augusta National. In the Masters.
But it all really did happen – Nov. 12-15, 2020, in that famous cathedral in the pines off Washington Road in Augusta, Georgia. The images of that weird week will be seared in our minds much like Tiger’s emotional comeback win 19 months before or his paradigm-altering first major win in 1997 or Jack Nicklaus’ old-man triumph in 1986.
The November Masters was simply unforgettable in ways that are still hard to describe.
How different was it? It’s the only time I can recall being self-conscious when the ice shifted in my drink cup and unwrapping a brownie halfway down the ninth fairway made enough noise to cause Jon Rahm to back off his putt on the eighth green.
“I mean, it’s crazy to see and realize the little things we can hear from so far away,” Rahm said after that round. “I mean, somebody could be digging into a bag of chips 150 yards away, and sometimes you can hear it, which is crazy. I wouldn’t say it’s easy or more difficult to concentrate. It’s just a little different.”
It was the quiet that was most disorienting. There were no roars to signal anyone making a charge on the far side of the course. There was no sense of moment or drama.
Everything about that week was different to the point of absurdity. There were no bleachers to blight the view across the golf course. No folding chairs surrounding every green. No ropes along the fairways, just subtle green lines painted on the ground to let the limited media, volunteers and club members with their plus-one guests know where to keep a safe distance from the action. On Saturday afternoon during the competition, three-time champion Phil Mickelson, who started the day just four off the lead, was walking down the eighth hole with his left arm draped around the shoulders of his wife, Amy – she walking on one side of the painted line and Phil on the other.
“You don’t see that every day,” I said as they walked past smiling.
“I know, isn’t this great?” the Mickelsons responded in unison.
Patrons accustomed to the viewing challenges of a normal Masters can only imagine what it’s like to walk directly up to the back of any tee box and watch the players hit from a few yards away. Or to stand literally alone with your thoughts in Amen Corner during a practice round. Or stand behind any green with an unencumbered view of play not only on that hole but all the holes adjacent.
Everywhere you went, future NFL Hall of Famer and club member Peyton Manning seemed to be standing right next to you watching the same thing, ready and willing to exchange thoughts on what just transpired. The concession stands were grab-and-go – all the egg salads, Georgia Peach ice cream bars and Arnold Palmers free of charge.
It was the quiet that was most disorienting. There were no roars to signal anyone making a charge on the far side of the course. There was no sense of moment or drama. It was all just transpiring like a Saturday morning scramble at your local club. You could get so close to the 13th green that you could hear players and caddies talking about their putting lines. One particular American’s f-bombs resonated clearly.
On Thursday morning, we sauntered right up to the first tee with Curtis Strange and watched Nicklaus and Gary Player hit the ceremonial first drives without having to crane our necks – the only obstruction was the near darkness they were teeing off into. The only thing Nicklaus had to dodge between the clubhouse and first tee were questions about his endorsement of the man who still refuses to concede the Presidential Election he’d lost just the week before.
“I think I’ve said enough about that; I don’t think this is the place for politics,” Nicklaus said.
When play officially began – with staggered times off both the first and 10th holes – we bounced between both tee boxes along with CBS broadcaster Jim Nantz, who came out hours before his workday officially started just to witness something we’d probably never see again. The gallery could be counted by hand.
“This is actually crowded,” said Nantz, who had been covering golf for so many months in vacant pandemic venues that a small cluster of masked members, media and volunteers around one tee box seemed like something from a bygone era.
Young Australian Cameron Smith became the first player to shoot four rounds in the 60s in the Masters – and he lost by five.
By 7:35 a.m. that Thursday, two things at the Masters had already been suspended – play and Sandy Lyle’s trousers. Lyle, the 62-year-old Scot who won the 1988 green jacket, led off play on the 10th tee, striking his drive just under the branches of a towering pine left of the fairway. “I thought I topped it,” Lyle said after the ball left his club face, unsure where it went. “Am I OK?”
After a delay from torrential rain that softened the course to the point it was assaulted by record-low scores from the field, the weirdness was only beginning. Recently crowned U.S. Open champion Bryson DeChambeau promised a hostile takeover of the “par 67” golf course, but instead of eliciting gasps with his power he mostly created the sound of his ball ricocheting in trees. On Sunday, the “Incredible Bulk” lost head-to-head by three shots to 63-year-old Bernhard Langer who routinely drove it 100-plus yards shorter.
Young Australian Cameron Smith became the first player to shoot four rounds in the 60s in the Masters – and he lost by five.
The week, fittingly, belonged to a COVID-19 survivor. A month after spending an 11-day quarantine locked down in a Las Vegas hotel room binging TV, Johnson dominated the softened course with nearly flawless precision. By the end, he was so eager to collect his green jacket that he didn’t mark his ball and tapped-in his clinching par before Sungjae Im could clear the stage for him.
Bubba Watson stood among the thousand or so people around the 18th green in his green jacket, waiting to give DJ a hug and a message as he walked off with a few tears in his eyes and the all-time Masters scoring record in his pocket.
“Welcome to the club,” Watson said.
Johnson fingered the sleeve of Watson’s green jacket as he replied, “I’ve been dreaming a long time for this.”
That all really happened just a year ago. Hideki Matsuyama has already been added to the Masters Club in the usual April time slot amid the familiar pastels of spring azaleas instead of the burnt oranges, reds and yellows of autumn foliage.
Time will eventually turn the 2020 Masters into a trivia question – a bittersweet outlier we hope will never need to be repeated. The details other than DJ’s winning score will gradually fade away.
But for anyone who lived through the COVID era and experienced it, the November Masters was a fall classic never to be forgotten.
“I feel like the essence is still here,” said Rahm.
A year later, it still is.