What a great week! It started with UCLA playing in its third consecutive Final Four; while things did not go great, it is just fun to see my school continue in their growth. I know most of you are going to say I’m crazy, but Tuesday night, watching the Women’s Final was really terrific. Women’s basketball has come a long way and Candice Parker, the 6’5” Player of the Year from Tennessee is beyond great. She reminds me so much of Magic Johnson. You should give it a try.
Finally, we get to today and the start of The Masters. For so many years, this has been my favorite sporting event, but I think that is changing. And it is too bad. I have so much respect for this tournament: its history; the manner in which the members run it; mostly, the men behind its original design, Dr. Alister MacKenzie and Bobby Jones. They designed a golf course for Champions. They designed a golf course for the best players in the world. They designed a golf course where the smartest players would shine; most importantly, a course where players took chances. That is gone. I’m not downgrading Mike Weir or Zach Johnson, but those were not the players that MacKenzie wanted winning his tournament. Surprise winners used to happen once every decade. I know it is really early, but the leaderboard (O’Meara, Lonard, Leonard, Lyle) looks like a US Open. I think that would be a disaster and totally disrespectful to the original design of the course.
7,400 yards means nothing to today’s players. I have no problem lengthening a course to maintain its history in-lieu of technology. That is not the important change to the course. It is the rough and it is the landing areas. Augusta National has become a golf course for the Fred Funk’s of the Tour. Does this mean Tiger won’t win? He probably will. But it does mean that MacKenzie’s concept of the best playing against the best is no longer the style of The Masters. And that is a change I don’t like. If I wanted a tournament where hitting the fairway was the most important feature of the event, I would wait for the US Open or The Players.
What do I mean by all this? If this were the style of Augusta when Arnold Palmer was the World’s best, he would not have won multiple Green Jackets. I really believe, if given the opportunity to sit with Alister MacKenzie and ask him about Augusta National and its design, he would tell me that Palmer was the kind of player his course was designed for. Not any more.
One other note about The Masters... Earlier this week at Billy Payne’s press conference (the Chairman of Augusta National), he discussed at great length the “Growth of the Game.” He spoke about the need to find inroads into whatever areas possible. The members of Augusta believe they can be the leaders in this endeavor. This year they changed the policy for entry into their tournament. Any child between the ages of 12 and 16 could come to the tournament with a person carrying a valid ticket. Great plan.
Further, they have asked us for our ideas about growing the game. On their site, www.masters.org, there is a box for us to give our suggestions on how to get people to, “start playing the game and talking about it more.” Another great idea.
Like most of you, I was raised on the idea that actions speak louder than words. So my idea is this: I would like each of you to go to the site - I would like each of you to give your ideas about the growth of the game. But, before you do, I’d like you to suggest, in very strong language, that in the name of “actions speak louder than words” the members of Augusta National invite a woman into their fold. It’s quite simple… Want to grow the game? Let’s go after the youth of the world, but how about the 50% of the population that can’t be a member at their course. How about showing that they really want to grow the game? How about showing that they mean what they say. How about showing that they believe in the other 50% of the world’s population?
Do that. Show me you mean what you say and then I will really believe that Billy Payne and the other male members of Augusta want to grow the game.
