I’ve spent a lot of time watching golf today. Both Shane Bacon and Scott Van Pelt said that the first round of the Masters is the best day of the year for golf. I agree. I’ve been thinking about the Masters for a few weeks, and I was excited this morning. It’s the best day of the golfing year because it’s the first day of the first major of the year; because the golf course looks perfect; because the holes of Augusta National’s back nine are familiar and comforting; because watching the Masters causes many of us to think about our fathers; because the sounds of those birds in those trees evoke a particular feeling; and because it’s the coolest golf tournament that has ever been imagined and the one nearly every pro wants to win more than any other. Plus there’s the LIV storyline and that lady behind the tee at 16 is back (see below).
I set out to watch the Woods/Hovland/Schauffele grouping. It was an ESPN featured group and also appeared on Masters.com. My goal was to see what I could learn after watching every shot of one group for 18 holes. After a couple of holes, ESPN also followed the Rahm/Thomas/Young group. So I ended up watching essentially every shot that six players hit in the first round of the 2023 Masters. Here’s how it went.
I tuned into the coverage on TV through the ESPN+ app. What struck me immediately was that the picture quality isn’t as crisp as ESPN’s standard coverage that you would see on cable. Everything also sounded dimmer, like they had a microphone on just a few of the cameras and were merely trying to catch the main action but nothing else. The crowd noise on great shots was much subtler than on standard coverage. Shane Bacon, Colt Knost, and Billy Kratzert had a nice rapport, were funny at times, and Knost especially had good insight on particular players’ tendencies and on the greens. Another thing I missed, to my surprise, was the music. Yes, the Dave Loggins Augusta theme and other music the main coverage plays. I also really enjoy the Wright Thompson spots on ESPN which don’t appear on the featured group coverage. But that’s all TV critique.
How can this help my game? The short answer is that if you already watch a fair amount of golf, I don’t think watching a group of pros play for 18 holes will make an appreciable difference. If you watch only occasionally, it is always helpful to watch pros go about their preshot routine. Most players have the same routine before each shot, and it can be helpful to see how they line things up and how they try to commit to each new shot prior to hitting it. It is also good to see the various preshot putting routines.
The one takeaway anyone can take from today is how important it is to be patient. Rahm four-putted the first green. After that, he went nine under. It’s hard to relate to going nine-under over seventeen holes, but it’s not hard to relate to the feeling of doubling the first hole. Especially if it is a tournament or a qualifier you have been looking forward to, if you start the day thinking, even vaguely, of a number you might want or need to shoot, and you start off with a double, it’s really deflating. But Rahm showed that you have to immediately forget the bad holes and get right back at it. After the round, he said he wasn’t upset because all four of the putts he hit on the first hole were hit as he intended.
I thought that seeing the pros in trouble might present some learning opportunities. On number 10, for example, Hovland was in an impossible spot right of the bunker near the green. He was short-sided. If I was in that position, all I would be thinking is how can I get the ball on the green so that I can be putting on the next shot. Hovland was apparently thinking, let’s get it close. He flopped it, landed it on the fringe, and boom, par. The trust and ability to pull off that shot are not something one learns by watching on TV. But, these guys are good.
Similarly, on 8, Woods was in the trees in two and then pitched it to an inch. Schauffele’s pitch from over the bunker at 11 hung on the edge of the hole and somehow didn’t go in. Hovland had really impressive up and downs at 14 and 18.
I took a lot of notes and saw a lot of really great shots. Four of the six featured players I watched are in the top six of the leaderboard, which is phenomenal. I saw a lot of exceptional play by exceptional players. The golf was fun to watch, and I’m continually amazed at how tour players follow bad shots with very good ones. They forget and move on. They grind on each and every shot. Most of us will never come close to having the ability that these guys have, but one thing that can improve anyone’s game is having patience and focusing as well as we can on each shot.
The favorite fact I learned is when Shane Bacon mentioned that Tiger Woods and Jack Nicklaus both finished in the top-10 of the 1998 Masters. That’s amazing. Nicklaus was 58 at the time and finished T-6 with a 68 on Sunday, and Woods was 22 and finished T-8 along with Justin Leonard, Darren Clarke, and Colin Montgomerie. Nicklaus was only four shots back of winner Mark O’Meara.
Finally, why does Tiger sweat so much? I don’t remember him sweating as much as he did today when he was younger. I remember him sweating a lot at the 2018 Tour Championship when he won again after a long drought, but is it a medication or what? It is unseemly to talk about someone else’s sweating patterns, but no one else on the course sweated even close to as much as Tiger. Colt Knost did say on 4 that Tiger could sweat in an igloo. So maybe he just sweats a lot, but why not when he was younger?
This isn’t a breaking news site, but the Brooks Koepka/Gary Woodland Rule 10.2 Advice controversy is one of the most interesting stories of the day. I was very surprised to hear Paul McGinley on the Golf Channel say that it was common practice in his experience for caddies to share club information. McGinley said players don’t consider this a serious breach. What? A breach is a breach. It’s not for the players to decide which rules to follow or which ones are serious. One of golf’s great attributes is that players penalize themselves. You can’t just ignore some rules because you don’t consider their violation a serious breach. Brandel Chamblee did not agree with McGinley. He said in his experience playing professional golf for twenty years, players looked in bags occasionally (which is not illegal), but he had never heard caddies verbally sharing information. Chamblee thought that Brooks should have said that’s on me and taken the two-stroke penalty. McGinley was surprised that Brooks and his caddie denied it when it was so obvious. The video seems clear that Brooks’s caddie twice says the word, “five,” to Woodland’s caddie. Images show that Koepka was hitting a five iron. Even though it doesn’t impact how Brooks played, under the Rules, he should have had a two-stroke penalty. If Woodland’s caddie didn’t ask for the advice, but received it unbidden, I don’t fault them. But, as McGinley said, if it is an understood-type of thing, then both Brooks and Woodland should be assessed the general penalty of two strokes.
The PGA Tour might issue a statement that it does not allow or condone club sharing by caddies. If it comes out that this practice is pervasive, I would not expect a crackdown like MLB did when it investigated the Astros and other clubs for electronic sign stealing. The PGA Tour will quietly investigate this and then quietly, but firmly, tell caddies to stop sharing club information. The PGA Tour will not single anyone out because, as a golfer, there’s not anything worse than being accused of cheating.