Puttering Around: The Masters Recap

 WASTE MANAGEMENT OPEN REPRESENTATIVE OF THE WEEK: HIDEKI MATSUYAMA

Long have I been a backer of the Waste Management Open. It may partially totally be caused by my love for a trash company sponsoring a golf event. An event where garbage on the course is a deadly sin is brought to you by a corporation where garbage is a massive win. The Waste Management Open should be a community service competition for who can collect the most garbage, not a golf tournament that prides itself on a complete lack of waste that needs to be managed. The irony of the February event is one of my favorite things to appreciate every year, a pilgrimage akin to one watching It’s A Wonderful Life every Christmas. As the #1 fan of the WM Open, this was one of the best weekends of my life, as with Dustin Johnson raising green fabric around Hideki Matsuyama’s shoulders, he also lifted the Waste Management Open to the status it has deserved all along: The Fifth Major. Matsuyama was the first Japanese man to win a major, but far from the first Waste Management Open victor to conquer one of the four biggest tournaments of the year. In fact, in the past 9 years, 7 of the champions have won majors. One of the two exceptions? Rickie Fowler, a Players Champion. (I need to be careful here - I must make it seem as though Rickie’s Players win is a monumental milestone, while making it clear that the Players, the alleged fifth major, is not the tournament many make it out to be) As we can see, the Waste Management has both the prestigious name and the illustrious list of winners (2 wins for Brooks Koepka, 2 for Vijay Singh, 3 for Phil Mickelson) to receive consideration for one of the must-see golf weekends of the year. Not to mention, Jordan Spieth, the hottest player in golf, got his mojo back via a Saturday 61 in Phoenix.

At arguably the biggest, brightest, best tournament in the land, Hideki Matsuyama, whose back-to-back Waste Management victories were preceded by a one stroke loss at the fifth major, shined above all others, without so much as needing to shoot a Sunday par. That’s how mind-blowing his Saturday back nine was. Coming out of a weather delay, Matsuyama had eight holes to play after trotting into a car, gaming on his phone, perhaps firing a few Call Of Duty shots or firing off a few NBA spread LOCKS of the day on a Twitter burner, and noticing that he was a speck of dust compared to Justin Rose’s controlling lead. After a phenomenal scramble to save par on 18, he was in the lead more comfortably than Tom Haverford going camping. During that turning of the tables, Rose did not blunder, but he didn’t tally four birdies and an eagle to cap a bogey-free round, as Matsuyama did. Xander Schauffele preferring sand and water to the green during cold stretches of his Round 4 certainly helped, but it was Matsuyama’s own ability that propelled him to the first Masters win with an above par Sunday since Trevor Immelman in 2008. This is why golf holds a unique spot in the hearts of many. There is no schedule of hundreds of games to qualify for the chance to qualify for the chance to do this. As long as you can receive that invitation, you hold as good a chance as anyone. Despite no wins on any tour since 2017, Hideki Matsuyama locked in for a week, played some of the best golf of his life, putting better than seemingly ever before, and won a green jacket that will always be noted, no matter how the rest of his career fares, as one of the crowning achievements of his life, right next to the Sake Guzzling Champion crown. 

CALIFORNIA TEXAS SCREAMIN’ AWARD: JORDAN SPIETH

It was an up-and-down, roller coaster ride for Jordan Spieth a week after his win at TPC San Antonio. From triple bogeys to clutch eagles, Spieth’s 71-68-72-70 scorecard had every fathomable result. He didn’t attain the win at Augusta that many hoped for, but few can be disappointed with this performance, although that won’t stop thousands from berating a ghastly finish as (gasp!) one of the top four golfers at The Masters. His putter looked out of whack at times, but a single bad day on the green is no cause for concern, especially with irons as strong as the ones at Johnson & Smith’s Generic Iron Refinery That I Made Up For The Purpose Of A Simile. After months of hard work, attending tournament after tournament in search of that elusive win, Spieth finally deserves a weekend where instead of an activity as unpopular as golf, he can do less mundane, more thrilling things, like going to the grocery store or doing the dishes. There isn’t much left to say that hasn’t yet been stated about Jordan Spieth’s trip to Georgia. He didn’t win and pick up his first major since the 2017 Open Championship, thus swinging him back to his spot as one of the five best golfers in the world, but he didn’t lose a single (steam measurement unit) of steam entering the most prosperous time in the golf season, with one major in May, June, and July each. And don’t think I’m not going to forget my favorite Spieth moment of the week: not the eagle, not the chats with his caddie, but the part where he used the word “Skosh” while begging his ball to swerve towards the fairway, solidifying his grasp on the PGA Tour’s Mr. Happy-Go-Lucky. For the 18th and final “Also,” of this paragraph, Spieth performed a spectacular statistical achievement. He led the entire field in both percentage of greens in regulation, and putts per green in regulation, and placed three strokes behind Hideki Matsuyama, who was 7th in GIR% and 3rd in PP GIR. 

OOOOOOSTHUIZEN AWARD: LOUIS OOSTHUIZEN

Twas’ a boring week for my man, the Oostmaster General.

Make the cut for the eighth straight year at the Masters?

He sure was amenable.

He thought this week couldn’t go by any faster

After a Thursday +4.

But the trip to Augusta

Turned out to be no bore

When all Francesa could musta’

To pronounce Louis’ surname

Was a pronunciation that can only be described as lame.

Oh yeah, and I’m sure Oosthuizen was almost as pleased about shooting -3 Friday thru Sunday as he was thrilled about an old, resurfaced clip of an American sports radio host butchering his name.

KITCHEN CINK AWARD: STEWART CINK

Don’t really have much to say about the week for Stewart Cink, the former Claret Jug possessor, but after seeing he had a solid week, shooting under par at one of the toughest golf courses in the solar system (I wanted to make Augusta seem more impressive) to tie with excellent players like World Wide Webb Simpson, Kevin Na, and Brian Harmon, I had to note his performance, solely so I could say the 47 year old truly threw the Kitchen Cink at The Masters.

REVERSE NOSTRADAMUS AWARD: ME!

Many who put gambling picks out onto the internet struggle with a harsh reality: they’re too mediocre at what they do. Most bat around .500, with some good ones a few percentage points above. Yet, when you account for the not-so-tasty juice that the sportsbooks add to maintain their profit, your windfall could be as slim as Will Zalatoris. A few virtuosos of the vig, like Warren Sharp, Haralabos Voulgaris, and Justin Ray have made a killing, not via luck, but knowledge of the sport, detection of crucial subtleties, and superb data analysis of the given figures. I take the opposite approach to make you money, employing a technique that is totally intentional for your gain and not me just being a moron. In my nationality picks, I doubted that Robert MacIntyre could impress during his first drive down Magnolia Lane, qualms he put to bed with a -2, instead opting for fellow Scot Martin Laird. Side Note: If I ever move to Edinburgh, remind me to name my son Scott, so he can be Scott the Scot. I also questioned if Jon Rahm had Georgia On His Mind (still proud of that line after using it last week), expressing confidence in Sergio Garcia. One of those guys shot a Sunday 66. The other was not playing on Sunday. I’ll let you figure which was which for yourself. Then, in some matchups, I faded two golfers: Justin Rose and Hideki Matsuyama. They shot the lone two 65s of the tournament to punctuate a pair of amazing performances. Who did I pick instead? Billy Horschel and Lee Westwood! One shot +8, the other missed the cut. If you would like a few bucks, remake The Big Short, but for making money by going against my picks. Best of luck in further humiliating my golf predictions!

AUGUSTA TOURISTS’ BUREAU AWARD: DUSTIN JOHNSON

Dustin Johnson engineered a rare feat for a World #1: he had nothing to do this weekend. With his wealth and fame, Johnson has the ability to do anything. Bungee jump on a whim? Totally. Get courtside seats to see the vaunted Brooklyn Nets? Go for it. Draw mustaches on the Mona Lisa? OK, maybe not. Counterpoint: If he pooled his money with father-in-law Wayne Gretzky, I would give them at least a 25% chance of bribing Louvre employees and government officials enough to make off with the world’s most famous painting and sketch whatever facial hair they pleased. This weekend, Johnson could not get away for a quick French art heist. After an epic collapse, with three bogeys on the final four holes, when all he had to do was shoot +1 to close out the round, DJ was stuck at the first wonder of the golf world for two days, waiting to crown a champion and wrap their arms in the most prestigious textile in golf. Would he check out a world-famous skyscraper, the Lamar Building, while in Augusta? Pay a visit to nearby Fort Gordon, where he could scope out the security for his Leonardo larceny? Teach a class in how to cook pigs in a blanket at THE Augusta University? If he is not an android, as some suggest, and is in fact human, he probably just binged Riverdale. His presumably tedious, unwanted waiting period from elimination to celebration brings about a fun question: What if he didn’t show up? It’s possible nothing happens, because Augusta wants to dodge a publicity crisis. Maybe he gets uninvited from future Masters due to a breach of etiquette, hopefully with a card saying, you’re not invited to Jimmy’s 10th birthday party after you called him an idiot. Perhaps he simply is wiped off the face of the Earth, if Augusta National Golf Club is the secret organization that controls every move, like the one from Timeless, as many of my 100% authentic sources suspect.

RAGE MONSTER OF THE WEEK: SI WOO KIM

It isn’t hard for PGAers to remind you how much better they are than you. Men from age 15 to 67 have made the cut at events with the best golfers in the world. Jim Furyk has logged a score of 58. Bryson DeChambeau can hit the ball far, hit a bunch of balls quickly, and give a heartfelt thank you to his sponsors like none of the 7 billion + other people on this planet can. If you’re lucky, your best score of the year could equal a given pro’s worst day of the season. Si Woo Kim proved this theory again, also accomplishing a remarkable feat: Hitting the double whammy of “Athletes; they’re just like us” and “Athletes; they’re so much better at their sport than us.” First, the South Korean had the ultimate relatable moment, when he did the golf equivalent of throwing a controller, slamming his putter into the ground. Impressively, Kim had the strength to fracture the club, an achievement of power and strength that deserves recognition too - that shaft wouldn’t budge a centimeter if it was my rage that it was the victim of. So, for the final few holes, the youngest Players Champion ever was without a putter. There, he reminded us of the excellence of professional golfers, making par on all three trips to the green following his outburst, nearly sinking multiple birdie putts that looked on track, teaching every person who plays a few sets of 18 holes a year a lesson that they’ll probably forget right when they see a pro make a bogey that “if I were there, would’ve been par,” showing that a professional with mismatched clubs, or even just any big, hard, metal edge (soon, a player will drive with a hammer and putt with garden shears to prove a point, and it’ll work) demolishes the average player with the priciest bag money can buy.

SIDESHOW BILL AWARD: BILLY HORSCHEL

On Sunday, you may have watched Hideki Matsuyama’s ascension to a green jacket. On Sunday, you may have taken in one of the most tranquil, beautiful, utopian golf courses. On Sunday, you might’ve caught up on sleep. If you selected any or all of these silly options, you chose dead wrong. If you weren’t watching Billy Horschel slide right into the plot of Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker, we shouldn’t be friends. Horschel seems to have a Jekyll/Hyde dynamic: when he’s winning, as he did in impressive fashion at the Match Play, you want to cast him as the lovable, goofy dad in a family friendly comedy, you want him to make you burgers while he regales his high school football days, and you want to elect him school board vice president, because president is a far too power hungry spot for him. When he’s losing, he’s not as pleasant. When he’s losing, he’s angrily slamming clubs back and forth in his bag. When he’s losing, he’s going barefoot and slipping and sliding. When he’s losing, he morphs into a marriage of a Stephen King product and a Michael Schur vehicle, a Kill Bill mixed with Sideshow Bob. On the PGA Tour, we want entertaining players. Horschel is certainly that: a charismatic fellow during the ups, a funny/scary dude to captivate you throughout the downs. 

MOMENT OF THE TOURNAMENT: SPLASH, VICTORY

This tournament was flush with memorable moments, even before Michael Thompson and Hudson Swafford teed off at 8 AM Thursday. There was Lee Elder, one of the great ground-breakers not just in the history of golf, not just in the history of sports, but in the history of the United States of America, being honored. There was Justin Rose’s Thursday ascent, and Dustin Johnson’s Friday downfall. There was the weather delay that changed everything. In the end, two spots stood out: “Splash” and “Victory,” which are not a poem about my conquest in a cannonball competition (you’ll have to scroll the deep web for that) but the two most captivating, emotional, monumental seconds in a wonderful 2021 Masters. During the heat of Day 4, we saw two balls greet Rae’s Creek that changed everything. First, Hideki Matsuyama, in a matter of seconds, dropped 2/3s of his lead, as Xander Schauffele executed a pristine play from the bunker for birdie, while the former Waste Management champ could only save bogey. Suddenly, with 3 holes to play, Schauffele’s string of four birdies in a row put him one out of a tie for the green jacket. Then, the dimples adorning his ball had to sample the flavor of the brook water. One triple bogey + one of the wonkiest slopes I’ve seen later, the only thing standing between Hideki and the celebration in Butler Cabin was Will Zalatoris, who provided a debutant performance to remember, even if he won’t get any credit for the second place finish in the annals of the FedEx Cup standings due to the bureaucracy of its rules. After an adventure in the sand on #18, Hideki sank the bogey putt to best Z by a stroke. That’s where the waterworks and emotions, and the final memorable moments of another magical Masters occurred. Seemingly simultaneously, Matsuyama’s caddy bowed to the course, and Hideki emotionally realized what he now was - a Masters champion, and with it, a Japanese national hero. These are the moments that keep us coming back to sports. The expressions of emotion. The feelings of elation. The legendary stories of unbelievable journeys to the top. The tales of people like Hideki Matsuyama.