Masters Sunday

The final round of the Masters golf tournament was held today. This is my recap and some general information on this tournament. Mostly for those who don’t watch, care about, or know much of anything about golf and are wondering what all the talk is about around the water cooler.


A Brief Background of Augusta National and The Masters Golf Tournament

First and foremost The Masters is played in at the Augusta National Golf Course in Augusta Georgia. This golf course is the holy shrine of holy shrines of golf courses, and probably one of the toughest courses in the world. If you polled every golfer on the planet and gave them one golf course to play before they died 95% would say Augusta National (the other 5% are liars).

The Masters Tournament is one of the 4 Major Golf Tournaments on the PGA tour, and this was the 75th year to be in existence. It is the Mecca of all golf tournaments, and what we all dreamed about winning when we were younger. The winner receives about $1.3 Million, a trophy, a green jacket, and above all else the title “Masters Champion” will precede his name every time he is introduced for the rest of his life. A win at this Tournament would be like winning a Powerball Lottery to a regular person, except for the fact that it actually lasts a lifetime.


A Layman’s 2009 Masters Recap


The Players

Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson (both who have won) were the favorites coming into the Tournament on Thursday. They struggled the three days and were about 6 shots out of the lead entering the final day today and were paired together (Meaning they were playing together).

Kenny Perry and Angel Cabrera (both looking for their first Master’s win) were in the lead the final day and paired together.

Chad Campbell (no Master’s wins), from Andrews Texas (West Texas USA) was a few shots back starting the day. This shy looking, over weight golfer was who we were rooting for!

All the other golfers in the field are irrelevant to this story, except for Todd Hamilton (from Plano, TX) who is getting a bit old and probably about to lose his card (not going to play on the PGA Tour) finished a solid tied for 15th and a decent $131,250 for his efforts. Nicely done Sir!


The Final Day

Phil Mickelson gets out of the box at an incredible pace, shooting a tournament record 30 (six under par) on the front nine. He gets to within one shot of the leaders when he proceeds to hit an unbelievably terrible shot into the water on the par 3 12th hole. It was not that long of a hole (only 154 yards) and Phil has played it a million times. It brings up a great question that we have to ask Phil from time to time, “What in the hell were you thinking!!??” He made double bogey 5 and never recovered, finishing 5th.

Tiger never really had his game together all week, and struggled again on Sunday. This is pretty hilarious because even playing bad for Tiger all week he still finished tied for 6th and $243,000 richer (pocket change for Tiger). Had Tiger of been playing just average for Tiger he probably would have won. If he’d of been playing good he would have won by 8 shots.

Chad Campbell turned it on today (played great golf) and finished the 72 hole tournament tied for the lead. My thoughts are “He is Texan, he will win the playoff.”

Angel Cabrera (from Argentina) was my least favorite starting the round until the commentators mentioned the fact that he was truly a great person to be around, and that he goes out of his way to send tons of money back to Argentina for schools and underprivileged children. So now we are rooting for him as well. He finishes tied for the lead also.

Kenny Perry at forty-nine years old, overweight, and is trying to become the oldest golfer to ever win the Masters. He is also known as the nicest guy on the PGA Tour and you can tell this in his interviews. He played very solid and had a two shot lead going into the 17th. He proceeded to go bogey, bogey on the 17th and 18th to lose his lead. I don’t know if it was his nerves or that he needed an Ensure and a hot pack, but he choked like a dog!

It came down to a very exciting 3 man playoff with the Argentine taking home the Green Jacket after Campbell and Perry basically gave away the tournament. It should be noted that the amount of pressure that these guys went through is not really even imaginable and I am sure cannot be put into words. It was a fantastic tournament and took up the better part of my weekend.

I followed up The Masters as I do every year with a practice session out at the local golf course’s putting and chipping green. I’ve decided in twenty three years I could be forty-nine and playing a final round at The Masters. I’ll be overweight and exhausted, but you can bet I’ll be sure to pack the Ensure and hot pack…