Tiger Woods may not win but a great weekend looms at the Masters

Tiger Woods began the Masters with an eye-opening self-assessment. He has taken to calling himself a “walking miracle.” He used the line in an article on his own website, adding that he had a second chance at life, and then reiterated it in his press conference at Augusta.

Tiger will need something similar on the course this weekend if he’s to contend for a fifth green jacket. Woods made the cut on the number Friday night, coming into the clubhouse with a 75 that left him 4-over for the tournament. It’s not the storyline we’d hoped for at the top of the week, which was hailed as the “most anticipated Masters ever.” But this is golf and we so rarely get everything we want. The game is too fickle and there are too many good players with razor thin margins between each for it to be predictable. It’s not the NBA, or even the NFL, where odds-on favorites often come through.

So where do we slot Tiger’s performance on the scale of expectations? He reminded us that six months ago it wasn’t clear if he’d ever play again. Now he’s made the cut at the Masters. That’s a success, even if it means he’ll need a miracle to actually win another green jacket.

When he was asked about keeping things in perspective, he said, “It’s incredible to have the opportunity again, to still come out here and play this golf course. Now I know I’m on the weekend. Even though I’m a lot behind, if I play a special weekend, shoot two rounds in the mid 60s, you never know.” Tiger may be the GOAT, but this is 2018 and not 2008 and making the cut in your first Masters start in three years is still worth appreciating.

Tiger’s comeback was the headliner this week, no question. But the supporting storylines were stacked as well and contributed to the hype and mania of this 2018 edition. Many of those are still in play. The Masters has such a small field and there were too many guys playing well for it to flop on the weekend. So while we may not have Tiger in contention, we do have five recent major champions trying to run down Patrick Reed and Marc Leishman.

We have Rory McIlroy, Jordan Spieth, Dustin Johnson, Justin Thomas, and Henrik Stenson all with late tee times on Saturday at Augusta. This goes without mentioning Reed and Leish, who are trying to bury their own majors demons. We’re set up for a juicy weekend.

Tiger receded from the stage, but let’s not bail on this thing. Here are some notes from Friday at Augusta.

Rory energy

Outside of the Tiger comeback, McIlroy’s attempt to complete the career slam was probably the second-best outcome for this week. That is definitely in play after a second-round 71 that has him tied for 4th at the midpoint.

McIlroy was strutting, in the way that he does, from the start. He left the chipping practice area with a thumbs-up as he passed Jordan Spieth and his crew stationed on the far left end of the driving range. It’s often stupid to play body language doctor with pro athletes, but so much of Rory’s success and failure can be gleaned from a self-belief that’s so easily observable from the outside. He’s agreed with this.

The round picked up steam on the second nine, when he poured in birdies at 13 and 14. I thought what could have been a special day then got away from him on the 15th, where he had just 203 yards into the par-5 after a vintage drive. A third straight birdie, or perhaps eagle, was in sight. But a 6-iron into a tucked left pin got away from him and bounded over the back, nearly going in the pond on the 16th hole.

His body language was incredulous. He slumped his shoulders, took his hat off, rubbed his forehead in disgust, and stared at the sky in disbelief all the way down to Sarazen bridge. The miss did lead to a fantastic answer on how the wind at Augusta can screw with your head. I’ll excerpt it in full:

Walking up the 18th with Adam, and we were laughing, because I think we played ‑‑ basically played the last six or seven holes downwind. The angles of the holes are all over the place. It’s just the way the wind funnels up and down these fairways with the big, tall trees.
But I was saying on the way here, there’s a lot of holes that with where this wind is at the minute, which is basically coming out of the southwest, there’s a lot of holes that run ‑‑ like 13, 14, 15, for example. 14 plays ‑‑ should be dead off the right, and 15 should be dead off the left. But if there’s a tiny variance in the wind either way; so say the wind is straight left, right, and there’s a tiny variance into or a tiny variance down, that’s a massive difference. That’s a 20‑yard difference. That’s why it’s so tricky because a lot of these holes run parallel to each other that should be just a straight‑across wind but if it goes a tiny bit this way or a tiny bit that way, it makes you look stupid. Like I hit 6‑iron on 15 today that went 25 yards over the green just because I got a tiny little bit of this, because I was playing for it to be straight across. If anything, a tiny bit in, you get it a tiny bit the other way, and you’re 20 yards out.
So small, small fractions make a big difference.

Rory does not often get too in the weeds on this stuff, whether it’s equipment minutiae or conditions calculations like this answer. He’s not Tiger or Phil, who could and want to break down every little gram in their equipment or every little movement in their swings. Rory did go one to par the hole and then frustratingly missed birdie chances at the last two

The miss at 15 and his answer on the wind, however, was a fascinating look into just how much he’s thinking about the details of this place with the career slam on the line again. He’s your most compelling story going into the weekend.

Spieth’s big miss

I watched Spieth confidently club twirl after every single drive he hit on the range under the watch of Cam McCormick. Then he went to the first tee and blasted one off the planet. There’s this unmistakable communal groan at Augusta every time something really ugly happens and that groan filtered across a packed clubhouse veranda, clubhouse oak, and around the first tee. The ball was right from the start and just kept sailing that way.

Annie encouragement

That opening tee shot was the start of a double bogey that was the start of a first nine 40. It was Spieth’s biggest number at this course that he’s become so comfortable on and his multi-shot lead was gone. So I found it endearing when I saw his fiancee, Annie, seek out a spot on the rope line on the walkway right off the 9th green and try to get his attention with a lean and a grin.

Most significant others or family members will follow at a distance or in quiet, or just stay back in the clubhouse and watch on TV with a drink in hand. Annie doesn’t try to be noticed either, but Spieth had just posted an outward 40 and it was clear she was trying to get in a position and connect with him in some non-verbal way as he moved to the second nine with his lead now gone. I don’t know if Spieth even noticed, and it’s sappy, but it was a cool, semi-relatable moment.

Augusta openness

Every nuance and little detail of this course has been covered over the years. It’s the most familiar golf venue in the world so this may just be adding to what you already know. But I was reminded yesterday of just how open the routing is and how it creates these flex points. They also know how to frame everything here perfectly with their tee times. You have your head down following Rory on 17 and boom, all of a sudden you’re in the thick of the Tiger gallery on 7. This kept happening throughout the afternoon and the two had tee times nowhere near each other.

You’re not moving from station to station amidst trees and out-of-bounds lines with little understanding or view of what else is going on around the course. This has become the case at so many major venues and week-to-week Tour stops. You get locked into one group or a linear hole-by-hole route.

There are trees and bushes that obstruct it from being an open plot you can see clear across, but the routing is easy on the patron trying to see multiple things at once or make a big jump to a different part of the course. It’s hard walk because of the elevation changes, but you can move around from front to back or see a swath of holes without marching for miles.

Rahm eruption

Augusta is one of the few places where the best players in the world may think an extra beat before erupting in anger at a shot or some sort of misfortune. Remember Nick Faldo on the CBS broadcast lecturing Henrik Stenson a few years ago when went nuts on the 18th? Jon Rahm, a notorious hothead, has been on the edge multiple times this week and maybe not gone with the full eruption because of the setting. At the 9th on Friday, he hit a poor approach shot and then wound up to smash his bag with his club before pulling up at the last moment. At the 18th, after a similar break on his approach, he launched his club at his bag in exasperation and took off toward the green.

Rahm is so fun to watch for so many reasons. He hit one of the sexiest drives I’ve seen this week with a low bullet on the 17th. But it’s also fun to watch the emotional internal struggle he’s got going on when gets on tilt at Augusta.

Philip ejects

A 79 from Phil Mickelson dropped him from the first page of the leaderboard to making the cut right on the number. I know there’s a belief that Phil is going to contend at this tournament every year into his 50s and his former caddie Bones Mackay thinks he will win another green jacket in his 50s. That may be, but he hasn’t really contended at the Masters since 2012. The 2015 runner-up came on a final round with Spieth miles ahead and out of reach. The run here from 2000 to 2010 is absurd.

But you start to lose consistency as you get older and we just haven’t seen him get in the mix here in recent years. Phil hit a flop shot on the 9th that used to be automatic but came up short on Friday and rolled off the front of the green. He has not broken 70 since 2015. The recent run out of contention doesn’t mean he can’t get hot for a week at some point in his 50s. The “perennial horse for course” narrative, however, has taken a hit in recent years.

Parziale stand bag

It’s never not startling to see your weekend stand bag in the Masters. Mid-amateur champ Matt Parziale, whose story as a full-time firefighter in Brockton became famous this week, had his dad looping for him at the Masters carrying the same little stand bag you use on the weekend. Except he was playing the Masters and not shooting 94 at a local muni.

Quack quack

I mentioned this on Twitter but I saw Mike Weir smother a drive that fell out of the air like it had been hit by a surface-to-air defense system. It was, for the wrong reasons, the most incredible thing I saw all day. Weir seems like a great guy, he’s banked almost 30 million on the course, has a green jacket, and seven other PGA Tour wins. He’s got that lifetime invite and may play the Masters for another 20 years but some of the shots he hits are extremely relatable.

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