Future Tour Player?

I’ve never cared for putting people in their places. The older I get – the less I want to talk about politics, religion, or anything else that can easily lead to a debate that in the end isn’t going to change anyone’s mind. I prefer to write about good things. Interesting things. Fun things. Things that create the desire for my readers to maybe think beyond the topic of whatever it is I’m writing about. Things that might either put a smile on someone’s face, or cause them to stop for just a second and think to themselves, “You know, I never thought of it like that, great point.” That doesn’t mean I can’t be critical of certain attitudes and behaviors in some of my writings, because unfortunately some of the things happening in the game today (in my view) aren’t necessarily good things and a few of them I find important enough to bring to light.

Which is the case today. Yes – I do take issue with what has happened this week at the Wells Fargo at Quail Hollow. I’ll save you the investigative journey and explain it to you in the simplest of terms.

As you already know, the winter throughout much of the entire country has been harsh, relentless, brutally cold, and enormously long. It was an unusually late spring as a result. Spring is growing season, when the flowers bloom, when the grass suddenly wakes up from the dormant hibernation during winter and finally begins to grow once again. The further north you go up the eastern coastline, the more delayed the growing season has become. That growth is vitally important in all facets of golf course agronomy. You need warmth, you need sunshine, and you need moisture. You take any one of those three elements out of the agronomy equation – you’re going to have issues. Charlotte, NC – the location for this week’s tournament – has endured a very cold and rugged winter with everything above coming into play. As a result, the course isn’t of the usual playing conditions as it has been in years past. A few weeks ago, some of the players who played practice rounds there learned this firsthand, and rumors started flying left and right. “Awful” was a commonly used word to describe the conditions of the greens. Keeping in mind that “awful” to me and you would still likely be pristine and damned near Edenesque, compared to what we usually encounter each week where we play. The rumor turned into concern, concern turned into a frenzy, and now we have several big-name players who previously committed to playing this week suddenly using every excuse outside of the dog eating the homework to bail at the last minute.

That’s such a great example to set, fellas. Sponsors who’ve spent enormous amounts of money, thousands of fans who’ve purchased tickets in large part to see you – the big name player – play, a city that has gone out of its way to welcome you and your organization, all of the hours hundreds of people and countless local commerce committees have spent preparing for this one big golf event this season, and you don’t even think twice about taking the week off? Shame on you.

Hey, how about you guys come play a few weeks where we play. If your immunizations are up to date, particularly Tetanus, you can throw your bag on a nasty old golf cart that hasn’t been washed in years and head out into the more dormant pastures we call our golfing home. You can mingle with the riff raff while remembering what it was like playing before your name was ever etched on your bag and herds of people followed you around hoping to merely catch a piece of a flying divot you left behind as their personal keepsake. You won’t find many sand-filled divots, but you’ll find plenty of challenge when that 330 yard tee shot of yours ends up in the bottom of an 8-inch ditch that someone made with a 6-iron a few minutes earlier from the center of the fairway. You’ll also figure out how to hit a ball lying in a deep footprint in a sand bunker that’s often confused for an ash tray, that someone was too lazy to rake, providing there’s even any sand to go along with the dozen or so cigarette butts in the bunker to begin with. You’ll enjoy the conversation standing on the tee, as we regular greens-paying folk make fun of the golf swings we see in the fairway up ahead, which helps pass the time waiting endlessly for what has felt like hours. You’ll remember how second natured it used to be to hit a golf ball from the tee while people standing near your peripheral blinked their eyes, or how easily you blocked out the quiet chatter of those playing with you. The backfiring of an old farming tractor just down the road won’t distract your focus midswing, like those menacing gnat farts do when you’re playing for truckloads of money.

It’ll take you a few holes to get used to putting on what probably seems like to you are temporary greens, but you’ll get the hang of it eventually, and the same joyous feeling of draining a 15 footer here will likely feel twice as rewarding as holing a 15 footer on the lush carpets you’re accustomed to putting on back in Tour Dreamland. You don’t have to worry about the formality of avoiding standing on someone’s thru-line beyond the hole if you choose to putt out, and if you ask nicely – we’ll even tend the flag for you on those rare occasions when you fail to stick your wedge approach to within 3 feet of what you would consider an unevenly cut hole.

When the cart girl comes around driving that rickety old beverage cart that you can hear a mile away, you can remember what it felt like buying the guys a beer while admiring her short shorts and suntanned legs, yet another reason to wish you were 20 years younger once again. Miller Lite in a can won’t taste as bad as you thought it would, especially on a hot summer day when you would otherwise be sipping a sugary energy drink from a sponsor who is paying you to make sure you chug at least two of them per round when the cameras are on you, smiling all the way to the bank. You can wear shorts, hell… you can wear jeans if you want most places. You don’t have to worry about wearing shirts and hats with logos tattooed everywhere, reminding everyone that you get paid 7-figure money long before you ever put a peg in the ground each round.

Nah, just show up at least 15 minutes prior to your tee time and we’ll show you around.

Afterward, maybe we’ll meet at the bar of the 19th hole and scarf down a couple of hotdogs that were made the day before and wash them down with a few more cans of Miller Lite. If you’re nice, they’ll serve the beer in refrigerated mugs so it won’t feel as cheap as it tastes. We’ll spend 45 minutes joking about Harry’s shanked 9-iron that hit the golf cart to the right of the fairway, and Joe’s wicked tee shot that somehow splashed out of the water and back onto dry land. We’ll laugh and joke, but we’ll also get serious long enough to talk about the one or two good shots we somehow managed despite our clearance-rack golf clubs and homemade golf swings. Right before we leave, we’ll go back inside the pro shop long enough to see about securing a starting time again next week, and then we’ll mosey up to the parking lot and shake mustard-stained hands, wishing each other a good upcoming week as we head back home to our families, the real world with real jobs, mortgage payments, medical bills, car payments, and credit card debt – things we don’t worry about for that 5 hours every Saturday morning.

It’ll make your creampuff Tour life seem like the oasis it is.

But no, go ahead and take the week off. Hell, we’re already in May and you’ve already put in what – like 8 weeks of work? No worries, contrary to popular belief – you won’t be missed. Yeah, maybe the greens aren’t perfect. Maybe it’s a good week to just stay home and count your money instead of your blessings.

Signed,

Yours Truly – an average guy who pays to play a game that he loves, and has a pretty good idea of what a hard day of real work actually feels like.

But very few of us are familiar with Worst Ball.

Worst Ball is a practice format that I use exclusively to get a thorough assessment of where my game is during certain points of the season, though it’s nothing like the Best Ball format. Worst Ball format is solely for individual practice, but is really more along the lines of a one-man scramble. Except obviously you don’t pick the best shot of the two to play, but the worst. The concept behind the worst ball format is to reveal the importance of your recovery skills, and too – your course management skills. If you’re only going to be as good a player as the quality of your bad shots, then maybe it’s worth reconsidering what and how you practice. How many good shots do you truly hit each round? Before you answer that, keep in mind that the great Ben Hogan said that during his best years, he hit maybe 2-3 good shots each round. Now, what was your answer again?

So knowing these things, knowing that the quality of our golf is largely dependent on the quality of our recovery shots, wouldn’t our practice time be better invested in real on-course situations that we find ourselves in each weekend with our buddies? It would seem that way to me, for sure.

How does it work? I generally use the par3 up the street from where I live, usually in the evenings when the course isn’t busy. You can use your home course, or any course for that matter, be it a 9-hole par3 or a regulation-size course. I’m simply playing a 1-man scramble, using two balls. After hitting two tee shots, I pick the worst result of the two, then play two more shots, picking the worst of the two, etc. Once both balls are on the green, the ball furthest from the hole is the only ball used from that point forward.

The overall objective is to keep scores worse than bogey off the card.

What you’ll find after doing this practice round a few times is just how reliable your recovery skills are, how important it is to miss in the right spots, the true merit of your scrambling and grinding skills around the greens, and you’ll also face some pressure to follow up a good shot with an equally good or better result, since you’ll have to play the worst result of the two.

If you’re serious about improving the quality of your game, including your recovery skills and game management, I’d recommend giving this practice round a try. It will help reveal the areas of your game that need the most attention, while at the same time giving you a very thorough real-time practice session that covers every aspect of your game, including how you manage your game and the situations you face on the course.

If you’re truly wanting to turn 6′s into 5′s and 5′s into 4′s, Worst Ball will get you on the right path to get there.

In THIS article over at Golf.com, Norman directly confronted the game’s powers-that-be in saying that he felt the current drug testing procedures for the sport were ‘disgraceful’, adding that a player urinalysis alone isn’t going to keep the sport clean. “How deep it is (the problem), I have no idea because we only do urine analysis instead of blood testing,” Norman said. “If you really want to be serious about it and find about what’s really going on, we need to do blood testing. I think it’s disgraceful, to tell you the truth. The golf associations have to get together and step it up.” 

Meanwhile, Vijay Singh’s admission of using a banned performance-enhancing substance back in January is approaching the 4-month mark in which the Tour has said absolutely nothing regarding the investigation, leaving many people to believe that the hush-hush manner in which they’ve managed this issue could be some sort of “forgive and forget” directive being quietly and covertly issued to Singh.

FRED VUICH/SI

Or, on the other hand, maybe their investigation has revealed more than just one player being in violation of the Tour’s banned substance policy.

Either/or, the closed-door handling of the matter has at the very least raised some suspicions, something that Norman accurately points out that the game doesn’t need. What the game does need is leadership that is ready to deal with the modern-day reality that athletes are pushing, and in some instances overstepping, the boundaries of the science of sports medicine. “If you’re the head of golf or any sport, if you’re the commissioner for a sport, it’s your responsibility to make sure your sport is clean. … That should be your No. 1 priority,” Norman said. “If a sport gets itself clean, the corporate dollars will always be there because people will know it’s a sport they can trust. The rest will take care of itself.”

Up until January, a majority of people felt that Golf didn’t have a PEDs problem. Almost four months later, with the deafening silence emanating from Camp Ponte Vedra pertaining to this issue, that majority is quickly turning into the minority. As we’ve learned through countless instances in politics and celebrity marriages over the years, it’s not the scandals themselves that get people in trouble, but rather the attempts to cover them up. I’m not saying that a scandal exists, but the lack of transparency and the seemingly inactive manner in which this issue has been handled is quite troubling on several fronts, especially considering that the person that this has all centered around openly admitted his guilt nearly 4 months ago.

And yet – nothing has been said, nothing has happened.

It has me questioning whether or not I myself now feel the sport is clean, something that prior to the start of this year I never gave a second thought about. One of the biggest associations of a game that has always revolved around a code that observes honesty, integrity and transparency suddenly plays by their own rules behind closed doors. I find that not only disappointing, but deeply disturbing.

And, as Greg Norman aptly said, even disgraceful.

I met Nick Nicolich about a dozen or so years ago, by happenstance really. He and I were familiar with each other through words and emails only, as we both connected via a golf website online where we both shared a similar passion and viewpoint not just about Golf, but life in general. Through a keyboard, in what was more or less the infancy stages of what we now commonly refer to as the social media, a friendship began. A few years afterward, several of us who frequented the website from the Mid Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States decided to put together an informal golf outing, simply to put some faces to the virtual names from the website, at a neutral gathering place at a golf course in Colts Neck, New Jersey.

Per my usual norm, I got to the golf course early that day of the outing, and I was on the practice range warming up, trying my best to figure out how to somehow stop hooking the ball off the planet. It was unusually warm that afternoon, and within 20 minutes I’d already worked up a pretty good sweat. I took a small break, long enough to towel off and take a few swigs of water. That’s when I realized that he’d been observing me hitting balls, and he walked over to where I was. “Fighting the hooks, are ya?” he asked. I recall saying something to the effect of, “if you only knew” or something along those lines. “Hit a few more for me,” he said. “Pretend that I’m not even here, just keep doing what you were doing.” I hit about 5 or so more balls, and it was the same thing, hook after hook. He just stood there studying without saying a word. After about 5 more balls, I guess he’d seen enough. “Do you mind if I show you something?” he asked. “Please, feel free,” I said. He then says, “Look at your grip. Now, I want you to hold the club with the same grip, but looser.” I did as he asked, and then he made a slight adjustment, positioning my right hand to get the logo of my golf glove facing the target a little more. “There, how does that feel,” he asked. “That feels very awkward,” I replied. He chuckled and said, “I bet it does. Now, I want you to make the same swing, maintaining that grip but with a little more relaxed grip pressure.” I don’t know how he did it, but I can still feel that moment of “Eureka!” as I hit this beautiful iron shot that went straight as an arrow. “I bet you ain’t seen that in a while, have ya,” he said, smiling ear to ear. “By virtue of your left handedness, you must be Lefty. Lefty, I’m Nick – your old buddy on the golf forum. It’s good to finally meet you, sir.”

At that very moment, I was struck with two overwhelming thoughts. Thought number one, first and foremost, was that the Golfing Gods had sent an angel from the heavens to help me sort out my ailing golf game. Thought number two, which was a little more sobering, was that there was the possibility, albeit remote, that I had just befriended a serial killer who would slip something in my bottle of water with my back turned, and tomorrow morning the course maintenance guys would be fishing my dead body out of the pond near the 16th green.

Luckily for me, Nick wasn’t a serial killer. But you’ve already picked up on that, I’m sure.

That day would mark the first of many to come in which both he and I would walk the fairways together in the coming years, not only learning each others’ strengths and weaknesses with a golf club in our hands, but more importantly – appreciating the value of sharing a day on a golf course with a friend who would lend an ear to some of life’s problems. I learned early on in our friendship that Nick had the overwhelming ability to make people feel very comfortable around him, as though they’d known him for years. His friendly and oft times comical disposition made him easy to relate to, both on and off the golf course. But he also had an enormous competitive spirit that exuded confidence. That competitive, confident drive coupled with both his work ethic and his ability to relate to people would all work together in serving him very well later on in life, in both his career as an accomplished teaching professional and as a neighbor in a community that could rely on his undying compassion during times of need.

As it relates to his career more specifically, his ability to communicate with his students is a huge, huge part of his overall success as a golf instructor. But too, the ability to relate to his students and what they’re going through when they come to him for help also plays a key role. “Teaching can bring great joy, but it can also bring great frustration. The joy is obvious, but the frustration comes from within. It comes from the fact that I can see the student’s frustration, and I then try and assume it for them,” he states. “This game is so damn hard most days. I really do feel for my students during these times, but sometimes you have to let them go to the range, on their own, and work out the things we’ve covered. No different than that of a parent who’s preparing to see their firstborn leave the nest and make life on their own, so too is the struggle with teaching. It’s hard to let go sometimes.” 

I recall a conversation with him several years ago, as I asked him about a particular method that had become fairly popular that was being taught at that time, and sought his advice on whether or not it was something that maybe I should consider myself. Knowing my game as well as anyone, he didn’t pull any punches with his thoughts on the matter. “Hey, I don’t believe in the ‘one size fits all’ approach in golf,” he said. “Perhaps it comes from my wrestling background, but I’ve been very successful with understanding the body type of a student and their ability to work within the athletic frame they’re given. I’m not into teaching a method, but helping my students become better players based on the amount of flexibility and athleticism they have. That’s something that shouldn’t be overlooked, but often is when it comes to teaching. Again, there is no one size fits all approach as it pertains to hitting a well-struck golf ball.”

Nick didn’t answer my question directly, because he knew that it was ultimately my decision to either radically change my golf swing versus maybe working a little harder to make the swing I already had a little more proficient. But imbedded in his reply was the hallmark of a sound teaching philosophy, one in which he credits a legendary figure in golf instruction with helping him establish his own teaching style. “The more I teach, the more I try to find the simplest way to convey the message,” he said one afternoon, as we enjoyed a few beers and burgers at the 19th hole after the round. “From my earliest days as a player to this very day – I’ve been a Harvey Penick disciple. Mr. Penick’s words were simple to understand, and through his teachings I was able to find my own teaching style. We all know how hard this game is,” he goes on, “but I don’t believe that understanding golf instruction should be hard as well.”

Indeed, the game is hard most days. Sometimes the game seems so complicated that we lose our way, as we clutter our minds with hundreds of swing thoughts that begin with “maybe I should try this” or “maybe I need to try that.” Some days we’re left with only one of two options: either quit the game that we used to love, or find someone who can maybe help us sort through it all and start loving it once again. So as we continued our discussion over lunch that afternoon, I found the courage to ask him a question that I felt at that time might’ve been insulting. I was shocked with his response. “Do I take lessons, you ask? Sure, I take lessons,” he said. “I have certain struggles just like everyone else who plays the game. But too – I’ve had to hit a lot of golf balls in my life to get where I am today, and an even larger amount to stay here. I’m lucky in that I work with a great friend and even a greater instructor here at Harbor Links – Guna Kunjan, our head teaching professional. We work out a deal, he helps me take care of my full swing, and in return I help him out with his short game.” I kinda chuckled a bit after he said that, more from being caught off guard with his confession moreso than anything else. But knowing Nick as well as I do, and knowing how much pride he takes in working hard to maintain his skill level, it really shouldn’t have come as a surprise. “Shoot yeah, he gets me back on track where he wants me. I’m typically drenched in sweat by the time we get there, but in the end it’s all worth it.”

An ordinary day for Nick Nicolich typically involves correcting a few bad grips, analyzing a lot of golf swings, and trying to help players lower their handicaps at a little corner of the practice range at Harbor Links Golf Club, in North Hempstead, NY, where he’s spent the past decade of his life teaching a game that he loves.

But this long, unending day in particular, back in late October, was anything but ordinary. The people looking to Nick for help on this day weren’t golfers coming to his corner of the practice range at Harbor Links hoping to become better golfers, but rather neighbors and fellow citizens who were simply looking for a hot meal and some comforting reassurance in what appeared to be a hopeless situation. The Knights of Columbus hall in nearby Long Beach, not far from Nick’s home, became his temporary workplace for the next six weeks, as the hall had been converted into a makeshift relief shelter and soup kitchen for those in need. Just a few days earlier, Hurricane Sandy and all of her enormous wrath slammed into the Northeastern coastline, not just completely leveling homes, but wiping entire communities completely off the map. Nick happened to be one of the lucky few whose home was somehow spared from one of the costliest storms in US history, but the devastation was unlike anything he’d ever witnessed. “I’ve been here a long, long time,” he said, “and I ain’t ever seen anything like it. People that I know – friends, neighbors, relatives – they’ve lost everything.” 

As if things couldn’t possibly get any worse, the Knights of Columbus Hall there at Long Beach – which was still actively serving as a relief hub for those impacted by the storm and had somehow survived the storm’s devastation 6 weeks earlier – was destroyed by fire on December 10th. “That was really the low point for me,” he would tell me later. “As if looking around and seeing the enormous loss everywhere you looked wasn’t bad enough, we found ourselves in a situation where we could no longer help those who still needed help the most?

“I tell ya – golf was a distant memory at that time, my friend.”

The aftermath of the storm from last October with the trail of destruction it left behind in its wake is still present in some areas of that section of Long Island, nearly half a year later. But time goes on, and life goes on. I was reminded of this earlier this week, as I received the news that Nick was honorably mentioned as one of the top-50 instructors in America by one of the biggest junior golf programs in the country – the US Kids Golf Association. Nick has always had a niche for short game instruction, as his short game clinics and individual short game lessons continue to be one of the more popular teaching programs in Long Island, particularly with the younger players coming up through the junior golf ranks. His love of teaching the short game is quite obvious, as I’ve personally encountered on numerous occasions the art with which he can work a wedge and stroke a putter as we’ve played together over the years. If Golf were indeed considered Art, Nick Nicolich would be a modern-day Picasso, with the area from 100 yards and in to the green as his canvas.

But there’s another side to Nick that a lot of people saw firsthand the days and weeks following the disastrous storm that washed ashore on Long Island last fall, a side that I’ve been familiar with all these years I’ve known him. While his passion in life is teaching people how to be better golfers, he recognizes the importance of what happens beyond the golf course, like being a good neighbor and lending a helping hand in a desperate time of need.

He’s more than just a great teaching pro, more than just a great ambassador of the game we love. He’s a great friend and an even greater human being.

I’m very happy for Adam, and I think the message at the end is worth the wait.

Duval via Twitter

Although the penalty assessed to Guan was a regrettable circumstance given the nature of his age, the significance of what he was attempting to do, where he was attempting to do it, etc., it’s not that he wasn’t given a fair warning ahead of time. The 14-yr-old was warned on two occasions that he was playing too slowly before the slow-play penalty was assessed. The primary issue that I had with the way this was mishandled is that there are others, as Duval mentioned, who have far greater reputations of being slow players in their own rights, players who were in the field that afternoon and dare I say – players who likely took as much time to hit a shot as Guan did.

The selective manner in which they singled out a young kid, who as Colin Montgomery said during the SKY Sports telecast of the Masters was the most “vulnerable” player in the field given his age – that’s the thing that really set me off about it.

As amateurs, we’re very familiar with the frustrations that come with 5+ hour rounds, the endless waiting on tee boxes and fairways while we wait for those slower groups up ahead. The sad truth of the matter is that the facilities where we play nowadays have no desire to police the slow groups with course rangers to help keep things moving along at an acceptable pace. It wasn’t always this way, however. I recall the first few years of my golf experience, as the public course I played quite regularly employed course rangers to ensure that everyone got around in four-and-a-half hours or less. On numerous occasions, I myself got more than an earful from the course rangers about the need to get back into proper position on the golf course, and you’d best believe that I did everything within my power to oblige their demands. As I became a better player over the years, I looked back on those early lessons learned and realize how valuable they were for the greater good of the game itself.

As it relates to the situation with Guan at the Masters back on Friday – sure, he probably deserved the penalty. But I can guarantee you that while he was being approached by the rules official and being notified of his infraction, several other players on the course were probably playing much slower than he was. Guan just happened to be a convenient example they could make of him, imo.

Moving forward, we can only hope that the PGA Tour takes the lead after witnessing what transpired Friday afternoon. The example that the notoriously slow players on Tour set on a weekly basis, several of whom were mentioned by Duval above, isn’t good for the younger players just taking up the game, nor is it good for all of us. The ability to enjoy a round of golf is a privilege, not a right. I think it’s high time that the caretakers of the game, including the seasoned players playing at their local clubs each week as well, start helping to clean up the mess that has been allowed for far too long.

Getty

You won’t find this headline in the Monday morning sports section of your local paper, but it is of this blogger’s opinion that Adam Scott single-handedly salvaged the 2013 Masters. Had Angel Cabrera prevailed in the sudden death playoff – his 2nd Green Jacket within a 4-year span would’ve been a great story, no doubt… but it would’ve also left plenty of room to talk about the two controversial circumstances that lingered well into the weekend, the latter of which will likely continue to be a hotbed of discussion for several weeks to come.

I’d like to congratulate Angel Cabrera for not only putting up a serious fight Sunday afternoon at Augusta, but for showing such a wonderful example of how a player should lose. The grace and dignity that he revealed after Adam’s winning putt dropped on that 2nd playoff hole was refreshing to see, as he seemed genuinely happy for his opponent in what was certainly a life-changing moment. They always say that no one remembers who finished 2nd at the Masters, but may we never forget El Pato’s gentlemanly spirit Sunday evening as the tournament was decided.

Obvious congrats are extended to Adam Scott, who on Sunday finally accomplished the one thing in life that he’s worked so incredibly hard to achieve, the one thing that a lot of people felt that he would never do after last year’s forgettable collapse at the British Open. The patience and determination that Adam displayed Sunday is indicative of how he’s approached his entire career, which like most careers on Tour has had its shares of ups and downs. But what happened yesterday afternoon carried some enormous additional weight, as a country that had never produced a Green Jacket winner in the history of the Masters Tournament watched Adam rewrite the story. The emotion he showed as he birdied the final hole in regulation on the 72nd hole would be somewhat premature, but would be replicated 30 minutes later in a career-changing moment on the 20th hole of the day. It was a great day for Adam Scott, it was a great week for Australian Golf fans, and a fitting finish for those of us who’ve waited for Adam Scott to realize the enormous potential that most of us have always known he possesses.

And last but not least, I’d like to collectively thank both Adam and Angel for changing the entire focus and putting a positive spin on what was looking to be one of the most regrettable Masters Tournaments in 45 years. Why that particular span of time, you ask? I reference the year – 1968, and the player – Roberto De Vicenzo. You can do your own internet search and learn more about how a minor scorecard technicality back in 1968 is somewhat related in scope to what transpired Friday with Tiger Woods.

It’s no surprise that I’ve always held this tournament in high regard, for numerous reasons. I’ve always been impressed with the attention to detail,  especially how everything is planned and plotted out by the Masters Tournament Committee well in advance in thorough and tedious fashion, dotting every i and crossing every last t. The result has been a seamless and exciting tournament each year, start to finish, with the only bias coming from the layout itself, rewarding those players who hit the most good shots while punishing those who hit the most wayward ones.

But this year it was disappointingly different.

The tournament rules committee, in my view, dropped the ball on two notable occasions; two occasions that would seem to indicate an aura of bias, or favortism if you prefer, and both occurred on the same day – Friday, during the 2nd round. The first dropped ball came with the rules committee showing absolutely no lenience with the young 14-yr-old competitor who was assessed a 1-shot penalty for playing too slowly. Nevermind the fact that this was the first time in 18 years that an American-run tournament has issued a slow-play penalty to a player during a tournament, not to mention that the example was made of a young kid who was in the process of making history by playing incredibly well enough to make the weekend cut. I’ve watched enough tournament golf over the past 25 years to know how unenforced this policy is, across the board, as the reputation is there to support it. But suddenly – it’s a serious matter that must be tended to, with a young kid who is only one stroke inside the number to progress into the weekend rounds? I call bullshit. I’m of the opinion that those in charge were more interested in protecting the challenging reputation of their tournament than affording a young kid his rightful opportunity to compete on a level playing field. To be clear, I don’t believe that ethnicity was the catalyst in this situation, but rather the age. It is in my view again that those in charge wanted no part of a young middle-school aged competitor who wasn’t even old enough to play high school golf to waltz in and “show up” the tournament.

But then there was all sorts of leniency afforded Tiger Woods just a few hours later that evening.

Before going further – let me state my staunch opposition to three key things that surround the Tiger Woods controversy.

Point # 1: I’m not in favor of TV viewers calling in and reporting rules infractions. There are too many players in the field each week that don’t have to deal with the same level of scrutiny that other players have to deal with regarding biased television coverage, and that – to me – is just as much an unfair advantage as anything else. Each group should have a rules official there, with them, observing and giving advice about particular situations and circumstances when they arise. This fixes the problem that occurred with Woods during Friday’s 2nd round.

Point #2: I think it’s time to exercise some common sense. We do not, as a civilized society, issue death sentences for misdemeanor offenses. If you get a speeding ticket – you’re issued a ticket to pay a fine, points go against your driving record, and your auto insurance premiums might increase. But you’re not apprehended, taken to jail, and put on death row for doing 42 miles per hour in a 35 mph speed zone. I think it’s time that the governing bodies of the game stop issuing death sentences to players who make honest, trivial mistakes on a scorecard. We have progressed, we now have indoor plumbing available and we can start fires without having to rub two dry sticks together. Why can we not utilize some common sense as it relates to people simply being human? Okay, so Tiger didn’t proceed accordingly, and wasn’t aware that he was in violation of the rules. What is so seriously flawed with simply going back, adding the additional penalty for not abiding by the rule by the letter, and moving on without having to shoot him on the spot? The rules diehards will always gravitate to the traditional, nonsensical “but rules are the rules” and “it’s the way it’s always been,” but I bet you everything I own that they have an indoor toilet and use matches or a lighter to light candles and cigarettes. Allowing a player to adjust his scorecard after the round, even if he’s already signed it, doesn’t risk the competitive equality for the players in the field, but renders the appropriate penalty without throwing the baby out with the bathwater. For goodness sakes, am I the only one who believes that these guys are more honest and rule abiding than that?

Point #3: Let’s get rid of the needless and confusing ambiguity of the rules as they’re currently written. For instance: I would like for you to define “as near as possible.” Would that be an inch? Two inches? Three feet? The ambiguous nature of the wording with reference to the rule that pertained to Tiger’s situation, if taken literally, would essentially require him to continue dropping his ball repeatedly until it found the very bottom of the divot from the previous shot. Yet, the rule as it’s commonly applied today, as we all know, obviously doesn’t require that level of preciseness. And that’s the problem – there is no preciseness. There is nothing definitive about “as near as possible.” Now compare that to “drop within 1 club length of where the last stroke was taken, no nearer the hole.” Now, we have a greater degree of preciseness, there is a definitive boundary that must be observed and respected, no doubt, no questions asked, play away please.

I’m not going to argue one way or the other that Tiger was or wasn’t shown preferential treatment. It’s not like Augusta National needs Tiger’s presence to garner extremely high and profitable television ratings, the show there has always been and will always be 1000 times bigger than his significance in the game. Some feel that Tiger should’ve DQ’d himself, refusing to play by some sort of different standard than what would otherwise apply to any other competitor in the field. If you like Tiger – you’ll say he did the right thing. If you don’t like Tiger, you’ll say that he should’ve been water boarded in Rae’s Creek after he was DQ’d by the rules committee. But if you’re like me – you see what happened as a result of a botched situation that should’ve been handled long before he signed his scorecard Friday evening. A viewer called in, reported something unusual, and from all of the reports I’ve read – this happened long before he reached the 18th tee box Friday. Why he wasn’t taken to the side after his round, was asked about it, was asked to go over what he did back on the 15th hole about an hour earlier – that’s what I’d like to know. Why wasn’t this dealt with in a timely manner?

But more to the overall point, why should it matter? He made an honest mistake, it was corrected after the fact, and the tournament continued. And because of this archaic rule, and too – the botched manner in which the rules committee handled it – the tournament continued under an enormous cloud of doubt.

Those two instances, with both the slow-play penalty and then the delay with dealing with Tiger’s improper drop, had every reason to taint an otherwise brilliant week at the Masters. Thankfully Adam Scott and Angel Cabrera saved the day with a spectacular finish, but let’s be honest – it was not a good week for Augusta National and the Masters.

We expect much better than that.

In less than 24 hours, 93 players with their caddies and entourages in tow will be gradually seeping out from their hotels and rented houses nearby to make that quick 5-minute goosebump ride to Magnolia Lane, the proverbial aorta for what will be the heart of the golfing universe for the next 4 days. For some, Tuesday evening will have marked their final nights of restful sleep for the week, as the anxiousness of finally being exposed to one of the greatest theaters in all of golf will produce the mother of all sleepless nights. For those who’ve had the privilege of playing in this tournament in the past – they’ll assume their traditional routines and prepare their games by attempting to block out everything that’s going on around them. But still, it’s no easy task, not even for the seasoned veterans that are intimately familiar with everything that Masters Week entails.

As it relates to those of us who are relegated only to watch the tournament on television – most of us are just as excited as those who are lucky enough to be in attendance there this week, as it signifies the return of more daylight, warmer weather, ankle-sock tan lines, the gentle hum of lawnmowers, the smell of BBQ grills permeating the air throughout the neighborhood, and last but certainly not least – the return of the endless pursuit of a well struck golf ball.

It’s been a long, dreary and cold winter, my golfing friends. But better days are now upon us.

May you enjoy the tournament this week, be it there and in person or at home and watching it on television. I’ll be taking a break from my blogging duties this weekend, but will be back online next week to give my thoughts on what will surely be an incredible weekend in Augusta.

And who knows… I might be getting in a little golf myself this weekend with a little help from Mother Nature.

See you next week.

But due to the intrinsic nature that seems imbedded within the tall whispering pines, the lush green carpet-like grasses, and the blooming dogwoods and azaleas each spring at Augusta National, no one course in the history of the game has proved to be a more fitting and eloquent theater for the drama that it has produced in major championship history. We’re reminded of this year after year, as though nothing could possibly top what we’ve just witnessed. But inevitably – something else does come along.

And sometimes, that something is far greater than we can possibly comprehend.

Lanny Wadkins: “There’s a good chance that he doesn’t get this inside DiMarco’s ball.”

It’s the 2005 Masters, oddly enough the last Masters Tiger has won in the 7 years since. But what an incredible moment not only for Woods, but for Nike as well.

“I would rank that as one of the best ones I’ve ever hit,” Woods would go on to say. “It turned things around. It was pretty huge.” The look on DiMarco’s face spoke volumes about what had just transpired, although to his credit – he played brilliant golf that Sunday to catch Tiger. Who can forget his painful near miss 30 minutes later on the final hole, as his chip shot caught a great deal of the right side of the cup but wouldn’t drop? Imagine how different Chris DiMarco’s career would be looked upon today because of a mere 1/8th of an inch… “Expect the unexpected,” DiMarco said afterward. “Unfortunately, it’s not unexpected what he’s going to do.”

Peter Kostis: “He’s going for it, this might be the tournament…”

As Roy McAvoy once said, you either define the moment or the moment defines you. This particular moment was meant for one player and one player alone, and that player happened to be at the right place at the right time to deliver one of the most remarkable shots in tournament history. Peter Kostis was correct – it could’ve been the tournament. And for all intents and purposes – it was.

“I had to hit a shot between those two trees, whether I laid up or went for the green,” Mickelson explained. “And I just decided to hit it 90 yards farther than a layup.” Playing partner Lee Westwood saw the situation a bit differently, but also admitted afterward that he wasn’t overly surprised. “It’s really one of the few shots that only Phil could pull off,” he said. Better yet, it was a shot that only Phil Mickelson would have the cajones to attempt to pull off. Thankfully he did, and as Nick Faldo aptly said afterward – the greatest shot of his life.

Where to begin…

I suppose a good place to start would be with the OFFICIAL 2013 Masters Invites, courtesy of TheMasters.Com website.

Once you’re finished glossing over this week’s field of players, you can find out a little more about Phil Mickelson’s practice round on Sunday with current Augusta National member and former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, an experience that Lefty claimed afterward was “awesome.”

Speaking of female members, you can also learn a little about the other female member at Augusta National – Darla Moore, who recently confided that she isn’t interested in pushing the female member agenda at Augusta.

And then we have Ernie Els, who says that he has plans to finally kick the anchoring habit after this week’s Masters Tournament. Oh, come on, Ernie… you know you’ll go back to it at some point before the 2016 deadline!

It’s interesting to hear Mike Weir’s take on the 10th anniversary of his Master’s win back in 2003, which you can see in part I HERE and part II HERE. He’s one of the really good guys on Tour who’s had an incredibly difficult time the past several seasons with injuries and trying to get back the confidence he had to be competitive again. What a story it would be for him to rekindle a little of the Master’s magic from a decade ago…

Coming up in my next Masters Week Segment on Tuesday

Three Strokes, Three Defining Moments Worth Remembering: Tiger, Phil, & Bubba