As someone once asked about the Super Bowl, “If it’s the be-all and end-all, why are they doing it again next year?”
Well, consider professional golf. After the week of a major championship, particularly the Masters Tournament, you’d think some collective R&R would be in order.
Like the Artemis crew, how about some decompression time on flat ground with thick gravity?
Nope, the PGA Tour never sleeps. In fact, this week brings one of the Tour’s “elevated” events, meaning all-hands-on-deck at Hilton Head, with very few exceptions — a new two-time Masters champ is among the small group sending regrets.
But before Scottie Scheffler and lesser shot-makers take the tee this week, let’s do a little sweeping of the aftereffects from that 90th Masters, while also delivering an unsolicited shot at the Squire, Gene Sarazen.
Just kidding. Kinda.
First, the good stuff. Yes, Rory McIlroy
When a golfer completes the career Grand Slam at the Masters and wins it again the next, it’s time to reevaluate his place in golf’s historical hierarchy. Rory McIlroy is now tied at six career majors with Lee Trevino, Phil Mickelson and Nick Faldo.
(Speaking of Trevino, it’s said he would’ve won a Masters, and maybe many, if they’d only swapped the tees and greens and played the course in reverse. Mr. Left-to-Right’s low, leaking tee shots died quick deaths on all those uphill, right-to-left landing areas.)
One more major and Rory’s tied with Sam Snead, Arnold Palmer and the aforementioned Gene Sarazen, with whom Rory’s career most closely resembles.
You know the Rory story: Amazing feats as a very young golfer — first major at 22, three more by 25, then no more through his 20s and into his mid-30s. Eleven years adrift, winning damn near everything except what he wanted and needed most. Then it came, a year ago, and yet again this year.
Sarazen is golf’s only close comparison.
In 1922, at just 20, the happy little Squire won both the U.S. Open and PGA Championship. He won the PGA again at 21, then no more majors in his 20s, though like Rory he continued to collect plenty of tournament trophies. He had the misfortune of timing his peak years with those of Bobby Jones and Walter Hagen, who combined to win 11 of the Opens (U.S. and British) in the 1920s — Hagen also won five PGA’s in that decade.
Finally, at 30, two years after Jones won his single-year Slam and retired, Sarazen won the 1932 U.S. and British Opens, and added another PGA the next year. And now we take a mildly dark turn to toss a little divot sand on the former Eugenio Saraceni.
Sarazen completed his Slam 25 years after completing it. You heard me
The record books say Sarazen won his seventh major at the 1935 Masters, thanks in large part to his famed double-eagle 2 on the par-5 15th hole. The books also list Sarazen among the first five golfers — Rory being the sixth — to win a career Grand Slam that includes the Masters along with the PGA and two Opens.
Except the Masters was hardly grand in the 1930s. Only the cachet of club founder and tournament host Bobby Jones put it on the map at all. And, frankly, only because he agreed to come out of retirement and create some automatic headlines.
In the day, Sarazen had simply added the “Augusta National Invitational” to his list of three wins in 1935. He won four more regular tournaments through 1941, eventually (and officially) retired to Florida, and died at 97 in 1999.
Unlike McIlroy, Sarazen’s Augusta win wasn’t elevated to major status for another 25 years, when Arnold Palmer and a sportswriter (of all creatures), Bob Drum — talking on a 1960 flight to the season’s next tournament — used Palmer’s unmatched status to declare the modern Slam.
While Rory completed his career Slam at the ’25 Masters, Sarazen completed his at 30,000 feet and didn’t even have to be there.
Finally, to further the Squire-Rory comparison, both Sarazen (native of New York) and McIlroy (Northern Ireland) both established Florida residences in their mid-20s — Sarazen on the Gulf Coast, Rory in Southeast Florida.
Time to grab the reins on that Masters Par-3
Even kudzu was cute at first.
Not long after ESPN began airing the Wednesday Par-3 Tournament at Augusta, the casual nine-holer became an event unto itself.
Over the years, it has blended cool with the outright adorable, as many toddlers and grade-schoolers don caddy jumpsuits and join dad on the course, often attempting a putt here and there.
“This is why we can’t have nice things,” they sometimes say, and this is an example.
As if we don’t see them often enough, Jason Kelce and Kevin Hart were given plenty of attention this year by ESPN. While Kelce stuffed himself into a caddy uniform and watched from behind the ropes, Hart wore the suit and actually caddied for Bryson DeChambeau, who’ll never miss a chance for promotion.
Even a professional rassler — “The Miz,” I’m told — was part of the telecast.
The negative fallout was swift and wide. The host club’s response, we hope and assume, should be a pinpoint strike at shenanigans normally reserved for New Year’s Eve and Derby Day. That’s right, get off my lawn!
CBS taking some Masters heat from those with short memories or no sense of history
Finally, you needn’t search far to find big complaints about the CBS Masters coverage this year. That’s rare, and frankly, a mulligan should be granted.
Among the biggest gripes was the network’s delayed discovery of the whereabouts of Rory’s second shot to the 18th Sunday. In immediate retrospect, it seemed like an excusable mishap given how Rory’s second shot came from an area we’d never seen anyone hit from before.
But to read the critiques, you’d think Jim Nantz had spilled peach ice cream on the green jacket.
A whole lot of veteran golf viewers can remember when we never saw anything but the final nine holes on a Masters Sunday. And then, with a fraction of the on-course cameras (and no drones!) used today.
Those who recall those days should waste little time complaining about a few-seconds delay in finding a bunkered TaylorMade.
— Email Ken Willis at ken.willis@news-jrnl.com
This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Masters revisited: Rory McIlroy shares career arc with Gene Sarazen
Reporting by Ken Willis, Daytona Beach News-Journal / The Daytona Beach News-Journal
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
