What a script! I mean … real healing at this year’s Masters? Where the course presented its requisite amount of difficulties and gorgeous April beauty, and where a worthy winner kept the tottering P.G.A. tour alive and well? That, I realize, may be something of a stretch.
Because money has raised its ugly head and the LIV circuit bled away top talent from the P.G.A. – Koepka bled, DeChambeau bled, and even Rahm bled, the man who handed the green jacket he won last year to Scottie Scheffler at this year’s Masters. Will a stirring victory by the world’s number one help heal this major rift?
Hard to say. Money’s having a bad effect everywhere on pro sports, including via too much expansion, and manic betting. Yet as many noticed, there was something ineffably classic about this year’s Masters, most iconic of all tourneys, and with Scheffler really doing his stint on these hallowed environs.
I’m trying my best to say what hasn’t been said on the subject, but it’s not easy. We all deeply desire some tradition these days, i.e., tradition that remains inviolate, and unalterable. Well we got it at the ‘24 Masters.
Not least due to the appearance of a gallant, wounded Tiger, willing himself to make the cut and doing it, miraculously so! Plus the presence of former champs like Nicklaus, Player and Watson, all pleading sincerely for an end to the fissure that’s so hurt this sport.
Many of us wanted tradition at this year’s Masters, and we got it. But new young ‘uns were also making their splash here, especially the intrepid runner-up from Sweden, and at such a callow age, and stage.
Yes, we did desire some status quo, and badly; but there’s always change, too, right? So goeth this world of ours…
But more than anyone, Scheffler carried the tradition part on his sturdy shoulders, playing marvelously all the way through, despite a few hiccups that are so normal on these tough links, where unexpected gusts of wind can have such an effect. (Think especially of Amen Corner – i.e., the 11th–13th at Augusta.)
Scheffler negotiated his way through all potential perils, sporting a beard this year, but still the same old Scottie. Old? Heck, this Masters winner was only 27! But in fact, he does seem old guard now, and yes, tradition humanly embodied.
Don’t leap to the LIV, Scottie! Please don’t….
There are already so many rackets in this country of ours. So let’s have a few Burkean signposts of America’s past stay put, including the course itself at Augusta, a real part of that.
The azaleas, the Hogan and Byron Nelson bridges, the whole atmosphere… Plus, and what a great thing this is, or was, no cell phone use allowed! Who needs that skittish praying mantis routine, those constant ringing intrusions?
Additionally, winner Scheffler … is going to be a first-time father! Enough, I thought, of all this divisive, soul-destroying debate on abortion, kinds and methods, all that. To me this is a very depressing topic, and anything but the embodiment of tradition. There: I’ve weighed in on a hot political issue, just when I was supposed to stick with those lovely pines and azaleas, and Scheffler making tough seven-footers to save pars!
Sorry… I couldn’t help myself, I guess. Here’s a column on golf and its most iconic venue of all, and an estimable winner in ‘24, and Nicklaus et al. in their vulnerable older ages there, too; and I have to talk about abortion!
“Tradition!” goes the old song in “Fiddler on the Roof,” which many of you know well. Well do we ever need it these days!
And for the most part we got it at this year’s Masters. It will be very hard for the U.S. Open to top THAT one for an encore.
Tiger making the cut! I come back to that as well. Even when he then goes and shoots an 82, everyone was rooting for this once meteoric phenom, like none other in the sport’s history.
In sum, this 2024 Masters did the job. I.e., the tradition job. I’ll take it, and I know many of you will, too. Because there’s less and less of the stuff around these divisive days …