The Loop
Jordan Spieth, the eyes of Texas are upon you to uphold state's standing in golf
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"Over more than a couple decades I've been delighted to read Dan Jenkins…None of it quite as arresting, though, as reading Jenkins on Twitter, where golf's prickly poet laureate reminded us last week of his native state's standing in the game. 7 Texans have won the Masters: Hogan, Nelson, Guldahl, Demaret, Burke, Coody, Crenshaw. Counting on Jordan Spieth to be next . . . eventually.' In other words, no pressure, Jordan. Nothing riding on this week. Only Texas' standing as the cradle of golf," columnist Kevin Sherrington of the Dallas Morning News writes.
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"Chris Spieth was chasing after the motorized scooter carrying her father when she suddenly stopped below the Augusta National clubhouse to explain why her son is more grounded than his score at the Masters," Ian O'Connor of ESPN writes. "Jordan Spieth, it turns out, is the record-breaking product of a selfless upbringing in a home that celebrates givers, not takers. Jordan's 14-year-old sister was born with a neurological disorder that places her on the autism spectrum, and their mother wants people to know that Ellie has shaped her brother far more than any swing coach ever could."
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Everyone seems to want to go to the Masters, but one who has been on several occasions, John Paul Newport of the Wall Street Journal, writes that it's better seen from the couch. "Yes, I miss the pimento cheese sandwiches, the warm sun and the birdsong, and the overall pageantry. Glimpsing celebrity golfers stride past in their kaleidoscopic outfits is always a thrill. But striding past is usually how you see them. It's not easy trying to follow the action by peeking over the sunburned necks of everyone else doing the same."
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"And now for the latest resurrection news from Augusta National: Lazarus can take a seat in the clubhouse for the weekend because here comes Tiger Woods," Lawrence Donegan writes in the Telegraph. "The former world Noâ1 is not all the way back to the top of the Masters leaderboard at the halfway stage…but he is not far off after an intermittently brilliant, occasionally ordinary but always compelling stroll down memory lane on Friday that left him signing for a second-round 69."
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Major championships tend to bring out the honesty in otherwise guarded professional golfers, columnist Thomas Boswell of the Washington Post writes. "International players seem to take truth serum before they talk about their chances in the British. Americans tend toward the confessional at every U.S. Open site. But the Masters takes the wonderful cake. Every player, from the tiny to the mighty, from every continent, assembles here each April to blubber, chuckle, commiserate and reveal themselves as if the podium were a psychiatrist's couch."