It's not always easy for the written word to keep pace with television, but once in a while, a man with a keyboard gets the last word. So it was with Dave Kindred's lovely account of Bubba Watson winning the Masters on GolfDigest.com -- a piece of writing so effecting (OK, we're biased) that when Watson made an appearance on the "CBS This Morning" show, host Charlie Rose felt compelled to read it aloud to the newest major champion.
See for yourself in the video below:
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Augusta double eagle ball makes its way home
(Louis Oosthuizen throws his double-eagle ball to the crowd. Photo by Al Tielemans/Getty Images)
The thrilling journey of the most famous golf ball in recent Masters history is over.
The ball belonged to Louis Oosthuizen. After making double-eagle at the second hole Sunday, the South African tossed the ball to a fan in the gallery. That man, Wayne Mitchell, gave it to Augusta National Golf Club. The club then returned the ball to Oosthuizen, who, in turn, donated it to the club for its archives.
Still unanswered, this question: What kind of deal did Mitchell strike with Augusta National? In exchange for the piece of history, did he wangle a lifetime badge? Or a round of golf with Billy Payne? Perhaps all the peach cobbler he could eat?
"I'm not discussing that," Mitchell said Tuesday morning. "I was happy to give them the ball."
Read moreAs only he can, Bubba sees an opening, and seizes it
(Photo by Streeter Lecka/Getty Images)
AUGUSTA, Ga. -- In the gathering darkness, from the shadows of giant loblolly pines, from atop a bed of pine needles, with immortality at stake, Bubba Watson did what Bubba Watson always does. He hit a shot only he saw. It had to head for daylight, then turn sharp right. It did. He won the Masters.
Watson had 135 yards to the front of the 10th green, the second hole of a sudden-death playoff with the little South Africa virtuoso, Louis Oosthuizen. The question was, could Bubba bust it out of jail? As he walked down the fairway toward his ball 30 yards deep in the trees, Watson thought he knew the answer to that question.
"I saw the gap," he said.
Read moreOwning a piece of history, if only for a moment
(Louis Oosthuizen's ball moments after he picked it out of the cup. Photo by Streeter Lecka/Getty Images)
AUGUSTA, Ga. -- Like everyone else behind the second green, Wayne Mitchell rose in applause for Louis Oosthuizen's double-eagle Sunday afternoon. But only Mitchell left the green as the owner of a Titleist Pro V1X golf ball that is part of Masters history.
"He caught my eye, and threw it straight to me," Mitchell said of Oosthuizen. "My fear was that I'd drop it."
About 10:30 Sunday morning, Mitchell put down his folding chair against the gallery rope maybe 35 feet from the flagstick, which stood in the far right corner of the green. Mitchell is 59 years old, an industrial gasket company executive from New Tripoli, Pa. Some time that morning, he said, he told a friend, "It'd be kind of neat to see an eagle."
Read moreThis Sunday can be the longest day of the year
(Peter Hanson and the scoreboard of players chasing him on Sunday. Photo by Robyn Beck/Getty Images)
AUGUSTA, Ga. -- So you wake up at 7 o'clock, as usual. Only it's not the usual day. This day you have a chance to be somebody. You can win the Masters. Before you can do that, though, you wait. The contenders tee off late. So you wait. Then wait. It might be noon before you leave for the golf course, and you leave only because you can't figure out another way to wait.
"You're thinking, 'What's the day hold?' 'How confident am I in what I'm doing?'" Brandt Snedeker said he asked those questions of himself on an April morning in 2008. That day he was up at 7. He waited. He was two shots off Trevor Immelman's lead. "It's a hard wait. You know how important it is. You get this nervous feeling." He smiled because he knew what he'd say next is too true to be funny. "Golfers are not good with idle time."
Read moreTiger's tantrums? "Not on this stage," says Curtis Strange
AUGUSTA, Ga. -- As for the meaning of the Tiger Woods tantrums during Friday's second round of the Masters, two-time U.S. Open champion Curtis Strange says, "It shows how truly frustrated he is. Only two weeks, he thought he had it. Now, not so much."
Woods won Arnold Palmer's tournament at Bay Hill two weeks ago. During Friday's round -- his 72-75 made the cut by two shots and left him behind 39 players -- Woods muttered curses picked up by television's microphones. At the 16th tee, after a 9-iron shot fell short and right of the green, he dropped the club, then kicked it.
Photo by Jamie Squire/Getty Images
Maybe Joe Hackenchop could go unnoticed with such an act in the Screen Door Open at Carlock, Illinois. But Tiger Woods is Tiger Woods, and attention must be paid. If the PGA Tour had any spine at all, it would change its policy of disciplinary measures carried out in secrecy. It then would fine Woods for the tantrums and announce that the next piece of boorish behavior would be cause for a month's suspension. Of course, it's more likely that I will be the Republican nominee for president before the PGA Tour dares move against its cash cow.
Read moreWoods reverts to bad habits on a trying afternoon
(Tiger Woods kicks his club in frustration. Photo: Getty Images)
AUGUSTA, Ga. -- Now even Tiger's body language is unprintable. He walked with the reluctant gait of a man who'd finished his last meal with the warden. He hid his face in his cap. He dropped a 9-iron that had failed him, and then, to punish it, he kicked it. Only five days ago, Tiger Woods was the old Tiger Woods. Today, he was just old.
Or do you have another way to explain it? The most consistent ball-striker of our era now suffers moments when he has no idea which way or how far the thing will go. He's 36 years old now with body parts that have been hard at work since that Mike Douglas Show 34 years ago. Knees go. Tendons fray. Healing happens, yes it does, but it happens in weeks, not days, in years, not months.
Read moreWith Dufner, there's more beneath the surface
(Photo: Getty Images)
AUGUSTA, Ga. -- So, when it was clear Jason Dufner likely would share the halfway lead in the Masters, I asked a tournament media official, "You bringing Dufner down here?" Meaning would Dufner be asked to come to the press building for the customary tell-us-how-you-did-it interrogation by the assembled literati?
Here, in its entirety, the answer: "No."
Poor Jason Dufner. Invisible.
So I asked a fellow scribbler what he thought of Dufner.
Here's that answer, a suggestion that Dufner would have said nothing worth our time: "Flatliner."
Read morePoulter's 'cheeky' maneuver pays off
(Photo: Getty Images)
AUGUSTA, Ga. -- From the 13th fairway, Ian Poulter's second shot sailed left, carried off track by what he described as "a two-club wind." It settled into azalea jail on the hillside between bunkers. The ball sat under pine needles, visible only from directly above. Worse, its only path to the hole, 30 feet away, was through a triangular gap at the bottom of the azalea bushes.
At the time, he was 1-under par for the tournament and playing well. This adventure threatened his good mood. As he maneuvered into a stance above the ball, he did so without a club in hand. Once he had an idea, he accepted a 7-iron from his caddie. "I didn't want to move," he said, "for fear I'd move pine needles and move the ball."
Read moreAt the Masters, a good seat is worth the wait
AUGUSTA, Ga. -- What other sporting event lets you choose your seat? The Masters even lets you bring the seat. By 8 o'clock this morning, thousands of green Masters-branded canvas folding chairs ($30 a copy) had been set up around Augusta National Golf Club. Here's the drill: gates open when the light's good, about 7:15 or so, and folks stake their claim to a piece of ground.
It's astonishing. First, there's not a chair in sight; if left in place overnight, they'll be removed by clean-up crews. But an hour after the gates open, they're everywhere -- that is, everywhere marked "Sitting Area." Men, women, and children hurry to their favored spots where they pop open the chairs and plop them down. Then they go walking in confidence that when the time comes, they'll have a place to watch the drama.
Photo by Getty Images
"People don't mind if you use their chairs when they're not there," a security man said, "as long as you leave when they return. We don't have much problem with that. Most of these people have been here long enough they know how to behave."
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