By John Hawkins
Photos By Getty Images
November 6, 2008
Edge of your seat golf? Jaw dropping excitement? John Hawkins believes Ponte Vedra should maybe listen to the green jackets in Augusta.
Down at the little ballpark in northeast Georgia, the fellas in the green jackets are searching for their golf tournament. Once a tradition unlike any other, long the game's greatest creator of high-end Sunday drama, the Masters has become a U.S. Open with prettier flowers. In waging a war on equipment that helps the ball travel farther and straighter, the old-school disciples at Augusta National went too far themselves.
Higher scoring, louder snoring, just plain boring. If you're ever lucky enough to stand behind the seventh green, picture yourself trying to park a 5-iron on an elevated poker table meant to accommodate a wedge. Under former Masters chairman Hootie Johnson, the par-4 seventh was lengthened from 375 to 450 yards, a character-killing increase of 20 percent. As if to make sure everyone was paying attention, Johnson also tightened the fairway by adding trees on both sides.
When it comes to autocratic behavior, that's not asking for trouble. That's making it your guest of honor.
About 300 miles to the south, the knotted ties who run the PGA Tour are trying to figure out how to fix their FedEx Cup playoff series. Unlike the men who lord over the Masters, Camp Ponte Vedra must consider numerous constituencies when tweaking the dials on its flawed postseason format. Sponsors. Television networks. Tiger Woods. The guys trying to beat him. Mid-level players and fringers. Most of all, it has to satisfy Joe Fan -- the guy who watches every week and eats pro golf on the internet for breakfast.
So many people to make happy, just one playoff, not enough interest. When the 16-man Player Advisory Council gathered on a teleconference Tuesday to discuss changes in the format, it quickly realized the tour, as is often the case, already had determined a plan of action and wouldn't be holding a forum to solicit new ideas, which many of these guys definitely have.
"They kind of jammed it down our throats," said one veteran. Added Tom Pernice Jr., who has served on both the PAC and PGA Tour Policy Board: "It sounded like Tim [commissioner Finchem] and his staff had decided which direction they're going to go." When I relayed Pernice's thoughts to Joe Ogilvie, a board member whom many players consider their strongest voice of reason, he replied, "I would say Tom is pretty accurate on that."
As the leaves fall and the country prepares for a transition in the White House, two of the game's most powerful governing bodies are finding that change can be a loaded mousetrap. In a typically genteel statement announcing what sound like very minor alterations to Augusta National -- a tee box moved here, a few trees removed there -- the movement has begun to undo the mistakes made during Johnson's somewhat zealous tenure.
His idea was to Tiger-proof the joint. Now it's all about unHootiefying it.
Current chairman Billy Payne is not one to show up his predecessor, so most of the work will be done over time, a lot of it discreetly, some of it probably will go unannounced. The seventh and par-4 11th should be at the top of that priority list. Both holes were modified to an extent that they have lost their intended disposition, overruling the brilliance of Bobby Jones, who clearly was influenced by the Old Course at St. Andrews when designing his once-timeless masterpiece.
Before Johnson turned the cathedral into a parkland-themed soapbox, Jones created 18 holes that could be played from many different angles, risk and reward everywhere, with an obvious emphasis on precision and a healthy respect for distance. By introducing a light coat of rough and adding a leafy neighborhood's worth of trees, Jones' vision was compromised, perhaps unwittingly, but at Augusta National, the game's finest competitive stage, compromise isn't really an option. Just ask Martha Burk.
Not every Masters was great before the course lobotomy, nor has every Masters been lousy since, but the last two were duds, affected adversely by weather that was tough but not crazy. Payne referred to this in his statement, but if irony is reality, the stiff breezes and chilly temperatures exposed Jones' beauty as Johnson's beast -- what had always been a very playable course could now become unscorable.
Mr. Jones isn't available for comment, but you can read his mind. A two- or three-club wind shouldn't turn the azalea patch into a nightmare.
In a year that produced one of the most memorable U.S. Opens ever, a terrific British Open (talk about nasty weather) and a PGA Championship that finished strong, the Masters finished last in major-championship market value. No drama, no water-cooler buzz, which puts it in less-than-stellar company with the FedEx Cup playoffs. "We're moving forward, it's going to be better, but it couldn't be worse than it was this year," assessed Pernice, who says what he thinks and does a lot of thinking.
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