Faxon handicaps the field...Tiger...and the elements....at Augusta
Brad Faxon gave the
Dennis & Callahan radio show on WEEI in Boston a player's perspective on the Masters this morning. Good stuff. Faxon, who received that Golf Writers Association of America Jim Murray Award this week, said hadn't been back to the Masters for 5 years and couldn't get over the changes in the course, and especially the added length, aggravated this week by the wet weather. Luke Donald told him: "It's really, really long this year." Faxon said that players he'd talked to also reported balls occasionally picking up mud, making distance control trickier, and we saw lots of evidence of that Thursday.
While acknowledging that Augusta National is still a second-shot golf course--as Lee Westwood reiterated yesterday--Faxon added that "it's become much more of a driver's course," and predicted that a long hitter had to be favored.
Does that include Tiger Woods, despite his erratic tee game yesterday? "He's always been a wild driver of the golf ball," said Faxon. "It's in recovery that he's been fantastic. He's won tournaments hitting 6 greens out of 14."
In other words, yes.
Bob Carney
