The Loop

Media: 'He's the wizard of Oz'

April 14, 2013

The thought surely occurred to anyone recalling Adam Scott's inability to close out the British Open the summer before and CBS' David Feherty eloquently put it to words.

"The game of golf owes him one," Feherty said with Scott putting out on the 15th green in the final round of the Masters on Sunday, "but as we know the game of golf is a deadbeat debtor. It does not care."

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Maybe it does after all. Scott erased the demons he took away from Royal Lytham & St. Annes last year and became the first Australian to win the Masters with birdie putts at the 18th hole in regulation and at 10 on the second playoff hole to beat Angel Cabrera.

When Scott holed the birdie putt at 18 in regulation that looked, for the moment, like it might deliver a victory, he shouted for joy.

"Did I just lip-read him, 'come on Aussies?'" Faldo asked. A slow-motion replay confirmed it.

"There's a great song at home called 'Come On Aussie, Come on,'" Australian native Ian Baker-Finch said. "That's what we've all been saying."

Here's the first verse, a fitting ode to Scott and Australian golf:

"It's been a long time comin'

"To silence all that drummin'

"To show them that it wasn't just a dream."

Aussome

It was a day for Aussies, from start to finish.

Early, Jason Day holed a bunker shot for eagle on the second hole. "A few of the tea cups fell off the breakfast tables down in Australia on that one," Faldo said. "That will get everyone rocking."

When Scott holed the winning putt in the rain, Faldo summed it up neatly. "It's now official," he said. "He's the wizard of Oz."

An emotional Baker-Finch, who has known Scott since he was a kid, added this: "From down under to the top of the world."

They weren't there for tennis

When CBS cut to Masters starter Toby Wilt to announce the final pairing of Brandt Snedeker and Angel Cabrera, Wilt was overhead asking the players, "All right, guys, ready to play a little golf?"

Wilt, incidentally, is a member at Augusta National, and a friend of Snedeker's. They partnered to win the pro-am at the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am.

Put down that phone

When Angel Cabrera was brushing leaves with his practice swings beneath a tree right of the 10th fairway, Jim Nantz and Nick Faldo seemed to be calling off the rules experts watching at home and waiting to catch players in infractions.

"He'd better be careful back there with those practice swings," Nantz said.

"He can't knock a leaf off," Faldo said. "Now with HD, we can see a leaf falling."

The HD reference is to high definition television, responsible for the new rule designed to protect the player from inadvertent rules infractions spotted on television, the same rule that kept Tiger Woods around for the weekend.

"You're really flirting with a penalty," Nantz said. "One of those leafs fall it would be a penalty."

None fell.

He used to play like that with pressure

Peter Kostis after Tiger's second shot from the pine needles to the green at 13, leading to his third birdie in five holes: "Once Tiger kind of was out of it, there's been a freedom about his attitude and golf swing that has really taken over."

On Twitter

Dennis Miller, comedian and radio talk show host: "re CBS opening montage. Has the Masters become too meaningful to actually play it? Is Nantz performing Extreme Unction or announcing golf?"

(Getty Images photo)