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People are going to try to convince you that this year’s Masters Tournament ranks in the top five of all-time. They’re going to push some Disney-story narrative about happy endings and overcoming adversity. Video crews across major networks are already poring over Sergio’s last four days, deciding what three shots are going to be added to the playback of Masters highlights when next year’s tournament rolls around. You’re going to hear nostalgic prophecies of Arnie and Seve reflecting on the final round while sipping half and halfs in that great clubhouse in the sky.
Don’t buy into all that shit. When the SportsCenter special segment tries to compare 2017 Sergio to 1997 Tiger, that’s fake news. If you hear Brandel Chamblee using analogies from the latest book he’s peddling to ask if Sergio’s performance was all-time, tune him out. That’s just the crooked media lying to you. Stay woke. This Masters sucked. It didn’t come close to the hype. First, we got thunderstorms that canceled most of the week’s pre-tournament festivities. Then the best golfer in the field has to withdraw after suffering the whitest dad injury in the history of white dad injuries. You’d think this would motivate the rest of the guys to get hungry and go get that jacket, but no. Of the World Top 10, only half shot under par for the week.
Which brings me to what will surely be the most unpopular opinion of this piece. Sunday’s golf wasn’t good. Yes, there were really good individual elements of it. Kuchar’s ace coupled with shooting the low round for the day, Pieters scaring the leaders with a late birdie run, Schwartzel and Casey fighting into the top ten. Each of those were great in their own right. But as a whole, Sunday’s round left a lot to be desired from the final pairings. Couples disappeared, which sucks but isn’t unheard of from a 57-year-old with decades of back problems. Mickelson’s insistence of relevancy turned out to just be FIGJAM chatter. In a stunning display of ejection, Rickie and Jordan hurled themselves out of contention by Amen Corner.
And, despite what every announcer with a medium is going to insist, Justin and Sergio’s last 18 holes was not two fighters trading blows. It was more like watching simultaneous skyscraper implosions and wondering which one is going to fall first. Rose should have closed Sergio out by 15, but he couldn’t put an iron close enough to make a birdie putt fall. Sergio should have been five strokes ahead stepping out of Amen Corner, but his mini meltdowns gave Justin the momentum he needed to stay in contention.
Sunday’s round was like watching Will Ferrell and Sacha Baron Cohen run across the finish line at the end of Talladega Nights. The final pairing wasn’t a hunt for victory so much as it was a race to defeat. Neither player possessed the ability to clutch up and win whenever the other faltered. The miraculous comebacks that’ll be referenced for the next eternity weren’t miracles as much as they were the other player’s mediocre competitive ability keeping the faltering player in contention. I mean, are we really going to sit here and lobby that a Masters that first goes to a playoff because neither competitor could sink birdie putts from less than twenty feet, and is then over after the first tee shot in the playoff smashes into the woods is all-time?
Plenty of people will insist the greatness of this year’s Masters. They’ll give a thousand irrelevant reasons why it should go down as one of the best and accost anyone who suggests it was anything less than story booked. But when you strip away the narratives and all you’re left with is golf, you find yourself less than satisfied. Yeah, we got a champion this year who won the tournament in his 73rd major start, on what would have been the 60th birthday of his most beloved golfing countryman, but he did it with a performance that was more of a salvage than a victory. Sergio will be the hero, but it’ll be because he finally learned to coast the plane into the Hudson instead of nose diving into the runway..
Image via CBS Sports / YouTube
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BBisgard45
Golf Pro in B/CS TX trying to trick the PGA into certifying me to give swing advice for a living.
@BrianBisgard
Don’t Let This Media Fool You: okay cool, but what do you shoot?
I was ready to give up on PGP but comments like these give me hope.
Get outta here with that name
This is a horrible take, man. You can’t say either Sergio or Rose imploded, or were like skyscrapers waiting to fall. That back nine was as incredible as ever, with Sergio saving his ass over and over again and that clutch eagle on 15. I respect you for dedicating yourself to the hot take game, but I’m a strong disagree on this one.
That came off douchey as hell. Running on one too many cups of coffee today, I think. I’ll take the downvotes if they come, well deserved.
Don’t pussy out like that when he hasn’t even responded
Rose got progressively worse as the round reached completion. Guy comes into the turn off three straight birdies, and then goes even par on the first 5 holes of the back 9? His ball striking fell and his putter went flat. He needed two, maybe even only one birdie from 10-14 and Sergio would’ve been done but he couldn’t put an approach inside 20ft. And Sergio’s clutch saves were solid all around, but far from clutch. Average play on both sides.
Yeah I forgot how easy it is to put a ball inside 20 feet from 180 yards out with the whole world watching
Seemed pretty easy for Tiger and Spieth
Sounds good, so going forward we’ll just grade everyone based on a 14 time major champion’s standard
And the guy who holds the 72 hole scoring record at the Masters
I guess Rose didn’t pour in his birdie after Sergio made eagle in his face on 15? And then proceeded to pour birdie in before Sergio on 16? As a golf fan, what else can you ask for?
You’re trash and you should feel like trash.
Spieth’s Friday and Saturday comeback, Freddy being in the mix (again) and the back nine Sunday made me love it.
but did y’all hear Jim Nantz say that it would have been Seve’s 60th b’day?
You lost me when you complimented Matt “Sketchers” Kuchar. What’s next, an article on how Mike Weir is underrated?
Golfing Canadians are a paradox to me
Just be happy that Sergio, who is now a fellow Texan, picked up the W.
Is he residing in Texas now?
I think he’s in Austin, pretty sure that’s where his fiance is from. Someone fact check me.
She’s from Marble Falls, about 30 miles West of Austin. She just moved to Florida to land her gig at the Golf Channel. Played golf at TCU and then she transferred to UT. I have a friend who manages the Dick’s SG down in Bee Cave who said Sergio came in there about two months back to get his putter grip changed and asked to do it, himself. He showed me the old grip that Sergio gave him that has all of Sergio’s stuff on it. Pretty cool piece of memorabilia he has now.
That’s cool. I knew his fiancée went to UT, my gf showed me a couple pics of Serg and his fiancée touring Disch-Falk right before the season started and the caption mentioned her graduating there
“These two golfers played so poorly that it was a race to defeat.”
Says the “golf pro” who won’t tell us what he shoots.
It wasn’t an all timer but to say it sucked is a bad take imo.
Shack
I will fight you.
Damn, warn us before you give us a take this hot next time.
So no one is gonna say anything about the fact that everyone has started calling it a “take” out of nowhere
In the time of hot takes, nothing can be just okay anymore.
This was an insanely entertaining Masters. That said, I agree that the finish lacked a lot. Two horses limping into the stables, but then again I’d shoot about 200 in their shoes. Top ten Masters, but Sunday didn’t live up to the hype everyone built Saturday evening. I still enjoyed it thoroughly, just wish everyone would calm down with the takes.