Lightning In A Bottle Or Horses For Courses

 What is it about the Masters, anyway?  After a record-setting romp through the field at Augusta National last November, defending champ Dustin Johnson failed to make the cut after two desultory rounds the past two days.  CBSSports reports that Johnson joins some unfortunate company by becoming the third defending Masters champion to miss the cut in the last five years.  The two others were Danny Willett in 2016 and Sergio Garcia in 2017. And in fact, Garcia has now failed to make the cut in the three Masters he has played after his 2017 victory, including this year’s, and Willett has missed the cut in four of the five Masters in which he has played, including this year’s, after his 2016 victory.  Wait, What?

And if you look at golf history, 142 male golfers have notched one majors’ victory.  Of those, only 19 have won the Masters as their only majors’ victory. With one exception (Fred Couples) none of them are in the WGHOF nor are likely to be enshrined in the future. Lightning in a bottle for sure - just ask Larry Mize.

Then on the other hand, there are horses for courses.  One level up, there are 17 golfers who have won two or more Masters, led by the GOAT, Jack Nicklaus, with 6 green jackets. Of those 17, there are five whose only majors’ victories are in the Masters, four who played in the modern era:  Jose Maria Olazabal, Bernhard Langer, Ben Crenshaw and Bubba Watson.  All save for Watson are in the WGHOF.  While Olazabal and Langer  had extremely distinguished careers abroad, between them they only won 5 PGA Tour titles here in the United States aside from their four Masters’ wins. And Watson, who has 12 Tour victories, has won 8 of them on three golf courses, winning at Riviera Country Club 3 times. 

Name That Golfer - And His Sponsor!

So what will it be, lightning in a bottle for a rookie Masters winner, veteran (Rose with 24 professional wins including a major) or actual (Will Zalatoris in his first Masters’ appearance); long-shot (Bernd Weisberger, best Masters finish T24 in 5 tries, cut in 10 of 19 other majors’ tournaments); historic (Jordan Spieth completes his historic career comeback by winning his 4^th major; close but no cigar (Tony Finau, 8 top-ten finishes in 18 majors), or somewhere in between.  We will find out tomorrow evening as the sun sets over the loblolly pines in Augusta.

BTW, I’m still taking the field.

 

© 2012-21 R.E. Kelly

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