In this column, the Chronicle’s chief golf writer has seen the Tiger Chasm that is gobbling up Texas’ PGA Tour events and he does not like what he sees:

If the first half of the season is any indication, the gap between the marquee events and all the others is getting wider than ever. For every WGC event that has dibs on the top 64 players, there’s a Bob Hope making do with only one player ranked in the top 10 when the season began. For every Nissan Open landing every top-10 not named Woods, there’s a New Orleans event without any star power.
Look for the summer events to suffer a talent drain, because the top players will be bracing themselves for a season-ending, four-week playoff run.
Maybe the season will build to a crescendo as the playoffs draw closer, but that isn’t helping Tampa, Houston, Dallas, Fort Worth, New Orleans or Memphis much.
A show of hands from all of those captivated by whether Kenny Perry can hold on to his one-point lead over Steve Lowery for the 144th ó and final ó playoff spot. The white coats will be along shortly with the straightjackets.
Yes, 144 players will make the first round of players. In other words, 19 players who aren’t good enough to finish in the top 125 ó the threshold for keeping a tour card ó will make it to the playoffs. Even the NCAA knows better than to water down its basketball tournament that much. . . .
Make no mistake: The new system should produce a season with a better flow. The season has some sort of ending instead of fizzling out in the fall. Clearly, though, there is too much disconnect between the marquee events and the mundane.

Campbell goes on to wonder whether the Texas PGA Tour events have seen the last of Tiger Woods:

Has Tiger Woods played a PGA Tour event in Texas for the last time?
Woods skipped the only Texas tournament in his regular schedule, the Byron Nelson, for the second consecutive year. With Nelson no longer around to answer, don’t be surprised if Woods forsakes that event unless it lands a date more suitable to his schedule.
Woods’ only appearance at the Texas Open in San Antonio was in 1996, when he was trying to earn his PGA Tour card. He played Colonial in 1997, tying for fourth, and hasn’t been back since. Though Woods has never played the Shell Houston Open, he has teed it up in Houston four times. Woods played the Tour Championship at Champions Golf Club in 1997 (12th), 1999 (won), 2001 (13th) and 2003 (26th). With Atlanta’s East Lake established as the home of the Tour Championship for the foreseeable future, it’s highly unlikely Woods will make another competitive appearance in Houston.

I buzzed up to Ft. Worth for a hearing yesterday and the golfers in the crowd were all talking about the EDS Byron Nelson Golf Tournament, which already has a less than inspiring field. Now, it turns out that several greens at the Tournament Players Course at Los Colinas are not going to be particularly picturesque on television:

One after another, competitors at the EDS Byron Nelson Championship struggled Monday to describe the patchwork greens that greeted them at the TPC Las Colinas course.
Riddled with bare patches and marked by evidence of multiple grasses growing on selected greens, the bumpy surfaces triggered a mea culpa from officials at the Four Seasons Resort, who own and oversee maintenance on both courses used at the Nelson tournament. [. . .]
Players who competed in Monday’s pro-am at the Cottonwood Valley course reported thin fairways on selected holes but praised the greens. Competitors at TPC, on the other hand, wondered if PGA Tour officials could find three viable pin placements during tournament week at selected holes.

Clear Thinkers favorite Dan Jenkins is not having any part of the notion that Zach Johnson‘s victory in The Masters Golf Tournament was boring due to a tricked-up Augusta National:

I, for one, loved it. The Augusta National, with an assist from nature, finally reined in technology. That alone was worth a roar, wasn’t it?
They took the winning 72-hole score back to 289, the highest it had been since 1954 and 1956, when the basic culprits were strong, gusty winds and the hard old Bermuda/rye greens that wouldn’t hold a pitchfork if Tiger Woods was swinging it.
If there was anything I liked better than seeing the tour pros have to face a tough course for a change, it was learning that Zach Johnson, the new Masters champion, is an unapologetic God-fearing lad who has a Yorkshire terrier like I do.
Only his is named Hogan.

Read the entire article.

The Shell Houston Open recently finished a rather uninspiring 2007 edition of the event. Now, the EDS Byron Nelson Championship in Dallas — which has also had (earlier post problems brewing) over the past several years — is looking as if it will have its weakest field in years, although it still appears to be better than the SHO’s field. Another PGA Tour event entering the Tiger chasm? The Star-Telegram’s Gil LeBreton thinks so:

The message this time, though, seems unmistakable. If the tributes planned for Byron werenít enough to lure Woods back this year, what makes anyone think that heíll come back next April? Or the year after?
Or that Tiger Woods will ever play tournament golf again in Texas?
His first and last appearance at Colonial came in 1997. A disappointing final round left Woods steamed and tied for fourth place, and he has never returned.
He played in the Texas Open, a fall tour event in San Antonio, in 1996 and came in third. He has never returned.
Woods has never played in the Shell Houston Open.
The Nelson, however, was supposed to be Woodsí tournament. The tournament where Fergie, the Duchess of York, once came to see Tiger play. From 1997 to 2004, Woods played in the Nelson Championship seven times, shooting a combined 77 under par.

Has anyone had as much fun in America this week as newly-crowned Master’s champion, Zach Johnson?
Johnson appeared on Letterman earlier in the week and recited the Top Ten list, which was entitled “The Top Ten things that I can now say that I’ve won the Master’s.” Both Johnson and Letterman are clearly having a good time. My favorite is no. 6: “Even I’ve never heard of me.”

Please excuse the all-sports day here today, but newly-crowned Master’s champion Zach Johnson has seemingly been everywhere over the past couple of days and he is proving to be a refreshingly normal fellow amidst all the attention. Here is the Damon Hack/NY Times profile, but this Joe Posnanski/Kansas City Star profile captures how Johnson’s Midwestern roots define the man. And if you are really into Johnson, check out the Des Moines Register’s wall-to-wall coverage of Johnson’s Masters victory and the aftermath.
Meanwhile, Geoff Shackelford passes along the following interesting thoughts about the mindset of those who enjoy watching professional golfers struggle on tricked-up courses:

On the news that ratings were actually up for this hardly satisfying 2007 Masters, I’ve heard from a number of people that they argued with friends over the weekend about the setup and the joys of watching great players suffer.
There is a sizeable audience of the viewing public that enjoys watching the best players struggle. They like seeing them humiliated and brought down to a lower level of skill.
“They know how I feel now.”
This mentality has been around a long time and many of the games lesser-informed writers have celebrated the notion of pro golfers serving as modern day gladiators served up for the people to devour in humiliating spectacles.
So I’m wondering if championship golf is going to go the way of everything else in our society. Will it have to become “relatable” (as the marketing folks like to say) for big-time golf to succeed? In other words, will professional golfers eventually serve at the pleasure of the people, with major events played to publicly humiliate millionaire golfers on overcooked layouts in order to make the average man feel better about his lousy game?
Personally, I find it to be an incredibly selfish way to view golf. It’s a lot more fun to see the talent of these great players exposed, celebrated and savored. But maybe that’s old school?

By the way, a number of folks have asked me about my observation in an earlier post that Zach is a classic one-plane swinger along the lines that Houston-based teaching professional Jim Hardy (see also here) has written extensively about over the past several years. Here is a short video clip of Johnson working with his teaching pro, Mike Bender:

Finally, in case you didn’t catch it on Sunday, make sure you catch the video below of Rory Sabbatini’s incredible putt on Augusta National’s 8th hole. Sabbatini — who has been a jerk at times while on the Tour — has a fun-loving response to the crowd’s reaction:

The television numbers are in on the just-completed Masters Golf Tournament. CBS Sportsí coverage of the tournament on Easter Sunday earned an average overnight household rating/share of 9.1/21 (meaning that 9.1% of households on average were tuned in at any given moment and 21% of all televisions in use at the time were tuned into the Masters). This yearís final-round rating/share was up 1% from last yearís 9.0/19 when Phil Mickelson won his second Masters title and it was also up 25% from the last time the final round was played on Easter Sunday (7.3/18), when Mickelson won his first green jacket and first career major title in the 2004 event.
Meanwhile, the Shell Houston Open, which was played just a week ago, had a 1.7 share for its NBC telecast on Sunday compared with 2.2 share for the SHO’s May date last year on CBS. Even the BellSouth Classic — the tournament that that the SHO replaced this season on the PGA Tour calendar — was able to generate a 2.5 share on Sunday last year.
So much for the thought that the SHO’s new date a week before the Masters would increase viewership of the tournament. The Shell Houston Open has now officially entered the Tiger chasm.

It’s not every day that a fellow born in my hometown of Iowa City and raised in Eastern Iowa wins a professional golf tournament, much less the the Masters Golf Tournament. But Zach Johnson pulled it off in dramatic fashion on Sunday, holding up wonderfully under the enormous pressure of a draconian Augusta National Golf Course and the challenges of several other contenders, including Tiger Woods, who has now played nine consecutive rounds at The Masters without shooting in the 60’s.
Despite Johnson’s splendid play, the Guardian’s Lawrence Donegan summed up the view of most toward the changes that have been made at Augusta National:

The stunning climax came after three days peppered with double bogeys and broken spirits. Fortunately, the gentlemen in green blazers remembered their tournament has earned its place in folklore because it has long been a byword for excitement. But there are precious few thrills to be mined from the sight of the world’s best players fearfully plotting their way round the course as if walking to their own funeral party.
So when play began yesterday morning it quickly became clear everything possible had been done to bring the scoring down. Tees had been pushed forward, the greens had been heavily watered and the pin positions were about as friendly as a Labrador puppy. The overnight changes had the desired effect. For the first time all week cheers echoed along the alleyways and canyons of Alister Mackenzie’s classic links.

By the way, Johnson uses a pure one-plane swing, much like Ben Hogan‘s classic swing that defined quality ball-striking in the modern era of golf. Thus, as with last year’s U.S. Open, the player with the purest one-plane swing held up the best under the intense pressure of the final round of The Masters. As usual, there is a Houston connection to the understanding and teaching of that swing.

It’s the always-anticipated day of the final round of The Master’s Golf Tournament, not everyone is sanguine about the fact that Stuart Appleby’s one-over-par 73 on Saturday allowed him to take a one-shot lead over Tiger Woods and Justin Rose at two-over par 218, which is the third-highest round lead in the history of the Masters. The Guardian’s Lawrence Donegan characterized the conditions on Friday in a fitting manner:

“As sporting drama goes, this was a bit like Laurence Olivier being acted off the stage by the grave diggers.”

The description was equally applicable to Saturday as the golfers struggled to make pars, much less the birdies and eagles that have made the Masters such an exciting tournament over the years. Donegan goes on to describe the renovated course, which another sage called “a golfing Zimbabwe” earlier in the week:

There is no disguising the fact that radical changes to Augusta in recent times, coupled with the bone hard conditions of this week, have turned Alister Mackenzie’s ageless masterpiece into a brute. Some, like Woods, used diplomatic language when asked for their opinions (“It’s a totally different course…[with ] about 500 extra yards, a billion trees and rough “).

Lorne Rubenstein gets into the act and notes how the lengthening of the par 5 15th hole has drained the drama from the hole:

Much of the confusion is gone because the hole was lengthened last year to 530 yards from 500. Too many players lay up now, which accounts for the much quieter environment among spectators in the area. They, and the golfers, used to hold their collective breath while a ball was in the air. What was its fate? The hole has almost turned into a par-3 because the tee shot and the lay-up have become routine. The third shot matters the most now, not the second.

Finally, don’t miss this Nick Seitz/Golf Digest article on the 1956 Master’s, which heretofore has been known as “the toughest Master’s ever.” The winner of that ordeal? None other than Houstonian Jack Burke.

The venerable Masters Golf Tournament begins this morning at that golfing Zimbabwe in Augusta, Georgia. Golf Digest’s John Hawkins does his usual fine job of handicapping the field and, somewhat surprisingly, doesn’t think that Tiger Woods is putting well enough at the moment to be a clear favorite for the tournament.
There have already been some interesting comments this week that reflect that the competitive juices are already peaking. Defending champion Phil Mickelson had the following response to a question during his press interview:

Q. Sticking with the green jacket theme, what did it feel like two years ago to help [Tiger Woods] put on the [The Masters green] jacket?
MICKELSON: I don’t know, but I remember what it felt like last year when he put it on me. (Laughter).

Meanwhile, Arnold Palmer will kick off the tournament for the first time by hitting the ceremonial first tee shot that Ken Venturi, the late Byron Nelson, Gene Sarazan and Sam Snead used to handle for many years. Despite the fact that Arnie is no longer playing competitively, he still has a good bit of feisty competitiveness in him. The following was his response to questions during his press interview on Tuesday when asked about rival Gary Player’s quest to play in more Masters tournaments than Palmer:

Q. Gary Player is going to tie your record this week for most Masters played. He’s talking about breaking it next year. What are your thoughts just about that?
PALMER: Well, if he isn’t embarrassed, I won’t be embarrassed for him. (Laughter). [. . .]
Q. He’s in pretty good shape.
PALMER: What does that mean? Are you saying I’m not in pretty good shape?
Q. Maybe he has like 30 more years left or so.
PALMER: Who gives a shit? (Laughter). If you can’t win, it doesn’t matter. That’s s-h-i-t. (Laughter). Hey, he’s my friend and I love him. I can also have fun with him, too.

And asked whether he would he do any ìarm-twistingî in the future to get Jack Nicklaus, who won a record six Masters, and Gary Player, a three-time winner, to hit future ceremonial tee shots in what would be a nostalgic reunion of what was once golfís Big Three?

ìTo let them join me,î Arnie replied with a chuckle, ìor to tell them to stay away.î

Which brings us to the following email that my brother Mike passed along to me that was written by a fellow who viewed an advance screening of a a very special television show that CBS will air before the final round of the tournament on Easter Sunday:

This Masters Sunday will be special. I know this because it’s going to begin with Arnold Palmer winning the Masters. The 1960 Masters, that is. “I wanted two generations to see what the magic was all about,” said CBS golf commentator [and former Houstonian] Jim Nantz, the man who made this resurrection possible.
We’ll be able to re-live the ’60 Masters, one of the more exciting finishes in history, because Nantz pried the original broadcast footage loose from the Augusta National vault, went to the incredible time and expense of having it colorized, and turned it into a one-hour show that CBS will air as the lead-in to its Sunday final-round Masters coverage.
This is footage that has never been aired since its original broadcast. The best part is, it’s not presented in a highlight package with talking heads. It’s shown as if it was a live telecast, featuring host Jim McKay (who left CBS later to join some upstart show known as ABC’s Wide World of Sports — wonder what ever became of him?) with coverage of the last four holes.
I watched a screening of the finished product and offer this advice: Don’t miss it. The 1960 Masters had it all. A classic Arnold Palmer charge and Ken Venturi’s agony of defeat. The old guard — Hogan and Snead — and a young gun — some amateur named Nicklaus. There was a minor rules controversy. There was an innovative new scoring system for television invented by CBS director Frank Chirkinian. And there was the great man himself, Bobby Jones, the legendary founder of Augusta National and the Masters Tournament, holding court as the host of cabin festivities.
This show is a slice of golf history and a classic piece of broadcast history. If you hate goose bumps or nostalgia, don’t watch. This show, a labor of love for Nantz, is one “Wow!” after another. Here’s a short list of reasons to watch:

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