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.