{"id":221589,"date":"2021-04-08T04:00:14","date_gmt":"2021-04-08T01:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/this-masters-can-be-memorable-without-tiger-woods\/"},"modified":"2021-04-08T04:00:14","modified_gmt":"2021-04-08T01:00:14","slug":"this-masters-can-be-memorable-without-tiger-woods","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/this-masters-can-be-memorable-without-tiger-woods\/","title":{"rendered":"#This Masters can be memorable without Tiger Woods"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#This Masters can be memorable without Tiger Woods<\/strong>”<\/p>\n

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AUGUSTA, Ga. \u2014 As news<\/a> broke that Tiger Woods had nearly doubled the 45-mph speed limit on that Southern California road in February, wrecking far more than his car, I was standing under a tree near the 16th green at the Masters, reliving a more pleasant memory of Tiger.<\/p>\n

He had just hit his tee shot in tight two years ago, inspiring a wild explosion of noise. I race-walked with my brother to the left side of the green, desperate for a view of the putt that would all but clinch Tiger\u2019s fifth green jacket, when a security guard app<\/a>roached to clear our sorry, late-arriving butts out of there. Each of us immedia<\/a>tely dropped to a knee and crouched our middle-aged bodies painfully low to clear all sightlines for those behind us, then sheepishly looked up at the guard to wait for his verdict.<\/p>\n

The man backed off. Security guards never back off at the Masters, but it was almost as if this one understood that the moment was so big and powerful that it demanded an exception even to unbreakable Augusta National rules. Woods asked his caddie for a read on the short putt, and an incredulous Joe LaCava responded, \u201cJust put it in the effin\u2019 hole.\u201d Tiger did indeed put it in the effin\u2019 hole, and suddenly we were all witnessing perhaps the greatest Masters of all time.<\/p>\n

I returned to that same spot, under that same tree, at the 16th on Wednesday for professional and personal reasons. But more than anything, after missing the Masters in November, I wanted \u2014 in my mind \u2014 to feel the magic again, and to hear the roars, and to feel the earth tremble like it did on April 14, 2019. It didn\u2019t matter that pros spent the day honoring Augusta\u2019s skip-the-ball-across-the-pond tradition to the fans\u2019 delight, and taking 10 or more practice putts on the green.<\/p>\n

\"Tiger
Tiger Woods, who won the 2019 Masters, puts the green jacket on Dustin Johnson, the 2020 champion.<\/figcaption>
Reuters<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The 16th was the ideal place to remember why that Masters was the best sporting event I\u2019ve ever covered in 35 years of doing this, and to consider the possibility that this year\u2019s tournament could top even that one.<\/p>\n

No, it doesn\u2019t seem likely that a Masters without Woods could produce epic Sunday drama. But the beauty of sport \u2014 and the advantage it always has had over Hollywood and Broadway \u2014 is its unscripted unpredictability. Amazing things happen out of left field, and nobody knows when or how they will unfold.<\/p>\n

Golf fans know that they unfold at Augusta National more than in any other arena in the sport.<\/p>\n

On the eve of the tournament, it was strange to walk around the place and observe the temporary holes in the Masters experience. Not as strange as it must have been in November, when no fans (or patrons, as the green jackets prefer to call them) were allowed on the grounds, but plenty strange enough. No Par-3 Contest. No crowds. No grandstands. No players, caddies, media members, agents or equipment reps sharing old stories under the massive oak tree behind the clubhouse.<\/p>\n

No Tiger.<\/p>\n

Masters chairman Fred Ridley refused to say how many fans will be allowed on site this week, or what percentage of your typical non-pandemic gallery that number would represent; Wednesday\u2019s crowd felt like 15-20 percent of what it had been in the past. But on Sunday, if the play is worthy, face masks won\u2019t stop the gallery from sounding a lot bigger than the head count suggests.<\/p>\n

Now it\u2019s on Bryson DeChambeau, and Dustin Johnson, and Jordan Spieth, and Brooks Koepka, and Rory McIlroy to fill the Tiger void. Woods is 45, and in a dire state of physical disrepair. He might never again play competitive golf, or play it at an elite level. And even if Tiger had never crashed that SUV, golf wasn\u2019t going to be able to lean on him forever. A star, or a small circle of stars, was and is needed to carry the sport for the next 10 years and beyond.<\/p>\n

The hulking DeChambeau, at 27, is best positioned to be The Guy in a post-Tiger world, and he would stake his claim to that title Sunday with his second major championship victory in seven months.<\/p>\n

But the fairway is wide open for whoever wants to take the 85th Masters, and the sports world, by the throat. This can still be a tournament for the ages. In the end, no Tiger on Thursday does not have to mean no Tiger roars on Sunday.\n <\/p><\/div>\n

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Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“#This Masters can be memorable without Tiger Woods” AUGUSTA, Ga. \u2014 As news broke that Tiger Woods had nearly doubled the 45-mph speed limit on that Southern California road in February, wrecking far more than his car, I was standing under a tree near the 16th green at the Masters, reliving a more pleasant memory…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":221590,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/04\/Tiger-Woods-1.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=1200","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[70897],"tags":[101106,101233,15116,71818,70881,71501,71941,35862],"class_list":["post-221589","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-4-7-21","tag-augusta-national","tag-bryson-dechambeau","tag-dustin-johnson","tag-golf","tag-jordan-spieth","tag-the-masters","tag-tiger-woods"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221589","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=221589"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221589\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/221590"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=221589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=221589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=221589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}