Fore please! Running Masters thread

You'll be looking for a while. Augusta is where America's sportswriters go to check their ethics at the schoolhouse /clubhouse door.

 

That was what was befuddling, you've got a wedge and you can't get it close? I mean you're the 2nd GREATEST EVER and you cannot do what Dickie Pride can still do? Tiger's at least got that under control this year.

The other thing I cannot figure out about Tiger is how much trouble he has with the driver when journeymen, say DA Points can stripe it 300 70% of the time.

 

Tiger (and Phil) won't pay as much of a penalty for errant drives there as they will at a US Open. Tiger's driving was only mediocre at Bay Hill; his irons and putting were awesome. Can he get away with it there? Maybe.

It certainly would not shock me to see him win, but he's not the prohibitive favorite he was in 2002 or 2005. If you give me Tiger vs. the field this week, I'll take the field.

 

I got to play in 1988 ... I still grieve about my ethical lapse [/bluefont]

 

Avatar bet?

 

There is absolutely nothing professionally ethically wrong with accepting an invitation to play a private golf course. If the invitee feels very strongly about a club's admission policies, etc., he or she should decline with thanks, but that's personal.
I went to two Masters, and didn't enter the press lottery either time. Not because I thought it was wrong, but because I knew I'd feel so super self-conscious about my lousy golf game in those circumstances I wouldn't enjoy myself. As a sportswriter and since, I have been fortunate enough to be invited by members to play some very private and distinguished courses all by myself out of family ties and friendships, and in those cases, I did enjoy myself except for the sucking at golf.
The whole ethos of golf as a sport, for good or ill, is that everybody's in it together -- press included. Complaining about golf being clubby is like complaining about college sports being corrupt. It's as useless as shouting at clouds.

 

Good point.

And I know it's not the same as no-blade-of-grass-out-of-place Augusta, but other PGA events let journalists play the course, too.

 

What did you shoot?

 

OK. You'd need to show me how to do that, though. But I'll take the field this week.

 

bet. Tiger wins by 4.

 

OK