2021 Masters

I'm really not much of a golf guy, I've got enough sports going on. But I love the Masters and I like really digging into it the way I just dug into the NCAA tourney. Something about springtime makes me want to appreciate nature from indoors. On Thursday and Friday I watched ESPN+ for holes 4,5,6 and then 15,16. It's an interesting way to watch, to perch at a coupla holes and watch everybody that passes through rather than following a specific group or getting random highlights from around the whole course. On Saturday and Sunday, I mostly watched the CBS coverage (seeing new holes was liked I unlocked the next level of the game!), but I'd go back to the ESPN+ from time to time. 

On Thursday, Justin Rose killed it on the back nine, jumped out to the early -7 lead. He had the best Thursday and he rode that to a top-10 finish. Nice work.

Hideki Matsuyama (*spoiler alert* the dude that won) was there at (-3), as was Will Zalatoris (-2) just behind him. I don't watch much golf, gotta admit, I didn't know either of these dudes. But they were both better on Saturday than Friday and that's why they were both still in it on Sunday. 

On Friday, Zalatoris was really good again, Tony Finau made a run, and Justin Rose just kinda hung around. Matsuyama was under par but didn't really shine out. Bubba Watson and Tommy Fleetwood were the two that I felt might make a run but neither of them ever really got into the mix.  

Brooks Koepka, Dustin Johnson, Rory McIlory, and Patrick Cantlay were some of the heavier hitters that didn't make the cut. Patrick Reed and Bryson DeChambeau made the cut but never really felt like they were gonna make a run. 

On Saturday, there was a rain delay of a coupla hours in the middle of the afternoon. The early golfers had already finished, so this mostly just hit the top of the table guys. After the delay, Matusyama went nuts on the back nine. Something about the rain changed up those greens and he was murdering his approach shots, sticking 'em on the green like Eastern European gymnasts. It was on the back nine on Saturday where he ran off left everybody. 

Schauffele was good, too, on Saturday, not as good as Matsuyama but pretty much, along with Zalatoris, the only one that had a shot at catching up with Matsuyama. 

Worst final round: Francesco Molinari. Ahhh, man, got off to a bad start and just looked like he wanted to be just about anywhere but playing golf on this day. He was rough to watch. 

On Sunday, I gotta admit: I didn't think Matsuyama would hold up. I thought, like Justin Rose on Thursday, he just got hot at the right time and he wouldn't be able to hold it. In my defense, he did go +1 for the day and when he bogeyed the 1st hole, I thought the collapse was coming. But he righted the ship and shot quite well, extending his lead for a while, and even his bogey on the 18th was pure defense, the smart play to use the cushion to avoid a bigger mistake. He really clamped down on Sunday and it was an impressive win. I didn't think he was gonna do it and he flat the fuck out did. 

Unfortunately, Matsuyama dominated so well that the only real moment of drama on Sunday was Xander Schauffele going in the drink on 16. At -10 he was really the only one that had a shot at catching Matsuyama and he had to make a big play at 16. Hey, man, ESPN+ showed me all week long that 16 was murdering people and I figured Matsuyama would play it safe, maybe even give up a stroke. Schauffele thought he had a chance to make up ground and he went for it...and it did not work. He rolled off into the water (a recurring image of the 2021 Masters) and his +3 on 16 knocked him out of the running. 

I was really impressed with Will Zalatoris, a dude I had never heard of before. That guy was in it to win it all the way and I respected that. He was kinda up and down, especially down the stretch but he hit some big shots, thought he acquitted himself admirably. Jon Rahm went hog nutty on Sunday, shooting -6 after going E in each of the first three rounds (a kinda strange accomplishment); he had the newborn kid thing going, maybe it kept him cautious during the week allowing him to rip it on Sunday. Good stuff! It got him a top 5 finish when I otherwise didn't much notice him. Jordan Spieth tied for 3rd....uh, I don't remember even seeing him once throughout the whole thing (how does that happen?).  

Phil Mickelson was fun to watch throughout, not like he was gonna turn up on Sunday but he had a coupla nice runs in him on Friday and Saturday. And I dug seeing Fred Couples, Jose Maria Olazabal ("a delightful man" the ESPN+ commentators pointed out...about 100 hundred times in the two minutes he was on screen) and Bernhard Langer, dudes that were around when I was a kid.

Felt like more of a crowd than I've seen on TV in a while, and that's encouraging.