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2015 Masters Preview – The King is Dead, Long Live the King

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If this were the Middle Ages, Tiger Woods choosing to come to Augusta National and play in the Masters while Rory McIlroy chases a career Grand Slam and third straight major would be akin to some potentate announcing his own public condemnation and execution as part of another King’s coronation.

Or as they might have said back in my Dad’s day, “Hey it’s your funeral.”

Yes, we know, Woods is practicing. Yes, we know about new swing guru Chris Como and his zen-tabulous, “going back to the Harmon mechanics” bibbitty-bobbetty-boo that they spout to anyone dumb enough to chase that red herring. (Too bad that in order to make that plan work, he’d need to go back to the Harmon-era body shape and mass too.)

Yes, we know his “approved pal” Notah Begay gave lawyer-tested, Tiger-approved tidbits of information on TV that were more PR than analysis. They answered none of the tough questions surrounding Woods’s game or physical health. How’s his tooth? How’s his glutes? How’s his back? How’s his head? How’s his ego?

You kinda need those at Augusta.

And yes, we all heard the strategic “leak” of some mystery round where Eldrick shot a worst-ball 66 at Isleworth. But if all the stubbed-chips, chili-dips, skull-tops, and 3-jacks of the season so far are any indication, he must have bought three mulligans for $10 from the girl on the first tee before heading out. Nothing we’ve seen from Tiger in public this season gives even a fig leaf of credibility to predictions he’ll be competitive. It does, however, trigger an avalanche of much-needed press that might move the needle for his suffering Q rating.

And it had to hurt to see Rory’s face on the cover of EA Sports PGA Tour 2015.

When it comes to publicity, Woods just can’t miss a chance to remind the World he’s still the King of Casual Eyeballs. But as for his golf: it’s his back, it’s his tooth, it’s his glutes, (he said so himself!), it’s his chipping, it’s his pitching, it’s his driving, it’s his ego: it’s always been something since Thanksgiving 2009…everything except majors, which are the only thing that matters to him. His head is nowhere near where it needs to be, no matter what his parrot Notah Begay chatters, and no matter what some lickspittle leaks to the media about some mystery worst-ball 66 at Isleworth.

Why? He just can’t scramble like he used to, not well enough to win.
Tiger used to be able to get up and dpwn from the Pyramids of Giza, the Mariana Trench, and east Greenland. Now he can’t get up and down from the fringe.

Augusta is just not the place to test the chipping yips. And if the driver gets sideways? His glutes may deactivate again really quickly…

Meanwhile, we have a new potentate. For the last nine months, it’s been Rory McIlroy’s world: everyone else is just a bit player. All eyes are on the Northern Irishman as he seeks a third straight major championship and career Grand Slam.

McIlroy was all but invincible at the Open Championship last year, filleting Royal Liverpool: marinating it in tawny port wine-peppercorn sauce, stuffing it with buttered crabmeat, and searing it to a perfect medium rare. It paired well with Claret from the Jug, Guinness from the Jug, and Bushmill’s from the Jug.

Then came the two-fer in August – Firestone, then the PGA Championship, back-to-back. The greatest champions win at Firestone: Nicklaus, Woods, Watson, Price, Norman, Mickelson, Duval, Clarke, Singh, Scott, and now McIlroy, (that’s 61 major victories between them). The 265 aggregate (15-under) McIlroy fired last summer is tied for the fourth best winning score since 1962.

Then there was Valhalla – the four rounds in the middle 60s, the shootout on a soggy Sunday, the eagle on 10 when his chances were fading, spurned on by a pin-seeking 284-yard 3-wood, the finish in darkness, but most importantly, the 4-under 32 on the back nine. McIlroy charged when everyone else was running on fumes and playing defensive golf down the stretch, Rory birdied 14 and 17.

He was almost winning at will, like Tiger used to. He was finding another gear when he had to, like Tiger used to. He was winning on any kind of golf course: links, target, parkland – like Tiger used to.

How is that not more compelling than watching a flailing Woods tread water in the nether-reaches of the leaderboard?

Happily, this spring McIlroy has company in the spotlight. Why are we even thinking about Tiger Woods when all of the rising stars on the PGA Tour have already won this year? Patrick Reed, Jimmy Walker (twice), Bill Haas, Jason Day, Dustin Johnson, Jordan Speith, and Brandt Snedeker.

What’s not to like about that list? That’s mega-watt star power. All that promising seeds they sowed last year have taken root and blossomed victory. Patrick Reed and Jordan Speith were the darlings of the Ryder Cup team. Reed opened the season with a win at Kapalua, Speith won at Innisbrook, beating both Reed and Sean O’Hair in a playoff to do it. Meanwhile Dustin Johnson returns from…whatever…and wins a week later at Doral.

That earned all the headlines it created. Score one for Dustin. That’s a good start to the comeback.

Meanwhile Snedecker and Haas have both won FedEx Cups, (and the corresponding Gazillion dollars). Sadly, I’m sure we’d know them better and like them more if they’d win between April and August rather than September. PGA Tour Commissioner Tim Finchem still doesn’t get that golf fans – true, ardent golf lovers – recognize the whole thing as a musical chairs-ish money grab, and a rather low-brow one at that. But that’s not Sned’s or Haas’s fault. That’s the fault of the network suits who only like things they’ve seen before, are petrified of change, and want to maximize casual eyeballs at the expense of the bedrock foundational audience.

And let’s not forget Adam Scott, Bubba Watson, and Phil Mickelson, who between them have won six Green Jackets, including the last three. While all three have been up-and-down most of the season, they all play well at Augusta, a huge advantage

So this year’s Masters is both a literal rebirth as well as a metaphoric one. Sure, it’s the unofficial opening of golf season across America, but it’s also the final passing of the baton. If Woods makes the cut at all, on Sunday he’ll come up 18 while Rory tees off on one, unless of course his glutes deactivate again and he’s down the road again, still seeking the same answers he’s sought for the last seven years.

“We’re sick of ‘Tiger Tiger Tiger.’ He’s hi-jacking the golf media, and for what?” asked golf expert Rodney Zilla, and he’s right. Nothing he’s done on the course has warranted a 24-hour news cycle and, frankly, his off-course life is so boring, his persona so homogenized and predictable, that PGA Tour and major championship coverage get lost in a white noise for far too long during a week where we could be learning all about the new players and getting closer to the heroes being made at that moment, rather than reliving ancient history.

It’s a new day in golf: There’s a new King and court, and a decade or more of great battles on the horizon. It would be a shame to miss that in exchange for 75-75=MC, trunk slam, screech of tire, sayonara, and then 48 hours of “What’s wrong with Tiger?” Golf, like television, is a “What have you done for me lately?” business.

The golfers will do their part to make this a magical week. With the exception of last year’s statistical outlier of a finish, what tournament has more ebb and blow, rise and fall, agony and ecstasy than the Masters? What golf course has more romance and drama than Augusta?

The old journalism adage of “Where heroes do not exist, it is necessary to invent them” is a terrible and inconvenient truth. But if have it, we must, then let’s start making some new heroes. That’s our job after all. And it was no less a personage than our icon Dan Jenkins who wrote, “You’d be surprised how much grace and class we can attribute to a guy who wins majors.” Happily, at a place like Augusta, at the right time in the spring, those stories write themselves. So let’s get down to it. The next Tiger is out there, we just have to have the will to see it.

OUR PREDICTION: Jordan Speith
OTHER NOTABLES: Jason Day, Rory McIlroy, Henrik Stenson, Patrick Reed
DARK HORSES: Brooks Koepka, Webb Simpson

We’ll have Friday and Sunday coverage duties here and at A Walk in the Park. Plus tune into the Jay’s Plays Show on The Golf News Net Radio Network

THIS ARTICLE ALSO APPEARED AT CYBERGOLF.COM/WRITERSCORNER