The Challenge opens; Watson wins again

    The Monday Nine for April 14, 2014

    Juniors: The IG Challenge at Glenwoodie is June 24

    We’re back with the news that the other tradition unlike any other, the Illinois Golfer Challenge Junior Golf Championship at Glenwoodie Golf Course in Glenwood, returns for its 26th playing on Tuesday, June 24.
    You can find the entry blank here. The best news of all is that the entry fee remains the same – $35, lower than any comparable junior tournament – with all entrants getting lunch, a bag tag, a towel, and a shot at a trophy.
    There are four divisions, two for boys and two for girls. In each case, the age groups are 13-to-15 and 16-to-18.
    The Challenge, which began as the Pulitzer Challenge in 1989 and for most years carried the banner of the Daily Southtown, has attracted anywhere from 60 (in its inaugural year) to 160 competitors. The entry limit is 156, and we’d like to reach it. The more players, the more fun!
    Entries are open now, and close on June 13. So you’ve got two months to get that entry in. Don’t delay, enter today!

    Now, to the usual nine:
    1. In the end, five strokes, two of them barely lacking, decided the 78th Masters.
    The first two were the answering birdie putts by Bubba Watson, matching Jordan Spieth on the fourth and sixth holes. Birds on those two demonic par 3s are hard enough to come by, but answering a deuce with one of your own? Stout, and vital, as they kept Watson two (at No. 4) and one stroke behind Spieth, who played the first seven holes in 3-under and appeared, even with a bogey at the fifth, to be pulling away. Watson prevented that.
    The next two strokes were by Spieth, and were those that lacked a little something. Just a couple of yards. He came up just short on the par-4 ninth, his ball rolling down the false front of the green and down the hill to the flattish area about 10 yards in front of the putting surface. A half-club more there would have helped. And a half-club more on the par-3 12th was absolutely necessary, for Spieth plunked his shot at the heart of Amen Corner into Rae’s Creek, a two-hopper that came off the green and drowned.
    Spieth was fortunate to get away with a bogey on the 12th to match the one on the ninth, but pars on both holes and he’s still in the toonamint, as the say on Washington Road. He’s not two strokes back and reeling. He’s tied with Watson after Bubba’s bogey on the 10th, and still there after the 12th.
    Had he been in that position, what happened next, the final critical stroke – Watson’s booming blast off the tee on the par-3 13th that curved around the bend like a cruise missile and landed 366 yards from the tee, even after clipping a tree – might have been less a body blow.
    Instead, it was like Joe Frazier had shown up and thrown a punch – connecting right on the chin. Spieth had nothing left to answer, parring in for an even-par 72. And he had company.
    Nobody else in the last 11 groups broke 70, while he scored 3-under 69 to finish at 8-under-par 280, three ahead of Spieth and Jonas Blixt. It was similar to the 1991 PGA at Crooked Stick, where another big hitter, John Daly, started the day in the lead and stayed there when he had the best round of the last 16-odd players.
    2. Kudos to Blixt, the unknown golfer. He’s played in three majors and finished in the top four twice. Keep an eye on him at Pinehurst.
    3. The picky in Twitterville and surrounding Internet communities have been complaining since about 4 p.m. Sunday that Watson’s big finish meant a lack of drama, depriving them of the dramatic back nine that The Masters automatically provides. Actually, The Masters doesn’t automatically provide it. Back nines like Jack Nicklaus’ charge of 1986 or Charl Schwartzel’s four-birdie finish of 2011 are rare, and that’s why they’re remembered. In 20 of the last 24 years, the winner at Augusta National has come from the last pairing. That doesn’t exactly shout upset city. It hints at two-horse races.
    What makes Masters Sunday so special, aside from gawking at the beauty of the course, is the potential for a topsy-turvy leader board. There’s usually more movement than there was on Sunday’s back nine, but the front nine provided plenty of excitement. Eliminate the aforementioned two so-so strokes by Spieth, and it would have been a two-man race in the last pairing to the wire. This one happened to end after Watson’s tee shot on the 16th landed dry.
    4. For decades, Augusta National’s various bosses were criticized for failing to televise more than a few hours. We remember when Sunday’s coverage started on the 15th fairway and was in black-and-white, and you were lucky to get an hour on Saturday.
    The need for expanded coverage still rings true on weekdays, where leaders with hot morning rounds can finish before or just as television coverage begins, but the lords of Augusta, along with keeping commercials to a minimum – the four-minute average per-hour has been in effect since around 1965 – are ahead of the game when it comes to online coverage. Between covering two feature groups each day, plus channels dedicated to Amen Corner and the 15-16 combination, and other features, Augusta’s live online offerings pale in comparison to the other majors, regular PGA Tour stops, and other sports.
    If there’s one beef to be had there, it’s that the coverage doesn’t start early enough. But the pictures are amazing, and, via Masters.com, there are no commercials – CBSSports.com adds them in.
    5. If you’re wondering how good Spieth is, this good: He led the field in greens in regulation, he was under par the first three days, and he was so calculating, calm and composed for the first 63 holes, showing emotion – as in burying a club in Stadleresque fashion after a shot on the back nine, and flipping his putter in the air after a miss on the 15th – was suddenly considered immature by some.
    Not really. At 20, chasing a major, 3-under on the day through seven holes, wondering where in the closet the green jacket will so, and so forth, emotions sometimes weave their way into the psyche.
    He’s already mature. Wait until he’s seasoned as well.
    6. Quote of the day came from Spieth: “I’ve worked my whole life to lead at Augusta on Sunday.”
    Yes, all 20 years.
    7. When watching the pre-Masters specials on the Big Three and Nick Faldo, we couldn’t help but be struck with the realization that CBS has all this old Masters coverage sitting around, generally unseen except for the occasional highlight or “Jim Nantz Remembers” version. CBS also has the CBS Sports Network, which fills hours with simulcasts of radio talk shows and rodeos.
    Why not arrange with the lords of Augusta an annual marathon of old Masters broadcasts the week before the big doings in Augusta? How cool would it be to watch Arnold Palmer’s four wins at Augusta as they originally played out?
    8. The big week started a week ago Sunday with the Drive, Chip and Putt competition, an all-junior affair that crowned eight champions, four boys and four girls from a quartet of age groups. That can only get bigger. What kid getting into the game could resist trying to get to Augusta National? What parent wouldn’t like to get inside the gates and watch their lad or lassie on the range or putting on the 18th green with a title on the line?
    Kudos to Augusta, the USGA and the PGA of America for dreaming up golf’s answer to the NFL’s Punt, Pass and Kick competition. (And as far as we know, new Augusta member Roger Goodell, the NFL commissioner, had nothing to do with it.)
    9. The local scene had one big development recently. Chris Flick is the new superintendent at Cog Hill Golf & Country Club in Lemont. Flick succeeds Scott Pavalko, who took a similar post at Bob O Link, the private club in Highland Park. Pavalko was among those who recommended Flick. They worked together at Muirfield Village Golf Club, site of the Memorial Tournament. The 30-year-old Clemson grad was most recently at National Trail in Springfield, Ohio, a three-course operation, so he knew what he was in for at Cog Hill, where he started last Monday.
    Pavalko, who succeeded Ken Lapp, goes from a four-course circus of activity to an outpost where there is only one course and not nearly the amount of play in a month that Cog Hill gets on any of its courses in a week.

    – Tim Cronin