March 25, 1934, 80 years ago: The first Masters Tournament is held at the Augusta National Golf Club in Augusta, Georgia, designed by golf legend Bobby Jones. (Thats Robert Tyre Jones Jr., 1902-1971, not to be confused with Robert Trent Jones, who also designed golf courses without playing them particularly well.) Jones himself, mostly retired from the game by this point, finished 10 strokes behind the winner, Craig Wood (1901-1968). Oddly, considering he was playing a spring and summer sport, Wood was from the capital of winter sports in America: Lake Placid, New York. At the next years Masters, he would be the victim of one of the most famous shots in golf history, the double eagle that would propel Gene Sarazen into a playoff, in which Sarazen would beat Wood. Indeed, Wood would be the first golfer ever to lose all 4 of the current major championships (the Masters, the U.S. Open, the British Open and the PGA Championship) on extra holes. Which, I suppose, makes him the Greg Norman of his day. Since then, the Masters has gone on to become the biggest event in its game, its World Series, its Super Bowl, its Final Four. Every once in a while -- like when Jack Nicklaus won it at age 46, when Tiger Woods won it at age 21, when Phil Mickelson won it to no longer be the best golfer never to win a major, and when Norman would blow it -- it becomes a great story. Otherwise, it is usually a pretentious bore like no other. Still, the decorations of Augusta National make it the games equivalent to baseballs Wrigley Field and horse racings Churchill Downs. This computer simulation shows what the first one may have been like. And the final golfer does bear a resemblance to Craig Wood. https://youtube/watch?v=PdVToNkbcCc
Posted on: Wed, 26 Mar 2014 03:43:50 +0000
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