I like Bubba’s game-he’s a huge hitter who also has a deft touch-a rather rare combination.
But there seems to be a dearth of star players in the game at the moment-the only guy with two majors younger than Bubba (36) is McIlroy, he of the wildly inconsistent record. Historically that is a pretty meager state of affairs; this weekend’s leaderboard seemed awfully underwhelming to me. Tiger could very well get the 4-5 majors he needs to tie/surpass Jack in these kinds of fields, but he can’t stay consistently healthy and be consistently in contention even when he is.
They flashed a graphic showing how most of the last 20 winners came from the last group, which given the drama which usually surrounds this tournament is another say what kind of number. Augusta seems to play a bit more like the US Open anymore, and less like it used to-less room for error, less margin for daring shots. You survive it more than win it anymore.
I do like how that kid Spieth managed to hang in there once his nerves got the best of him, and look forward to seeing him on other leaderboards.
This is what Tiger Woods has wrought. There are plenty of great young golfers out there, and Speith may be the best of them, but he’s not another Tiger. Hell, there may never be another Tiger, but that’s what people are looking for. Speith is only 20 and he’s already won on Tour and lost another tournament in a playoff. Ricky Fowler is 25 and he’s won twice and has Top 5 finishes in The Masters and the British Open. There’s a 23 year old Frenchman named Victor Dubuisson who is about to break through.
Tiger Woods is such an anomaly that it spoiled the game in a sense. What we saw this weekend is the natural state of the golf world.
The funny thing is that, for more than half a century now, the game has been dominated by two men, Jack & Tiger, with about a 10-15 year gap between them. But yeah, we could easily go another 50 years and never see their equal.
Mostly true, but Tom Watson was pretty dominant for a few years in the 80s. His dominant period didn’t last as long as Jack’s or Tiger’s, but it shouldn’t be forgotten.
No, of course not, and didn’t mean to imply that other people didn’t peak like Jack or Tiger did. The reason they are in the top two way ahead of everyone else is that they sustained that peak for more than a decade.
But we currently don’t have anyone with that kind of peak going right now, much less the kind of sustained excellence that defined the top two guys. That’s historically unusual. Bubba has his two Masters titles now, but only two other top tens in majors in his career, only 6 wins total, and he’s going to turn 37 this year (most golfers see a significant fall off as they move from their mid-30’s into their early 40’s).