Talk of the Tour: Did the Masters Drop the Ball?

Last week I wrote about The Masters – about its sometimes sketchy relationship with golf and golf culture and about the genius of the design of Augusta National Golf Club and its knack for producing drama. Over the course of The 2013 Masters, we saw both Masters “traditions” on full display. Let’s start with the rules fiascos. Yes, fiascos. First, Chinese teenage sensation Tianlang Guan caught the attention of European Tour official John Paramor, who used his bully pulpit not to make an example of Jim Furyk or any of the other excruciatingly slow PGA TOUR pros but the 14-year-old amateur working to make the cut on a windy day. Paramor warned Guan and ultimately assessed him the first slow play penalty in the history of the event. Really?

By Saturday morning, however, a much larger rules situation had shaken the magnolias of Augusta. Like many golf fans in Colorado, I awoke on moving day to news that Woods had been assessed a two-shot penalty after taking an improper drop at the storied 15th hole Friday afternoon. The news did not compute. His second had ended and been signed for. A penalty would mean an incorrect card and DQ. But it’s The Masters. Such things are never so simple. Essentially, the Competition Committee found itself at fault, issued a penalty to Woods and kept the tournament’s main storyline alive by waiving the required DQ. Tiger played, and officials at The Masters quickly put the issue to rest.

But would this Masters go down in history for all the wrong reasons? With a “masterisk”? As usual, the back nine of Sunday saved the day. The broomstick-wielding Aussie Adam Scott buried a clutch birdie putt on the 72nd hole, pumping his fist as all of Australia celebrated. But the crafty 2009 champion Angel Cabrera wasn’t ready to send his hopes Down Under. Not yet. Though he had committed the cardinal sin of making bogey on the 13th, Cabrera fought back. A birdie on 18 would tie, and he responded with a shot for the ages, a majestic approach that settled in two feet from the pin. On the second playoff hole, in the gathering Georgia gloaming, Scott rolled in a birdie putt to seal the deal. No one lost this due. Scott simply found the bottom of the hole first.

And so we leave the storybook setting and the novel interpretations of the game for another year. In all ways, from controversy to incredible drama over the final holes, this Masters delivered. And we’ll be talking about it for years to come.