MASTERS WEEKEND

As I write this, Tiger Woods and Chris DiMarco are duking it out in the final round of play at Augusta National. Tiger, in his trademark Sunday Orange Shirt, has done an impressive job of playing catch-up after the first two rounds. Yep, after being a Non-Factor in the majors last year, the Tiger has come roaring back.

The Masters is a unique event in sports. There is no other professional sport that allows the patrons (Masters spectators are never “fans”) such intimate access to the players themselves. I have had the privilege of attending weekend rounds at the Masters twice in the past; the last time, She Who Must Be Obeyed and I parked ourselves alongside the seventh green and were within two feet of the various golfers as they made their way off the green toward the eighth tee. Amazing.

These guys play a whole different game from me and (presumably) you.

When Tiger steps up to the ball, he’s thinking, “Gee, I need to fade this one just a hair to the right of the pin and have it suck back about five feet. There’s a ridge on the left front of the green, and I want to avoid that. I’ll just ease off this nine-iron...”

Whereas I’m thinking, “Don’t fuck up...don’t fuck up...don’t fuck up...don’t fuck up...don’t fuck up...don’t fuck up...don’t fuck up...don’t fuck up...”

In honor of the guys competing at the Masters, then, here are a couple of Golf-Related Poems for your (snarf) delectation.

On Watching the Golf Channel after Seeing an Ingmar Bergman Film

What makes Jesper Parnevik
Tick?

Golf is Flog Spelled Backwards

I play my pestilential game
Without a single speck of shame.
I hack my way around the course
With absolutely no remorse.
The fairways, I have rarely seen —
I struggle once I’m on the green.
My drives will hook, or maybe slice.
They do not follow my advice.
My shots all seek the woods and water.
They do not travel where they orter.
O, I’d forgo all worldly goods
If I could play like Tiger Woods
For just one game. ’Tis not to be;
I guess I’ll have to play like me.

Update: Tiger wins in an exciting one-hole sudden-death playoff. It’s good to see Mr. Woods back in form - and the way Chris DiMarco dueled with him down the stretch. Nobody else was even close.

Chris will be disappointed tonight, but he has a lot to be proud of. He showed a lot of heart. I predict a shining future for him.

As for Tiger, I still maintain that he is lucky to have been nicknamed “Tiger” instead of “Bear.” Notwithstanding the fact that “Bear” was already taken (by Jack Nicklaus), we all know what people think of when the words “Bear” and “Woods” are close together.