n  Bubba Watson is better than we suspected, even after his first Masters win two years ago.  He is also getting better, evolving from a one-dimensional, hot-headed long-bomber into a much more complete player.  He went about finishing off the Masters (and Jordan Spieth) yesterday like a cold-blooded assassin.

n  If there is such a thing as horses for courses, Bubba Watson has found his track in Augusta National.  He could win the Masters two or three more times before he’s finished.

n  No adult male should be named Bubba.

n  Jordan Spieth is also better than we suspected, even if we already suspected he was very, very good, if not the second-coming of Tiger Woods.

n  Which was more impressive, that the 20-year-old Spieth played his way into a share of the lead going into Sunday – in his first Masters, no less --  or the incredible poise and maturity that he showed through out the week, most notably after Sunday’s disappointing finish.

n  That said, you knew Spieth was toast late in the front nine – the first time he slammed his club in the ground after a lousy approach shot.  You know that Bubba saw that, and you know that Bubba knew then that the Masters was his to lose.  To his credit, Spieth did not do a full Sunday meltdown (see Rory McIlroy, 2011).  He held it together to shoot even par. 

n  Jonas Blixt sounds like something you’d call an iPhone app.

n  Not having Phil and Tiger around on the weekend wasn’t as bad as most of us initially feared.

n  That Masters theme song with those tinkling piano keys has seemed so charming for so long.  Why is it starting to get a little cloying?

n  The guy who comes away the most disappointed in himself could very well be Matt Kuchar.  If he is going to start winning majors, his time is now.  But he fizzled again on Sunday, shooting 74.  Afterward, the always jovial Kuchar looked like he’d been hit by a bus.

n  It’s hard to know what to like more about Miguel Angel Jimenez, his warm-up routine or his ponytail.

n  Even more cloying than the tinkling piano keys is this absurd business of referring to Masters "patrons."

n  Why, why, why does Rickie Fowler insist on pulling his hat down over his ears?

n  On Golf Channel last night, they pointed out that since 2003, six of 11 Masters winners have been left-handed (Weir 2003;  Phil 2004, 2006, 2010; Bubba 2112, 2114).  Has Augusta National become a lefty’s layout? they asked. Intriguing question.

n  There is nothing like the Masters to remind you that the big-screen, high-def TV is the greatest invention since, what, penicillin? The internet? The beer helmet?

n  Did you even realize that Stewart Cink (T-14) and Darren Clarke (T-44) had made the cut?

n  Among the 50-somethings, Fred Couples (T-21) gets all the love and TV time but Bernhard Langer (T-8) deserves the respect.

n  It’s time for Joe T. Ford, the former Augusta National chairman who does those "Welcome to the Masters...." lead-ins to step aside.  Sorry to say it, but the drawling Arkansas native embodies the stereotypical image of Augusta National’s members – old, white, rich.

n  In all candor, I never did get excited about that Drive Chip & Putt contest Augusta National hosted last Sunday.  I felt guilty every time they re-ran the highlights.

n  Did you freakin’ believe Bubba’s tee shot at the 13^th on Sunday?

n  During the opening ceremonies Thursday morning, it was impossible not to notice that Arnold Palmer is walking with a pronounced limp these days.  Looks like a bum hip to me.  As a guy with two titanium hips, I can’t help but wonder what kind of pain he might be in, and what kind of choices he might be facing at the age of 84.

n  No. 14 is a better hole than it appears on TV.  I have played Augusta National twice and I know that for a fact.  It may have the most unforgiving green on the course.

n  Craig Stadler looks like the box Kevin Stadler came in.

n  I wish I didn’t believe that Tiger had won his last Masters.

And we’re off...This being April 1, up here in the Northeast, the 2014 golf season is officially underway.

 

It’s a little nippy outside as I write this, but the Weather Channel insists it will be clear and just shy of 60 degrees by late afternoon.  If you can’t sneak away for an afternoon round, maybe you can stop off at a driving range on the way home from work to hit a large bucket.

 

This day – this spring -- has been long in coming.  I’ve lived in Philadelphia  for 32 years and I cannot remember a winter that was so nasty, so relentless and so unforgiving.  Of course, maybe that’s because I’m suddenly tiptoeing around the ice on twin titanium hips.

 

I like to think of myself as a glass-half-full kind of guy, however, so I believe that as miserable as the winter has been, the spring an summer will be our big reward.  They will be glorious, at least they will if there is any justice in the universe.

 

I cannot wait to truly break in the new set of irons I bought at the end of last season, or the new 5-wood I ordered off the internet out of boredom and frustration, or the matching hybrid I added to the bag in late February, just because I liked his brother the 5-wood so much.

 

In my last blog three weeks ago, I mentioned that the forecast looked good enough for the coming weekend and I was going to try to get in the first round of the year.  Three golf buddies and I did, at Scotland Run GC, in South Jersey, where the weather was perfect and the course was brown and dormant but otherwise terrific.  I had played Scotland Run in several years and I’d forgotten what a great layout it is.  A nod of respect to architect Stephen Kay.

 

I even shot a video of the round, which I posted under Latest Videos.  If you missed it, check it out:

 

 

 

 

Masters

 

Nothing gets a golfer’s juices flowing like the Masters.   I miss going.  I miss spending all week in Augusta, walking the golf course for hours, hanging for hours at certain spots (Amen Corner, behind the 6^th green, 15^th green), visiting with friends in the media center and, last but not least, eating lunch with my old colleague Bill Lyon on the balcony of the clubhouse.

 

"I’ll have the club sandwich on toasted white bread, please, and the peach cobbler with vanilla ice cream.  And a glass of iced tea." I could repeat that line in my sleep, and probably do.

 

I haven’t returned to cover the Masters since 2008, after I left the Philadelphia Inquirer.  But as a member of the Golf Writers Association of America, I am entitled to go to the Masters for a day mid-week, on Wednesday, to attend the GWAA annual meeting that morning in the media center.  After that, I’m free to spend the day on the golf course, which truly is one of the greatest pleasures in any golfing life.  That night, there’s the annual GWAA dinner and awards banquet, where the food is so-so but the company can’t be beat.

 

Okay I’ve just talked myself into going next year.

 

 

Masters, Part II

 

This could be the first Masters in more than 15 years in which neither Tiger Woods nor Phil Mickelson is a factor.

 

Phil seems to be stuck in the mud.  So far this year, the three-time Masters champ has finished T-19th, 14^th, W/D, T-42^nd, T-19^th, CUT, T-16^th and W/D.   That last W/D, just last week at the Valero Texas Open, was prompted by a back muscle he strained while hitting a shot.  It did not sound encouraging for the coming season, and surely not for the Masters.

 

Tiger, a four-time Masters winner, is faring no better.  In his limited schedule so far, he has finished T-80^th, W/D, and T-25^th.  Tiger is so battled scarred that he pulled out of Bay Hill, one of his favorite tournaments, before it ever started.  He says it’s unclear whether he’ll be good to go in Augusta, but my expectations are nil.

 

Bottom line is, we could be witnessing one of the most important changing-of-the-guards we’ve seen in a generation.

 

 

Sean O’Hair watch

 

West Chester’s Sean O’Hair continues to struggle through his own bad patch.

 

The 2005 PGA Rookie of the Year had to re-earn his PGA Tour card for this season and, so far, the results are at best mixed.   His missed four cuts in his first five starts, although he did manage a nice T-5^th during that period at the Franklin Templeton Shootout.

 

Since February, O’Hair has been all over the place again.  He finished T-56^th at Pebble Beach, missed the cut at The Honda.  There was one bright spot, at Bay Hill, where he shot 69-67 on the weekend, to finish T-10^th.  But then he missed the cut last week in Texas.

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

Two remarkable things happened to me yesterday.

 

First, I walked around outside in shirtsleeves, which I wasn’t sure was ever going to happen again.  Gawd, I hated this winter.  Second, my golf buddy Tim texted me with news that the forecast for Saturday at the Jersey Shore is 60 degrees and was I interested in making the trip down for the first official round of the year?

 

Uh, yes, I was.

 

(Regular readers of this space might recall that technically, my first rounds of the year were in late January during a weeklong golf trip to the Dominica Republic.  But I would submit that those rounds don’t really count because they were played in a far-away, warm place, which anybody knows is violation of what constitutes an official first round of the year.

 

It clearly states in the Official Unwritten Rules of Golf Handbook that a first round of the year must be played, if not at your regular course or club, at least on a course in the same climate.  In other words, a round in Florida or the Dominican Republic doesn’t count, but a round in Philadelphia, or, say, Chicago, would count.  You can look it up.  It’s in the same chapter of Unwritten Rules that addresses whether shouting M’fugga at the top of your lungs is inappropriate while playing with your grandmother or children under the age of 6, and whether a cute cart girl can reasonably expect a tip if she insists on wearing long pants and a windbreaker after Masters week.)

 

So, weather permitting, and South Jersey being close enough, Tim, Jack, Lou and I will get our first rounds of the year in on Saturday.   The ground might be a little squishy, and I might wear a pullover, but that’s okay.  It will still be an early start to a horrible, horrible winter.

 

                                                                                                *

 

Tiger Troubles

 

Like you, I am wondering what to make of Tiger’s horrid start to the season.   The World Golf Rankings tell us he still has a firm grip on No. 1 in the world and yet, at this point, it’s not entirely clear that I couldn’t take him mano-a-mano, no strokes, loser buys the hotdogs and beer.

 

Seriously, Tiger misses the three-day cut at Torrey Pines, where he has been consistently winning since he was 6 years old.  He shoots 65 on Saturday at the Honda, then WDs on Sunday with a bad back.   Then, this past weekend at the WGC tournament at Doral, just when he had put in himself in striking position on Saturday, Tiger shoots a 78 on Sunday that was so ugly and pathetic that he had become irrelevant by early in the back nine.  So much for my theory that this was going to be the year he won his fifth green jacket and jump-started his pursuit of Jack Nickluas’ record of 18 majors.

 

Of course, as dazed and confused as we are by Tiger’s travails, imagine how he feels.  Once amazing and invincible, he’s now either.  He’s still capable of breaking bad from time to time, on in brief spurts, but not on an ongoing or regular basis.  It’s impossible to know what to expect from him anymore.

 

Somewhere, Nicklaus is breathing a little easier and doing his best to keep the sh- -eating grin off his face.   About 10 years ago, when Tiger was in the midst of stream-rolling golf and, it appeared, Jack’s record, I found myself having lunch with the Golden Bear, just me and Jack, at his club in Florida.  I asked him if he wanted Tiger to break his record.

 

He looked at me for a moment and said, "Well, no..."  He would prefer that Tiger not break his record but, hey, it was out of his hands.  He wasn't going to be a poor sport about it but he also wasn’t going to lie about it.

 

Now, with each passing day, Jack’s record looks safer and safer.

 

                                                                                                *

 

Red and Black and Reed all over

 

In the past day or so, since Patrick Reed won the WGC-Cadillac and declared himself a legit Top 5 player in the world, there has been a bit of a backlash against him for being arrogant little pipsqueak.  I say, give the kid a break.

 

The way he is playing right now, young Reed has a right to feel like he’s a Top 5 player.  And the only way he can become a Top 5 player is by thinking like one.  Trust me, the range at any PGA Tour event is crawling with guys who think they ought to be talked about in the same breath with Tiger, Phil, Snead and Hogan.  There was a time when I thought it was arrogance and self-absorption, until I came to understand that it was way these guys pump themselves up.  They don't have coaches or teammates to give them pep talks.  They have only themselves, their wives and their caddies to convince them they have what it takes. 

Season two of In Play with Jimmy Roberts on Golf Channel kicks off tonight at 10 p.m. with a look at architect Gil Hanse and his struggles to build the golf course for the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.

 

"It’s the opportunity of a lifetime," says Hanse, who based in Malvern. 

 

As segment makes clear, the project is also the headache of a lifetime. 

 

Everything Hanse ever learned about designing and building courses went right out the window in Rio, where he has fought all manner of delays beyond his control, from environmental restrictions to local political in-fighting to disputes over who owns the land. 

 

At one point, the segment shows a handful of workers clearing the land with chain saws and machetes because...well, because you have to use what equipment is available.  Last year, when his invoices were going unpaid for months, Hanse had to threaten shut down the project and go home, if the money didn’t start flowing.

 

Now, all 18 holes have been laid out and shaped, but it’s still a race against the clock to get the course grown in and ready to host a pre-Olympics event, as is required of all Olympics venues, from ski slopes to volleyball courts. 

 

There are also segments on the history of golf in the Olympics, a sit-down interview with NASCAR’s Jimmie Johnson on how golf has helped his racing career, and a look at burn victim Michael LaBrie’s passion for golf.

 

I come before you today a recharged and revitalized man.   Or, as they said about Richard Nixon in 1968, "tan, rested and ready."

 

That’s what a dead-of-winter golf trip to a warm and sunny clime will do for you, and I have recently returned from one:  a weeklong sojourn to the Dominican Republic, where I and three golf pals played seven rounds in seven days.   I did, anyway.  They played more.  After our official pro-am round each morning, they grabbed lunch, then played another nine or 18.  I, on the other hand, called it a day golf-wise after the morning round and retired to the pool for a dip & sip – I’d cool off in the water, then rehydrate with a couple of rum-fueled thirst-quenchers called a Casa de Campo.

 

At night, we would go out to yet another open-air restaurant, where we’d review the day’s competitiion as my teammates ate steak and I gorged myself on seafood until I could barely waddle out the door.  When we weren’t reviewing or plotting strategy for the next day, we’d be checking our iPhones for news and weather back home. 

 

That’s why I didn’t post a word while I was down there.  While it’s freezing in Philadelphia, who wants to hear about the niceties of my golf trip?

 

C’mon, when I read about other people’s golf trips, or when they subject me to their golf-trip yammerings, I mostly want to punch them in the face.  I want to hear about your golf trip like I want to hear about your gastric bypass.

 

But I’m back home now, wondering why I am back home now, bitching about how damn cold it is and how I was throwing it in there tight on the 7^th at Teeth of the Dog, against the ocean mist, only a week or so ago.  I was sweating, for crying out loud.

 

I only mention all this as a reminder of what a fabulous thing a winter golf trip to a hot place is, if you can swing it.

 

                                                                        *

 

Congrats Rosie

 

Congratulations to my colleague Tim Rosaforte, of NBC, Golf Channel and Golf World magazine, for being tapped to receive the 2014 Lifetime Achievement Award in Journalism from the PGA of America.

 

Rosaforte getting a lifetime achievement award at this point in his career is sort of like Phil Mickelson getting inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame – it’s well-deserved and everything but the guy is still in the middle of his career.  He’s got more achieving to do.

 

"Rosie," as his friends call him, is the hardest working guy in golf media.  When I first met him in 1996, he was primarily a writer for Golf World, having earlier covered golf at the Palm Beach Post.  Rosie was beginning to make his earliest forays into TV.  You’d see him around all day, dressed like the rest of us golf scribes, then poof, he’d be in a tie and sport coat, heading over to the Golf Channel booth to do a little commentary.  Rosie has had that Yul Brenner look for as long as I’ve known him.

 

Nicest guy you’d want to meet – just like he comes off on TV.  Friendly, earnest, no-bull.   The players like and respect him, and so do his colleagues in the media.

 

In the years since those early TV appearances, Rosie has morphed into one of the most familiars face on Golf Channel and, now, NBC, both owned by Comcast.

 

 

                                                                        *

 

Gil Hanse

 

For a long-range project I am working on, I have been spending some time recently with Gil Hanse, the Malvern-based golf course architect who is designing the 2016 Olympics course in Rio de Janeiro.

 

When it comes to golf courses, I know what I like but I don’t know diddly squat about designing them or constructing them.  It’s fun to listen to Gil describe the process.

 

He said two things the other day that I had never thought about but they make perfectly good sense:

 

If the property allows for it, Gil prefers to start each course he designs with a three-shot par 5.

 

"It gives the average golfer a chance to miss a shot and still make par or bogey," he said.  "For the good player, if they are not property warmed-up, they walk off the green with a 5, or, god forbid, a 6, and they are kicking themselves. Architecturally, at that point, you’ve got them a little bit.  But conversely, if they make eagle or birdie, they have jump-started their round."

 

What you don’t want is a reachable two-shot par 5, which could result in golfers standing in the fairway, waiting, on the first hole.  Not the way to start a round.

 

 

 

Instead of a blog full of my predictions for the coming year, how about what I’d like to see happen golf-wise in 2014?  Here goes...

 

I wanna see:

 

-- Tiger Woods finally win his 15^th major, preferably the Masters.  I’m tired of waiting; we’re all tired of waiting.  It’s time for Tiger to get back to the business of threatening Jack Nicklaus’ record of 18 major titles (and six green jackets).   Besides, if he wins in Augusta, it could set the stage for an exciting summer of majors.

 

-- Phil Mickelson win the U.S. Open at Pinehurst.  It’s the one major he doesn’t have, and the one he needs to complete the career grand slam.  Phil would become only the sixth player in history to win all four majors, joining Tiger, Nicklaus, Ben Hogan, Gary Player and Gene Sarazen.  After all his near-misses in the Open, Phil winning the Open would be the feel-good story of the year.

 

-- Vijay Singh come out the loser in his lawsuit against the PGA Tour.  Not because I have any great love for the PGA Tour, but because I always thought Vijay was a grump to deal with.  In his suit over deer antler spray, which seeks millions in damages, Vijay has managed to throw a few peers under bus and reveal himself to be the narcissist we always knew him to be.

 

-- Rush Limbaugh quit golf.  As a political moderate, I find Rush and his radio show to be objectionable.  Okay, odious.  I’m also concerned that his well-known addiction to golf hurts the image of the game.  Every time I make the argument that golf should not be stereotyped as an elitist, country club sport, up pops that image in my mind of Rush chomping a giant, phallic cigar. 

 

-- My own game improve sufficiently to get my handicap back to a single digit.   For years, my handicap hovered from 3 to 5, thanks to copious amounts of golf due to my job description.  I took pleasure and pride in playing the hardest courses I could find, and from the back tees.  Then it all went south.  I hit my late 50s, then my early 60s.  I lost distance, confidence and, eventually, hope.  Just when I thought my game had hit rock bottom, I found out I needed a new titanium hip, then six months later, another titanium hip on the other side.  Now, my handicap is 12, and that’s from two tees forward.  I don’t like it.  I don’t want it.  I’m embarrassed by it.  I won’t be so greedy (or delusional) as to think I can get my handicap back down to a 4 or 5, but is 9 asking too much?

 

-- Michelle Wie win her first major.  Against all odds, Wie has turned out to be a first-rate player on the LPGA Tour and a first-rate young woman.  When I was following her around golf courses a decade ago, I had her pegged as a future can’t-miss burn-out case, ruined by fame and pressure.  She has come through it all better than I expected, even earning a degree from Stanford while she played the LPGA Tour.  She is now grounded, well-adjusted and, by all appearances, happier.  I like the Michelle Wie of today a lot more than the Michelle Wie of then.

 

-- Another effort at Philadelphia getting a regular PGA Tour stop.  With the Open at Merion, the world got another demonstration of what a great golf city this is.  Granted, Merion isn’t interested in becoming an annual tour stop, but there are plenty of other worthy clubs that would be.  Unfortunately, I’m not hearing a thing. 

 

-- Sean O’Hair revive his career.  O’Hair, the West Chester resident and 2005 PGA Tour Rookie of the Year, has struggled for the past couple of years, falling so far last season he had to re-qualify for the Tour this year.  O’Hair is too young, and he has too much talent, to continue spinning his wheels forever.

 

-- The Cobbs Creek restoration project come to fruition.   For months now, the city, prodded by the Friends of Cobbs Creek, has been poised to announce that the restoration (paid for by private money) is actually going to happen.  The wheels of progress grind slowly, but they do grind.

 

-- Something, or somebody, infuse new life and new pizazz into the PGA Tour.   This kid Jordan Spieth is fun to watch, even if he more white bread than Wally Cleaver.  But on too many non-major weeks, Tour fields are filled with guys I couldnÔt pick out of a police lineup.  (See: Sony Open in Hawaii).  They are mostly blonde, with taut bodies and tight clothes (I did spot a few schlubs at the Sony), and have perfect swings and perfect teeth. 

 

-- The U.S. pull out a victory in the Ryder Cup.  I’m probably kidding myself here.  As much as I like the idea of Tom Watson as captain of the U.S. squad, the man cannot work miracles.   Forget what it looks like "on paper."  The problem is what it looks like Sunday night "on the leaderbord."  The Europeans are too good, they want it more, and they will be defending the Cup on home turf.

 

-- The sun go down on the golf course more often this year.  To me, the absolute best time to play golf is in the late afternoon, when you’re trying to get in that last hole before dark.   This year, whenever possible, I plan to shut my laptop, grab my sticks and walk a quick nine before dinner, often solo.  You cannot beat the fresh air and exercise – and it does wonders to settle your mind.

My hopes and dreams of a balmy December came to a screeching halt over the past 10 days, as we got hit once, twice, three times with snow.  It’s snowing as I write this.   My 2013 golf season, I’m afraid, is over.

 

That leaves me no alternative but to fill some of my idle time by banging out a series of end-of-the-year blogs about my Year in Golf.  Today, I start with:

 

Favorite Round of 2013:  Let’s face it, this was not a banner year for me in golf.  Thanks to two surgeries (see previous blog post), I only played about two dozen rounds, and three of those were 9-hole outings that I mostly hobbled through.

 

I did team with my longtime friend and regular golf partner Jack McMahon, the well-known defense attorney, in a couple of early-season club tournaments, shortly before the pain in my hip became unbearable.  We didn’t win jack----, owing mostly to the fact that I limped and whimpered and generally stunk up the joint.  I was so bad that Jack was embarrassed for me, which is saying something, if you ever saw Jack play. 

 

In April, I played a very enjoyable round at Glen Mills with Jeff Silverman, a golfer writer pal; Eric Stake, a mutual friend and gentle soul who is a psychiatrist; and Gil Hanse, another pal and international superstar golf course architect.  Here is a video I shot that day of Gil discussing the 2016 Olympics golf course in Brazil that he is designing.

 

But for my favorite round of the year in 2013, I’m going to go with the day I spent playing with my son Travis, my daughter’s boyfriend Quinn, and Quinn’s dad, Mike.  It was a lazy Sunday morning in September.  The weather was ideal, and so was the company.  Travis and I were guests of Quinn’s at Philadelphia Cricket’s Militia Hill course.

 

Travis, who has never taken golf as seriously as I do, was just back from a year-long deployment in Kuwait, with the Pennsylvania National Guard.  It was my first round with Quinn, who enjoys golf, but, like Travis, doesn’t seem lose any sleep over a bad shot or a lousy round.  Other than one dinner together, it was the first chance I’d had to spend any time with Mike, a partner at a big Center City law firm.   Travis and I rode in one cart; Quinn and Mike rode in the other.

 

None of us played all that well, and none of us seemed to care.  Travis was rusty; I was still recovering from hip replacement surgery.  I’m sure Quinn and Mike would have plausible excuses, if I asked them.

 

Of course, the day wasn’t really about golf; it was about spending time together, about getting to know each other better and about appreciating the hands that life has dealt us.  The older I get, the more those become the reasons I enjoy golf so much.

 

I couldn’t tell you what I shot that day.  I had a birdie on a par 5, and a handful of pars, but I also had an "x" or two on my card.  Travis must’ve lost a half-dozen balls, which is not easy to do on the wide-open Militia Hill course.  Did he care?  Not a bit.  He’ll drop one and hit a mulligan in the blink of an eye.  If Travis, hits three or four good shots during a round, he’s happy.  Over in the other cart, Quinn and Mike were having just as much fun.

 

After the round, we headed to the clubhouse for a beer and to watch the tail end of the Eagles loss to the Chargers.  We must’ve talked for an hour or more and I don’t think the round we had just played ever came up.  Mike told us all about how he got drafted out of law school and sent to Vietnam.  Travis regaled us with tales from the front lines in Kuwait, where his shift in a guard tower began at 4 a.m., but he did find time to win a ping pong tournament.  Quinn and I mostly listened.  

 

When it was time to part ways, Mike was off to his home in Chestnut Hill.  Quinn and Travis left together for Center City, where they both live, and I headed home to Ambler.  As I drove, I remember thinking, hey, that was one great day of golf, even if I didn’t play well.

 

Before I could get home, my cell phone rang.  I was my daughter, Kelly.  "Sooo?" she asked.   "How did it go?  Did you have fun?"

 

Yes, Kelly, yes I did.