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On Sunday, the day Morgan Pressel won in the California desert and Adam Scott won in Houston, Tiger Woods played a leisurely nine holes at Augusta National. He had no playing partners, and almost nobody was watching. Steve Williams carried the bag, and Hank Haney, Tiger's swing coach, carried an umbrella he did not need. When Woods came off the 9th green, there was a column of sweat between the shoulder blades of his shirt, and his shoes were speckled with green dust, spring pollen off the dogwoods. It was only Sunday, the Sunday before Masters Sunday, and the course was already hard and dry — just the way the Augusta bosses want it.
Last week in Augusta — maybe Al Gore was noting this too — the days felt more like summer than spring, and the golf-centric Augusta forecast for this week was predicting four dry days for the tournament. There's never been a dry year to truly access the total impact of all the course changes in the Hootie years: growing rough, planting trees, moving tees. The bright-red sign, weather warning, with two gray clouds split by a yellow thunderbolt, has been a regular presence on the scoreboards since 2002. There has been a drenching rain every year. This could be the April when we finally see the course as William (Hootie) Johnson and his architect, Tom Fazio, intended it. On Sunday, the Sunday before Masters Sunday, you could land a cut four-iron in front of the 1st green and watch it trickle off the back. Try making par from there.
Fast and firm — you may remember parched Hoylake at the British Open that Woods won last July — diminishes the importance of the driver and accentuates the role of distance control, lag putting, craftiness. As Tiger leads in those categories too, he should still be your man. But dry is good for Chris DiMarco, Luke Donald, Tom Watson and Mike Weir, among others. Larry Mize lives. The National, of course, will be green. It's Augusta, birthplace of American Green. On your HDTV it'll be especially green. But the players' tees won't show any dirt when they pull them back out. It's close to bone dry underneath the green paint. The main sound on Sunday came from subterranean pumps sucking moisture out of the fairways.
The Sunday before Masters Sunday is a peculiar, pleasant hybrid of a day at Augusta National. There are no roars spreading across the grounds, not even polite applause. Phil Mickelson made a 1 on 16, and who saw it? No reporters, no cameras, no spectators. Until last week Tiger had never played on the Sunday before Masters Sunday, a day when the course is open to members, their guests and tournament contestants and closed to spectators.
A woman in a straw hat was playing a few holes ahead of Tiger. On Sunday, 50 or so Masters competitors played. Some — Woods, Ernie Els and Charles Howell among them — played as singletons. Others, including Davis Love III and Gary Player, played with amateur friends. Some played with countrymen (Jose Maria Olazabal and Miguel Angel Jimenez; Brett Wetterich and Chad Campbell). Nobody was grinding. Love, as is his practice-round custom, chit-chatted his way around with his friend Peter Broome, a Titleist executive. The changes at 11 (wider fairway, fewer trees)? Unnoticed by Love's group. Well, maybe one guy was grinding. Tiger played two shots from the fairway bunker on one.
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