Wow What A Masters Finish

Angel Cabrera won the 2009 Masters golf tournament in a two hole playoff today. Chad Campbell and Kenny Perry were tied with Cabrera at the end of 72 holes leading to the playoff on holes number 18 and 10. When I step back and look at this year’s edition of the Masters, it represents one of the things that I love about golf.

I think that if you had asked most golf fans last Thursday morning, I don’t think many of them, if any at all, would have said that these three golfers would be in a playoff on Sunday evening. Many of them probably would have picked Tiger and Phil who, by the way, provided some real excitement when they played together in the final round Sunday and both made a run at the leaders.

But when you look at who was there at the finish, it just goes to show that the game of golf can be the great equalizer. Tiger didn’t have his A game and Phil was erratic. So you might say that it wasn’t the game it was just that the worlds’ number 1 and 2 golfers weren’t at their best.

But see, I think that is the game of golf. Golf is the kind of sport that even Tiger isn’t on his A game every time. He is the best player in the game, but not this week. And all of you golf nuts out there who have played the game know what I’m talking about. It may be from hole to hold, round to round, or even week to week. But it’s part of what made Jeff Sluman say one time “I love this game, I hate this game.” We’ve all felt that way before.

But one of the other great things about golf for many of us it may only be one shot per round or one round in several that keeps us coming back. Even though the game can be so frustrating, it keeps drawing us back.

So between the handicap system and the frustrating nature of the game itself, on any give day as they say. And as a golf fan, I love that. I love to see guys like Campbell, Perry, and Cabrera fighting for the green jacket. All of them potential first time winners at Augusta.

The recent poll that we took on our site indicated that golf fans were overwhelmingly in agreement that Tiger gets too much of the coverage from the media. Not that people are against Tiger, but they think that the media is too obsessed with him. But days like today bring attention to the rest of the field beyond the numbers 1 through 5 top ranked golfers. And it’s great to see that. It inspires the rest of us to watch the number 18 golfer in the world hit it into the trees and have to be hitting his third shot from the middle of the fairway on a par four. Then still scramble to make par and end up winning the tournament.

And if you look at the number of first time winners in the majors the last few years, it reinforces this. Now this is just one man’s (or one golf nut’s) opinion on this. But as I started out saying, it’s one of the things that I love about the game of golf. And I personally really enjoyed this year’s Masters in no small part because of the way Sunday’s round played out.

I love this game and golf season is heating up—don’t you just love it!