2015 Masters Discussion Thread

[irishgolfRR]

Headed down to Augusta for the first time next Tuesday, excited would be an understatement! 5th year in lottery with no luck. Wife is letting me escape by myself for 2 days while she stays in Pittsburgh with our 2 little girls, everything happened to fall into place, super cheap flight to Atlanta, rental car and Hotel 25 miles outside of Augusta for $125. I think I've read every online suggestion about what to do and what to see when you are there. Hoping to get inside for Tues afternoon and all day Wed. Going to try to get tickets when I get down there, hoping they are cheaper than Stubhub since it'll actuall be in town. If anyone ends up with an extra ticket, even if last minute, please send me a message! Can't wait for a day or 2 at the Mecca of golf, no cell phone, no email and on my schedule! (Went to Disney with the fam in March, so I'm expecting this to be the exact opposite experience!) Ps I'm picking Dustin Johnson for the win

[Yukari]

It said that Tiger Woods had requested to be the first off the tee on both Thursday and Friday morning so he wouldn't be on television.  My first thought actually was that Tiger would never request such a thing, but maybe his agent did.  I was all ready to ****ing roast Tiger for this if it was true, but of course it wasn't.

Thanks for the clarification.  I have not heard that April fool's joke.

Going back to the topic, I hope Rory is not putting too much pressure on himself by wanting to win it so badly.  He needs to just relax and play his own game.  It seems when he gets tense, his driver tends to duck-hook (ditto for me).

Here's hoping Rory completes his career Grand Slam or Ricky Fowler (not Barnes) winning his first major.  Heck it would be great if those two duel it out on the back nine come Sunday.

[boogielicious]

Headed down to Augusta for the first time next Tuesday, excited would be an understatement! 5th year in lottery with no luck. Wife is letting me escape by myself for 2 days while she stays in Pittsburgh with our 2 little girls, everything happened to fall into place, super cheap flight to Atlanta, rental car and Hotel 25 miles outside of Augusta for $125. I think I've read every online suggestion about what to do and what to see when you are there. Hoping to get inside for Tues afternoon and all day Wed. Going to try to get tickets when I get down there, hoping they are cheaper than Stubhub since it'll actuall be in town. If anyone ends up with an extra ticket, even if last minute, please send me a message! Can't wait for a day or 2 at the Mecca of golf, no cell phone, no email and on my schedule! (Went to Disney with the fam in March, so I'm expecting this to be the exact opposite experience!)

Ps I'm picking Dustin Johnson for the win

Welcome to the forum @irishgolfRR

Any pictures you could post would be much appreciated.

[RFKFREAK]

Headed down to Augusta for the first time next Tuesday, excited would be an understatement! 5th year in lottery with no luck. Wife is letting me escape by myself for 2 days while she stays in Pittsburgh with our 2 little girls, everything happened to fall into place, super cheap flight to Atlanta, rental car and Hotel 25 miles outside of Augusta for $125. I think I've read every online suggestion about what to do and what to see when you are there. Hoping to get inside for Tues afternoon and all day Wed. Going to try to get tickets when I get down there, hoping they are cheaper than Stubhub since it'll actuall be in town. If anyone ends up with an extra ticket, even if last minute, please send me a message! Can't wait for a day or 2 at the Mecca of golf, no cell phone, no email and on my schedule! (Went to Disney with the fam in March, so I'm expecting this to be the exact opposite experience!) Ps I'm picking Dustin Johnson for the win

Good luck!

[mvmac]

http://www.golf.com/tour-and-news/brandel-chamblee-says-tiger-woods-short-game-not-ready-2015-masters

Quote:

No one knows if Tiger Woods will play in next week's Masters. Even if he does, Golf Channel analyst Brandel Chamblee does not believe Woods' "catastrophically bad" short game could hold up for four rounds at Augusta National.

"Given what we’ve seen, it’s unimaginable to me that in this short period of time, he would have been able to come to any sort of manageable level of short game," Chamblee said in a Golf Channel teleconference . "I read where people said it wasn't the yips. Well, you can call it whatever you want, but it's catastrophically bad, what we saw.”

[tiger19]

1st of all Chamblee is so jealous of TW it's amazing. 2nd he said it can't be fixed in 8 weeks. I forgot who it was, it was and old school golfer who said Tiger can fix this problem in 2 hours. Chamblee is such an embarrassment.

[newtogolf]

1st of all Chamblee is so jealous of TW it's amazing. 2nd he said it can't be fixed in 8 weeks. I forgot who it was, it was and old school golfer who said Tiger can fix this problem in 2 hours. Chamblee is such an embarrassment.

I don't believe Chamblee is jealous of Tiger.  I just think he's built himself up in the media as being the guy that isn't afraid to say bad things about Tiger.  The more outrageous his comment the more notoriety it brings him.

[RFKFREAK]

Chamblee is an asshat.

Not Arron Oberholser level asshat, but an asshate none-the-less.

[tdiii]

Chamblee is an asshat.

Not Arron Oberholser level asshat, but an asshate none-the-less.

Possibly, but he's accurate in this instance.

[3putter]

Possibly, but he's accurate in this instance.

Care to elaborate more on why he's accurate? Is it a technique issue that can't be fixed in 2 months, or is it perhaps a mental issue that Chamblee is privy to? I inquire because you seem quite confident of Chamblee's accuracy.

[jbishop15]

Possibly, but he's accurate in this instance.

Not really, no. Tiger's short game problems could easily be fixed in that amount of time.

[Ferguson]

Not really, no. Tiger's short game problems could easily be fixed in that amount of time.

Agreed. Mr. Chamblee loves to hear the treble in his voice. This is not Tiger's first rodeo preparing for a major, or his first effort in terms of tuning up an aspect of his game.

[skydog]

I don't believe Chamblee is jealous of Tiger.  I just think he's built himself up in the media as being the guy that isn't afraid to say bad things about Tiger.  The more outrageous his comment the more notoriety it brings him.

^This.

I will say though that I don't think any of you thinking this can be 'fixed' in 2 months have ever had the yips. Once you've experienced them, you don't get rid of them, it becomes a chronic condition that at best you can learn to manage. It's essentially the herpes or diabetes of golf.

[tdiii]

Not really, no. Tiger's short game problems could easily be fixed in that amount of time.

One would think so.  However, he had these problems at his Tiger Hero World Challenge in early December and hit "thousands" of chips subsequent to that.  The result:  The problem only got worse at Phoenix and Torrey.  So either you are calling Tiger a liar (he didn't really hit all those chips he claimed to hit) or you're just plain wrong.

[ChrisP]

A couple things:

1) He practiced a lot of chip shots prior to Phoenix and Torrey at home and word was he was hitting them great at home. However, on the course, totally different story. That tells me it's all mental. He's thinking too much with the pressure on, which I think is what is really holding him back from saying he's ready for Augusta. I think a part of him is scared, and there's nothing wrong with that. I would be, too. A part of me thinks one of the reasons he pulled out of Farmer's is because he was embarrassed by his chipping and just completely lost all confidence in his short game.

2) I'm not a "Chamblee hater." I welcome his insight because he's not afraid to voice his opinion against Tiger and I always like analysts who don't kiss the superstars ass and tell it how it is (i.e. Notah Begay). Now I don't think Chamblee likes Tiger, but maybe there's a good reason for it? Maybe there's something that went on behind the scenes that we don't know about, and if we knew about it, maybe it'd make Tiger look bad. Who knows. But I have heard Chamblee praise Tiger many a times. However, that goes unnoticed. Only the critical things he says about him gets written up.

3) I think Hank Haney hit the nail on the head a couple months ago when he said one of the reasons Tiger's fallen like he has is because he's lost some of that passion. While he hit shots in his backyard, he wasn't playing practice rounds of golf like he used to back in the day. Haney said Tiger used to get up at the crack of dawn and be obsessed with playing 18-36-54 holes a day. I think Tiger needs to get that edge back in order to complete again at the highest level. Once he does, then I think you'll see Tiger at least competitve again. Maybe not winning 5 tourneys a year, but at least showing up on leaderboards.

[RFKFREAK]

One would think so.  However, he had these problems at his Tiger Hero World Challenge in early December and hit "thousands" of chips subsequent to that.  The result:  The problem only got worse at Phoenix and Torrey.  So either you are calling Tiger a liar (he didn't really hit all those chips he claimed to hit) or you're just plain wrong.

Maybe not easily, but he could have hit thousands of shots, thought he was ready mentally, wasn't mentally where he needed to be at Phoenix and Torrey, and has been concentrating on getting himself both mentally and physically ready for Augusta.

Chamblee loves to cause waves and this is yet another instance of that, IMO, because he has no idea (and very few, if any, do) what's going on with Tiger both physically and mentally

[jbishop15]

One would think so.  However, he had these problems at his Tiger Hero World Challenge in early December and hit "thousands" of chips subsequent to that.  The result:  The problem only got worse at Phoenix and Torrey.  So either you are calling Tiger a liar (he didn't really hit all those chips he claimed to hit) or you're just plain wrong.

Yeah, I'm calling Tiger a liar. That's it.

His chipping motion as we've seen it, IIRC, is basically no pivot and all arms. You can get away with that in low-pressure, complete healthy situations. But when things are tense and you already feel less than 100%, it can get away from you.

[Yukari]

^This.

I will say though that I don't think any of you thinking this can be 'fixed' in 2 months have ever had the yips. Once you've experienced them, you don't get rid of them, it becomes a chronic condition that at best you can learn to manage. It's essentially the herpes or diabetes of golf.

ROFLMAO!

If that's the case, I am glad I never had the yips.