« Baseball Today: Friday, April 6 |
Main
| Jim Donaldson at the Masters: Off to watch Quigley »
April 6, 2007
Jim Donaldson at the Masters: Upset winners
AUGUSTA, Ga. _ If you think somebody like first-round co-leader Brett Wetterich is going to go on to be a surprise winner in the Masters, forget about it.
No-names _ or, more politely, lesser-known names _ do not win this annual invitational at Augusta National.
More than any major tournament, the Masters is won only by the very best players in the game.
You'd have to go back 20 years, to 1987 and Larry Mize, to find a ``longshot'' winner at Augusta. And he did it by knocking in a 140-chip shot to stun Greg Norman and Seve Ballesteros at the second hole (which was the par-4, 11th) in a sudden-death playoff.
Since then, the Masters has been won by the likes of Tiger Woods (four times), Phil Mickelson (twice), Nick Faldo (three times), Ben Crenshaw, Bernhard Langer, Vijay Singh, Fred Couples, and Jose-Maria Olazabal (twice.)
Mark O'Meara, who won in '98, also won the British Open that year, and was a 5-time winner at Pebble Beach. Canadian Mike Weir has won just once (L.A., in '04), since winning the Masters in 2003, but he did win the WGC-American Express Championship in 2000 and the The Tour Championship in 2001.
In contrast, consider that Todd Hamilton hasn't won a tournament since the British Open in 2004, which also was the year of his only other career win _ the Honda Classic.
Shaun Micheel has just one career victory in 7-plus years on Tour _ the PGA Championship in 2003. He also has finished second only once. That also was at the PGA Championship, last year.
After winning the British Open in 2003 for his first professional victory, Ben Curtis didn't win again until last year, when he captured the Booz Allen and the 84 Lumber.
Rich Beem won the PGA Championship in 2002, but hasn't won since.
Geoff Ogilvy won his first major in six years on Tour last year at the U.S. Open., which was won the year before that by Michael Campbell.
Part of the reason that fewer ``unknowns'' win the Masters is that fewer of them have a chance. While most PGA tournaments have fields of 144, there are only 97 players at the Masters this year. That said, there is no shortage of players who would be considered ``upset'' winners.
A bigger factor for the dominance of the tournament by the ``big names'' is that course knowledge is critically important at Augusta National, and the top players not only are better than their peers, but also have played more Masters _ a combination which helps them rise annually to the top of the leaderboard.
Posted by Jim Donaldson 
at 9:45 AM to Golf
| Permalink
Post a comment
Please be civil. Vicious comments, personal attacks and profanity won't be published.
