Augusta: Beauty in the eye of the beholder

AT every step, the view of Augusta National Golf Club is surely unique, but you would be well advised to remember this: We are not talking Ingrid Bergman here.

Meaning, there is not a universal judgment of utter beauty.

That’s right, sacrilegious as it might sound, you can find professional golfers who are not smitten with Augusta National. Remember Lee Trevino, who was skilful enough to have won Open Championships on iconic links courses and US Opens at rough-infested venues, but rarely was he a contender at the Masters.

“The tournament is the eighth wonder of the world,” he once snarled. “I watch it every year, but it’s not a great golf course. It’s a great venue, it’s got a tremendous amount of history, but as far as a great golf course, it is not.”

Trevino in 20 Masters made 17 cuts, but had just two top 10s, a shockingly empty bucket for his Hall of Fame standards. Now it was always argued that Trevino could have played more effectively at Augusta National had he not let his dislike of the stuffy private-club mentality get to him.

He’s not alone, either.

In today’s game, Sergio Garcia stands out as someone who cares very little for Augusta National. After posting a 76-78 weekend a year ago, the precocious Spaniard expressed his disdain.

“I don’t like (the course), to tell you the truth. I don’t think it is fair,” Garcia said. “Even when it’s dry you still get mud balls in the middle of the fairway. It’s too much of a guessing game.”

It is likely Garcia didn’t embrace such a sentiment in 1999 when he was low amateur or in 2002 when he finished eighth or Thursday when he opened with 69, though he hasn’t taken back his words.

Maybe that’s because it appears reasonable to suggest that the confounding nuances of Augusta National – large, sloping greens, firm and fast fairways that are exceedingly tight, sharp doglegs that create significant angles – make it a curious stage unlike any other. It appears as if players can easily be taken out of their comfort zones here.

Take for instance, Martin Kaymer, presently the world’s best player – at least according to a computer. Hard to dispute the machine, however, given that Kaymer won four times in 2010, including the season’s final major.

But it would be ignorant to suggest that there’s not a blanket of concern tossed over the present Kaymer picture, given the way Thursday’s first round of the 75th Masters unfolded. Supposedly on top of his game and fresh off of a two-week break to prepare mentally and physically, Kaymer was once again overmatched.

Shocking was his 6 over 78.

Even more stunning were his words. “Very difficult,” and “frustrating” and “I don’t know” are not the customary sentiments uttered by world-class golfers, yet as he stood shaking his head, Kaymer sounded hopeless against this Augusta enigma.

“There are some golf courses that suit you and some that just don’t,” Kaymer said.

Kaymer had arrived in the land of pimento cheese and azaleas determined to reverse his misfortunes. In three previous visits he had failed to make it into weekend play, shooting 76-72, 71-76, and 76-73, making just 15 birdies in those six rounds. Thinking he had played an incorrect schedule in past springs, he spent two weeks relaxing and practicing.

When he put that game plan to the test Thursday he turned in 2 over 38, then tacked on an inward 40 for his third-worse score in 40 rounds of major golf championship.

All around him, Kaymer is surrounded by millionaire players who profess an unyielding passion for Augusta National – Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson, Lee Westwood and Paul Casey, Ian Poulter and Justin Rose – but oh, how, Kaymer can’t share their love of the place.

“I think that I don’t really know how to play the golf course,” said Kaymer. “I think that maybe I’ve got to sit down with (fellow German) Bernhard Langer and ask him (for some advice).”

Surely, Langer being a two-time champion would be a better go-to guy than Ernie Els, another who seems to be on the wrong side of a relationship with Augusta National. When Els made a triple-bogey at the par 5 15th Thursday and opened with a 75, it added to his Masters misery.

That can be traced to the final day in 2004 when Els stood on the practice green, fully expecting a playoff with Mickelson. Instead, Mickelson birdied the 72nd hole and Els finished second, his fifth consecutive top 10.

Perhaps the heartache had piled too high inside of him, because Els has been an Augusta afterthought since.

In the last six years he has missed the cut three times and finished no better than T-18 and in those 19 rounds he has broken par just five times. Compounding matters is this: If you develop an aversion toward Augusta, as Trevino and Nick Price did and Kaymer seems to have, or if you seem snake-bitten like Els and Greg Norman before him, then your chance for major glory is greatly eliminated because the Masters is the only one held on the same course every year. That never met with Price’s approval, and it appears as if others would echo those thoughts, including the world’s No. 1.