Masters mystery is over. Or is it?

Through the years, no arena in professional golf has evolved with such thoughtful precision as Augusta National Golf Club.

Given their never-ending commitment to details, members have constantly tweaked on-course logistics while trying to serve two masters — the rich, tournament heritage and the legendary experience for patrons.

Now, perfect does not exist. But it comes closest at Augusta National during Masters week.

Tens of thousands of patrons, even spread out over such an expansive piece of property, can make for tough viewing. But with strategic placement of grandstands at high-interest sports such as the 13th and 15th greens, the 12th tee, behind the 8th green, down at the 4th green, next to No 17 green and even on the hillside below the 6th green and those mounds above No 7 green and No 14 green, tournament officials have produced a theatre where vantage points are rich and plentiful.

Curiously, though, it appears as if only one thing can be seen from any of these spots — a fifth Masters win for Tiger Woods. At least, that’s the only assessment one can derive from reading so many advance stories and listening to so much of the insufferable chatter from a creation called The Golf Channel. It used to be that we waited for play to unfold on Thursdays and Fridays before we analysed it, but in this age of 24/7 television and two million channels, there is a network devoted to golf and that means hours and hours of air time is taken up talking about stuff that hasn’t happened and sometimes it takes five or six people to do this, each of them louder and more opinionated than the other.

Significant proof, methinks, that our civilisation moves backward more swiftly than forward on too many occasions. With so much time to fill, it is inevitable that by this close to the 77th Masters we have exhausted so many storylines and narrowed the topics down to which colour socks will be worn. Truly, it is a miracle if you’re not numb by the time the first round arrives, given how much hype has pounded your senses.

Anyway, Masters week has arrived and when gates opened at 8am yesterday to the public — called, in these parts, “patrons” — the serenity of Augusta National was officially over. For seven days it will be a constant buzz and even if late-week rain and thunder throw a blanket of chaos over the affair, the season’s first major championship has our attention.

There just doesn’t seem to be any mystery as to how it will all unfold — at least if you’ve taken stock in all the pre-tournament hype. It’s as if Augusta National chairman Billy Payne has already pronounced: “You can put the green jacket on Tiger Woods.”

Proclamations run the gamut from “Back” to “Tiger’s Time” to “Clock Ticks For Tiger At Augusta” to “Tiger On Centre Stage,” and the sentiments of the words that sit beneath these headlines have a common theme: Woods at 37 and, after three years in an emotional valley thanks to his personal life meltdown, is again the dominating force we once knew.

Certainly, there’s plenty to substantiate the thinking that Woods is in great form. He’s won three of his four starts in stroke-play events this season and has done so with as consistently an effective putting game as he has had since 2009, the last full season before his shortcomings as a human being were presented to the public in almost daily filings. But lost in the avalanche of adulation and hysteria that seems to be pouring down on Woods in advance of this Masters are some salient thoughts.

One, winning three times before the Masters is supreme stuff for mere mortals, but not Woods. He has done it on three previous occasions and each time he failed to ride that momentum into a green jacket. He was fifth in 2000, T-15 in 2003, and fifth in 2008.

Two, even when he lost his way amid the sex scandal of post-Thanksgiving 2009, Woods did not lose his feel for Augusta National. Oh, there were missed cuts and withdrawals, a round of 79 and a T-78 finish — the sort of stuff one would never have imagined for him — but returning to an intense spotlight after having been a recluse for more than four months in 2010, Woods shot 11-under and finished joint fourth at Augusta. The next year, even though he was not in vintage form, he was 10-under and again tied for fourth. Clearly, the man knows his way up and down these hills and along the vaunted greens.

Third, there is no such thing as a “sure thing” in golf and especially when it is played at Augusta National. For all his greatness, Woods has not won here since 2005 and in the seven Masters since, Phil Mickelson has captured three green jackets and proven himself very much Woods’ equal when it comes to managing this golf course.

Rightfully sitting No. 1 in the world, Woods deserves the label of “favourite” headed into the Masters. But sticklers for tradition that they are, Augusta National members still like their tournament decided on the course, not within the framework of media hype, so despite what you may have read or heard, the 77th Masters is not over.