By Todd Carton
What are the elements that make watching sports compelling? Competition? Intensity? Unpredictability? Heroics? Catharsis? The final round of the Masters in Augusta gave sports fans all that and more. Notice that I wrote sports fans not golf fans because one needn’t be a golfer or even a golf fan to have been captivated by the dramatic intensity of the tournament’s final hours.
The day began with a somewhat surprising and unlikely leader – Patrick Reed – ranked 24th in the world. This wouldn’t make him exactly an interloper but he was the only player ranked outside the top 20 among the first 11 players on the leaderboard. Six of those players had combined for a dozen major titles. Reed was in the minority who were seeking their first.
Adding to the intrigue, Reed would be paired with Rory McIlroy. The two had squared off in a 2016 Ryder Cup at Hazeltine National that was described as incredible, sensational, unbelievable, ridiculous and an instant classic. Reed defeated McIlroy 1-up in that match. In this match, McIlroy, who started the day three behind Reed who have to fare significantly better if he was going to complete what I call the Power Four. (This consists of winning each of the four major championships over the course of one’s career. I refuse to call it, as most do, the “career grand slam.” To me a grand slam happens when a player wins all four major championships in a single year. Four solo home runs, even over the course of a single game, does not a grand slam make.)
But on this day, the challenge wouldn’t come from McIlroy who, when he missed a short putt for eagle on the second hole, seemed to lose just enough focus to prevent him from making a charge at Reed. On this day, the challenges would come from Jordan Spieth and Ricky Fowler and, as is always the case in golf, from within Reed himself.
Spieth began the day at five under par – nine shots behind Reed. However, he wasted no time announcing his intent to move up the leaderboard with birdies on the first two holes. He went on to notch birdies on the fifth, eighth and ninth holes and was four shots behind when he reached the par three twelfth.
Just two years ago in the final round at Augusta, Spieth had a seven shot lead and looked to be easily on his way to winning his second consecutive green jacket when he put not one but two shots into Rae’s Creek blowing up to a quadruple bogey seven that, coupled with bogeys on the previous two holes turned his seven shot lead into a three shot deficit from which he could not recover.
There may have been demons but there were no such failures Sunday. Spieth put his tee shot on the green and banged hoe a long birdie putt – his sixth of the day to move to within three shots of Reed. Although he birdied the par five 13th to close out Amen Corner at two under par, Spieth missed a 10 foot putt for an eagle that might have shaped his final five holes and the remainder of Reed’s round quite differently.
Still with birdies on 15 and 16, he needed only a par on the eighteenth hole to equal the course record of 63 held by Nick Price and Greg Norman. Unfortunately, an errant tee shot and a slight misread of his eight foot par putt gave him his only bogey of the day. He finished with a 64 and sat at 13 under for the tournament.
Meanwhile, another challenge to Reed was about to rear its head on back nine. After playing the first seven holes one over par, few would have thought that Ricky Fowler, who started the day five shots behind Reed and was playing in the next to last group, was about to bring significant pressure to bear on Reed. His move started quietly with birdies on eight and nine making him one under for the front nine. After pars on 10 and 11, the birdies began coming quickly. Twelve. Thirteen. Fifteen. And Fowler was within two.
And when Reed hit his second shot out of the second cut on the par four 17th, it looked as though he was on the verge of letting the pressure overwhelm him. The shot landed just off the putting surface some 75 feet from the hole. But he first stepped up and hit a shot that grazed the flagstick. Had he made that shot it would have all but secured the tournament win. The flagstick didn’t stop the ball and it came to rest seven feet past the hole.
As Reed sank the testy little putt, Fowler was banging in his fourth birdie on the back nine. He was now within one and any small mistake by Reed had the potential to cost him the coveted green jacket. Reed put his second shot some 20 feet past the hole but safely on the green and needing only to two putt to win the tournament.
Barely touching the ball to start it down the slope on one of Augusta’s notoriously fast greens, Reed watched helplessly as the ball rolled past the cup. One foot. Three feet. Before finally coming to rest just a foot or two from the spot where Spieth had missed his par put some half hour earlier. Could it be that Reed would make the same mistake Spieth had?
He did not. And, although his score of 71 prevented him from becoming the first player in the history of the tournament to shoot all four rounds below 70, all that mattered was that, on a day that had great competition, intensity, unpredictability, heroics and even catharsis – everything that makes sports compelling, Patrick Reed could now call himself Masters Champion.
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