Slide show

Scenes from the Masters A visual tour from Augusta National, site of the year's first major. more photos

/

Tom E. Curran • E-mail

Backside implosion (And nobody likes that…)
Steve Flesch was having such a pleasant Sunday. Started the day at 8-under, made the turn in 36 and was still at 8-under when he got to 12. Then he threw it in the water. Not by a little bit, either. He wasn’t even close to getting it across on the 155-yard par-3. From there, Flesch dropped six strokes to par and finished at 2-under.

Overheard
A group of Australian fellas behind me in the 15^th grandstand were railing about the pace of play (glacial) and calling for penalties to be assessed. Finally, they spied a group at the top of the hill. “That’s ‘Kitchen’ up there.” Who could be ‘Kitchen?’ Stewart Cink (pronounced “sink”). It brought a chuckle.

Cink surprise
Bless Stewart for his candor. He said — without being dismissive — “I didn’t look at Trevor (Immelman) and say, ‘Now there’s a guy that’s probably got a chance to win this week but you don’t count anybody out.”

Poulter nice
Ian Poulter, a wacky, likeable kid who went 70-69-75-78 was pretty funny in his post-round interview. It was mentioned to him that, on the sixth hole, he made a six. “I took five.” They posted a six, he was told. “Oh really? That’s not very nice, is it?” Asked if, despite the 78, he still feels good about his game, he answered, “I’ve done not an awful lot wrong and there’s no way I’m going to walk off today thinking I’ve just had a mare.”

Blimpless
Talking with two Augusta members alongside the fifth fairway, it was nice to see that these guys don’t try to pull rank with the tournament. They sit in the grandstands with everyone else, stay outside the ropes with everyone else. And they’re very interested in how first-timers enjoy the tournament. “Here’s something to write about,” said one. “I’ve been to Wimbledon and the Ryder Cup and they’re so commercialized. Here it’s just golf (pronounced “goff”). You got no tents out here, no sponsors, no blimps flying everywhere.” He’s got a point.