Notebook
RepoRteR’s
By Jim Moriarty
friend,” Garcia said. “But that was the
best we could get at the moment.”
McIlroy started out hitting the ball
sideways right off the bat in the third
round, making a double bogey on the
first hole. He had three 6s and two
5s on the front nine before rebound-
ing with a 35 for a 77. But that was
enough to drop him to one over par
after 54 holes, 10 strokes behind
leader Peter Hanson and with no
realistic chance to win.
“I just couldn’t hit any fairways,”
McIlroy said. “When you
can’t hit fairways around
here, you make life a
lot more difficult for
yourself. I was hanging
in there, made a really
good up-and-down on 4,
a good up-and-down on
6, and I was just sort of
trying to hang in. Mak-
ing double on 7 and then
another 6 on 8 was—
you know, that really
knocked everything out
of me, and it was hard
to get any momentum
going after that.”
Bad experiences at
a venue can leave scar
tissue on the confidence
and lingering doubts about your
ability to play the course. McIlroy,
who finished T- 20, MC and T- 15 in his
three previous Masters, has handled
this course well enough, but he also
has had horrible stretches that lasted
just long enough to sabotage his
chances of winning.
by the
numbeRs
eLeader Peter Hanson and
second-place Phil Mickelson
were second and first in
putts after three rounds
at the Masters. Mickelson
needed just 77 putts through
54 holes, while Hanson took
79 putts. … For the second
straight day Tiger Woods
didn’t make a birdie on a
par 5, only the fourth such
instance in his Masters
career. … Saturday’s scoring
average of 72.94 was the
highest for a third round
since 2007 (77.35). The first
hole again ranked No. 1 in
difficulty ( 4.429) after giving
up zero birdies.
About a decade ago, around 10: 30 on a
Thursday night, Jim Nantz was sitting
in Butler Cabin with a lone producer
and cameraman shooting promos for
the next day’s telecast. With cable and
network combined, Nantz had probably
logged eight or 10 hours on air, or at least
it felt like it. Anyway, he’d been at it so
long, he was screwing up take after take.
Finally, like a player backing off a putt, he
stopped, dropped his chin to his chest,
pinched the bridge of his nose with his
thumb and forefinger, and sat in that
pose for a full minute, an eternity in TV
time. He looked up and said, “OK.” Then
he nailed every take, boom, boom, boom.
So, with the recent announcement
that there’s going to be a sequel to
“Anchorman,” one can’t help but wonder
if, God forbid, anything were ever to happen to Nantz, what would the Masters
look like with Ron Burgundy distributing
the ball?
To begin with, a ripping jazz flute solo
would have to be added to the tinkling
piano of Dave Loggins’ Masters Theme
Song. And, though admittedly it’s dif-
ficult to picture Nick Faldo as Christina
Applegate, there would surely be some
salty exchanges. Such as:
Billy Payne: A lot of you have been
hearing the affiliates complaining about
a lack of diversity on the broadcast team.
Nick Faldo: What the hell’s diversity?
Ron Burgundy: Well, I could be wrong,
but I believe diversity is an old, old
wooden ship that was used during the
Civil War era.
If there is ever again a finish like 2011
with a rugby scrum of players making
birdies down the stretch, Burgundy could
put it in perspective. “I’m proud of you fel-
las. You all kept your head on a swivel, and
that’s what you gotta do when you find
yourself in a vicious cockfight.”
And, of course, instead of “Hello, friends,”
we’d hear, “You stay classy, Augusta.”
