Golf is good: it's an educational, meritocratic, healthy sport. Golf is ugly: it's a humiliating, classist, exclusive game. Golf is the Masters, the first Major of the year, which begins on Thursday and ends on Sunday, a beautiful, mean and difficult tournament.
Playing at the Augusta National means measuring yourself against the strengths and weaknesses of this sport: with beauty, rebellious and at the same time domesticated nature, with privilege and prejudice. Anyone who accesses it is either an extraordinary golfer or a very rich and powerful person. Following the Masters as spectators is already a fortune: live, because a ticket is rare and costs a lot; on TV because it's the only chance to get a glimpse beyond the access gates.
Among other things, the 2014 edition is more than ever characterized by good things and bad things.
For the good Italians there are Francesco Molinari and Matteo Manassero, who survived, like the other hundred players on the field, the tough selection of 18 criteria established to access this appointment of the Grand Slam. It is positive that there are 24 newcomers, more than any other edition since 1935.
Since it is an Open, it is nice to know that among the amateurs in the field there is even a 51-year-old: the North American Michael McCoy, mid-amateur champion, number 180 in the World Amateur Golf Ranking. It is news that reassures you and tells how generous golf can be to those who love it and practice it at any age. No amateur, this “old” has ever made it through the cut, so we're all rooting for McCoy to make it.
Among the good news is the fact that many injured players this season have recovered: from Jason Day, who hasn't played in weeks with a thumb problem; to Huther Mahan, stuck with back pain; to Phil Mickelson, prey to a muscle strain.
It is a good thing that, in addition to the prize money, there is also the world number one position up for grabs and that three players, two Australians and one Swede are competing for it: number two Adam Scott, reigning Masters champion, number three Henrik Stenson and number four Jason Day. It's a positive fact, because it increases the suspense and tension on the shoulders of these champions. However, it should also be known that Tiger is number one for week 678 and if the three contenders do not go well, he will remain in the saddle even if he does not play.
Beautiful are the flowers, the azaleas, the pines, the greenery, the streams and the thousand colors of Augusta, which seems to spread its perfume even from the TV. There is the charm of this place, designed in '34 by Allister MacKenzie and Robert Tire Jones Jr and rearranged by Tom Fazio in 2001, built to become a golf temple, the only one that hosts the same Major every year.
It's good news to know that the weather will be quite good, but that it has rained a lot in recent days, so the greens will be cruel and fast, but not bogey-hungry killers as has happened in some editions.
What is fantastic are Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer and Gary Player teeing off, great old men to whom golf owes much of its worldwide fame and the par three competition that is staged today, where you can see wives, girlfriends and children and speculate, for a little gossip.
On the good side, especially for those who ate it, there is the dinner offered by Scott, as per tradition, which included lobsters directly from Australia and sweets from his mother. And then the green jacket, which is perhaps ugly, as someone wrote, but becomes beautiful in the handover: because whatever happens on Sunday evening Adam Scott, if he doesn't win again himself, will have to put it on the shoulders of another Masters Champion.
Isn't there anything bad then?
Calm. There is the fact that the few tickets that exist cost 900 dollars, even if the price has collapsed due to the absence of Tiger Woods, otherwise they would cost more than a thousand dollars.
All the posts set by the club: for example the fact that to play in Augusta you have to be invited, otherwise you don't enter. And then there are few women members and for a short time.
Finally there are, indeed, there aren't, two great absentees: Tiger Woods, recovering from a back operation, who misses the Masters for the first time in his twenty-year career and the "Ike's tree", the famous pine centennial that interfered with the 17th hole and that President Eisenhower, frustrated by the hostility of the "enemy's" branches, wanted to have it cut. The mythical tree, regal icon of many photos, unfortunately died this winter, won by frost. Comparisons between the two absentees are easy, but hopefully not prophetic, because Woods will do his best to get back in shape as before. The cassandras prophesy that the champion will have to miss the entire 2014 season and that we won't even see him in September, in the Ryder Cup, even though captain Tom Watson already has a Wilde Card ready for him. The most hostile argue that his career ends here, along with the dream of reaching and surpassing Nicklaus' record of 18 majors. However, his admirers are betting on his surprising recovery, on the fact that he will return to the top again, as he did last year by hitting an extraordinary season. The first to say that he will make it is Jack himself: "I'm still convinced that he will break my record".
In the meantime, the Masters stands by, beautiful, haughty, bad. Once upon a time players could only be white and caddies only black. Then the prejudice was overcome, but only Tiger Woods, even more proud and evil than the Masters, completely overwhelmed him. On this occasion, he could add one nice thing to his bad absence from the field: his presence in the stands to applaud his rival-friends, especially those who are ready to kick his shoes. This is the spirit of golf.
Favorites are Scott, Day, Rory McIlory.
TV: Sky Sport 2, starting tonight from 21pm.
