The Masters Special Edition

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It’s here, folks. The Biggest Night In Golf™, except instead of a night it lasts half a week and all of it happens during the day.

But regardless, it’s the The Masters, and all the stars are out at Augusta National! JT! Rory! Rahm! Not Phil! An injured Bryson DeChambeau, who also brought the Dude Perfect guys for some reason! The famously cheap snacks! The slightly-less-famous extremely intense security measures! Oh yeah, and Tiger Woods, who’s playing his first official tournament since his near-fatal car crash 14 months ago. 

Woods, 46, believes he has a shot at winning his sixth Masters title despite his ongoing recovery process and the fact that he showed signs of a limp during a practice round. Heck, it wasn’t even confirmed that he was actually playing in this year’s tournament until a few days ago. So that’s one side of it.

Here’s the other side of it: He’s Tiger Woods and is literally the greatest golfer of all time. He has played and won a ridiculous number of times at Augusta, including as recently as three years ago. He knows that course better than I will ever know anything, and I would assume if you’re some random — or even not-so-random — PGA player who’s like neck and neck with Tiger in the lead for any tournament, let alone The Masters, you are probably going to start freaking out because you are playing against a guy who was likely your childhood hero. Which is to say: He’s got a lot going for him. And you know what? The guy shot an extremely scrappy one-under yesterday — which, given that it wasn’t too long ago that we weren’t sure he was ever going to play competitive golf again, is, frankly, astonishing and inspiring. 

Please enjoy this newsletter, which we are happy to give you for exactly one dollar less than a pimento cheese sandwich at Augusta, which is to say for free.

LinksDAO at The Masters

Two LinksDAO founders, Jim Daily and Adam Besvinick, were feet on the ground at The Masters this week. 

So we asked them: What was a key takeaway this week from your time at The Masters?

The Masters 2022

We are off and running at Augusta National. As I write this, South Korean Sung-jae Im (-5) sits atop the leaderboard followed by Dustin Johnson (-4) and Australian Cam Smith (-4). Newly crowned world number one Scottie Scheffler trails at (-3) alongside Chilean Joaquín Niemann (-3).

Oh did you think I'd forget to mention Tiger? He sits T10 at -1 after a strong day 1. Looked more like a -3 if you ask me, but more on that later. The best tournament in sports has a multitude of storylines to track, some a bit more far-fetched than others, and some that look like they might be coming to a halt before the weekend. Let’s take a look:

Collin Morikawa: The 25-year-old two-time major winner has played twice at Augusta, making the cut both times, finishing inside the top-25 once. He looks to become the 17th golfer in history to compile 3 legs of a Career Grand Slam. He’ll need his putter to show up if he plans on putting on the Green jacket Sunday. He’s even par after day 1.

Louis Oosthuizen: King Louis dazzled last year with his performances in the last three majors, finishing T2 at the PGA, 2nd at the US Open, and T3 at The Open Championship. Alas, he’s off to a rocky start this year at +4. He’ll need a big day today to continue his unconscious Major run. 

Jordan Spieth: The best golfer in Masters history (well, the lowest scoring average of anyone to play at least 25 rounds in the Masters at 70.46. Yes, that’s even better than Tiger.) Despite all of his success here, Jordan holds only one green jacket - a 2015 masterclass where he went wire-to-wire. He showed out last week at the Texas Open with some of his best driving and iron play. One to watch this week if he can replicate it. 

History of The Masters

We all know and love the current format of The Masters, but it hasn’t always had Tiger in his Sunday red or Jim Nantz hitting us with his “Hello Friends” ASMR. The true history of Augusta National won’t be able to fit in my allocated word count, but here’s some fun facts to help you appreciate how far we’ve come:

• Horton Smith took home the first prize money at Augusta National—a whopping $1500 in 1934.

• The first edition of the masters had the current front nine and back nine flipped. It’s the only edition not played in the order that we all know and love to this day.

• During World War II, Augusta National assisted the war effort by raising cattle and turkey on the grounds. (Unfortunately no tournaments were played at this time—imagine having to hit a ball in the middle of a herd of cattle)

• The first iconic green jacket was awarded in 1949 to Sam Snead.

• Tiger Woods holds the record for the largest margin of victory at 12 strokes in his 1997 championship.

Happy Masters week to you all!

He's Back.

“As of right now, I feel like I am going to play.” 

Those words are all that Tiger Woods needed to utter to send the golf world into a frenzy.

As if his inspiring comeback performance in 2019 wasn’t enough, Woods is going to tee it up at Augusta National this Thursday for the 86th playing of The Masters. This news is nothing short of a miracle, being only 14 months removed from a high speed car accident that nearly ended his golf career, and almost his life.

“I never left that hospital bed. Didn’t even see my living room for three months,” Woods told media members at his Golf Channel press conference on Tuesday. “To say that I was going to be here playing and talking to you guys again? I would have said that was pretty unlikely.”

But should we really be surprised? I mean, this is Tiger Woods that we are talking about, the man with all the magic, and an obsession with winning golf tournaments. Time and time again, the “Big Cat” has shown us that impossible simply doesn’t apply to him. His incredibly fast recovery is just another example of that.

Tiger went on to let us know that his golf swing is in good form, and that he's there because he feels like he can win. And despite being a 50-1 longshot in Vegas, it is hard to bet against a guy that has faced, and at times subjected himself to so much adversity.

The five-time Masters champion is also no stranger to playing and generally succeeding while dealing with injury.  Remember his 2008 U.S. Open at Torrey Pines, where he defeated Rocco Mediate after an 19-hole Monday playoff?  Then you might also remember that he played the entirety of the tournament with two stress fractures in his leg and a torn ACL, which he kept a secret until after his victory.  Viewers at home didn’t have a clue. 

Along with fighting lower-back pain for a large portion of his professional career, one can only hope that Tiger would be well equipped to manage his body over the 72-hole tournament.

The historical significance of a Masters win from Tiger Woods cannot be overstated. If the competition junkie needed any extra motivation to play his best golf, this should put him over the top.  A Tiger triumph would put Woods in a tie with Jack Nicklaus for the most wins(6) of any player in the 88-year-old event.  It would also put him one closer to Tiger’s white whale, the all-time major victories record(18), also held by Nicklaus, a record that many believed Tiger would inevitably eclipse at some point in his career.  Realistically, it’s going to be tough, but then again, there isn’t much that is realistic about Tiger Woods.

He is off to a modest start, posting 71 on Thursday. (Modest because it's Tiger Woods, but of course still objectively unbelievable). But even if Tiger doesn’t win, or make it to the weekend for that matter, he has already won the greatest battle. He is back to playing meaningful, competitive golf, against all odds, and the world couldn’t be more ready to watch.

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