Tiger Woods has had every chance to spare himself from the physical and mental pain of playing competitive golf, yet he goes again, facing amateurs in the rain at Augusta National.
— Tiger Woods was the first golfer to arrive at the course on Saturday morning, a half hour before sunrise, and he went alone to a pitch-black driving range. He smiled and he grimaced and he worked. With eight holes left to play of the delayed second round, he stood right on the cut line. He hadn’t missed a cut in the past 22 Masters, one of the last streaks remaining from his now vanished days of domination. When it was over, he stood in the pouring rain and took a few questions.
He laughed at himself. He didn’t seem angry.
Someone asked him what happened on his last hole.
“I hit it right off the heel,” he said and then walked away.
He was 3 over. The cut line was 2 over. He could only wait and watch. He’d done everything he could do: wake up early, get his body worked on until it approached something like working, arrive before all the young millionaires to leave nothing to chance. He needed Justin Thomas or Sungjae Im to bogey at least one hole for the cut line to move to 3.
It’s funny what a sport can reveal. Yesterday, there was a 23-year-old amateur named Sam Bennett who came into the press room, all id and ambition, 4 shots off the lead and talking like he could win the whole thing. He was a delight to behold. He called the Crow’s Nest Butler Cabin, and didn’t recognize the name Ken Venturi, and sounded like he’d never heard of Bobby Jones until a dinner earlier in the week.
