For one week in April the focus of the sporting world will once again be on the year’s first Major. Bill Elliott predicts how it may all unfold…
When the 88th edition of The Masters whirrs into (superficially) laid-back action in early April, we may be witnessing the old Georgia jousting field establishing a new and unwanted tradition.
The Augusta National members love a tradition. Over the years they have come up with a few that have stuck. The club’s Green Jacket, which must be worn by members when on site, is one. The giddy Wednesday Par-3 Contest is another. Not allowing anyone to run is slightly weird but they like it, while the ban on phones, electronic devices and, wait for it, backpacks or even handbags larger than an average-sized ladies’ purse is meekly accepted by a public desperate to see and be seen at the Augusta spring ritual.
However, this year anyway, topping all these contrivances – a couple of which I rather like – is the Tuesday night Champions Dinner that is hosted by the defending champion, who picks a birthplace menu because, guess what, that’s the tradition. Phil Mickelson rather touchingly sideswiped it in 2011, ordering Spanish food to honour Seve Ballesteros, but Seve was too ill to attend and died a few weeks later.
This time it’s another Spaniard who gets to place Jamon Iberico (my favourite) and other Iberian delicacies before a room full of alpha males in Green Jackets, and Jon Rahm must be a tad nervous about his big evening at the head of the table. As the latest significant player to turn away from the PGA Tour and join the travelling circus he has been the focus of some real criticism. The media sniffling doesn’t matter much but when centre-stage players like Jordan Spieth and others throw in their heavyweight comments against a move by Rahm that has threatened a wider peace in the pro game, then the gloves are off.
Not that I’m expecting a scrap on the verandah that Tuesday and, in any case, there will be half a dozen other LIV golfers there who are past Masters Champions. But, still, I’d like to be sitting in a corner listening to what is said. Certainly it should be more interesting than the usual banal banter that I’m told often surrounds these special evenings.
But here’s the thing... it is this dinner that previously held little or no importance to the outside world that illuminates the latest possible Masters tradition, which, simply, is that now they may boast that if you want to see the best golfers in the world compete against one another, then the first place you may witness this each year is when they gather together in this Georgia heartland to tilt at the fluffiest, most widely celebrated windmill that golf offers. Let’s hope this doesn’t happen for all the ri
