GARY BAINES: A Matter Of Perspective
Colorado Flavor was Largely
Absent from 2008 Masters
No “locals” make the cut for just the second time in the last 22 years
Far more often than not, the Masters makes for great sports drama, as the tournament’s consistently high TV ratings will attest.
But for many Colorado golf fans, there was something missing this year at Augusta National. For one of the very few times in the last two-plus decades, there was precious little of what journalists like to call a “local angle” for the tournament.
The only player with significant Colorado ties competing at Augusta this year was Evergreen resident Craig Stadler, who was in the field by virtue of his win at the 1982 Masters. The 54-year-old missed the cut by two strokes.
That left a weekend at Augusta with very little Colorado flavor, which is a rarity for the first major championship in men’s golf. Indeed, from 1987 through 2008, there’s been only one other instance in which no players with major Colorado ties survived the 36-hole cut at the Masters. That was in 2004, when Phil Mickelson won the first major of his career.
Going back even further, in the last 35 Masters there have been only five in which no “locals” have qualified for the final two rounds at Augusta. (By “local” we mean a player who has, at some point, lived in Colorado for at least five years prior to a given tournament.) Besides this year and 2004, it happened in 1980, ‘82 and ‘86. As noted, Stadler won in 1982, but that was more than a decade before he moved to Colorado.
The norm has been that one or more players such as Hale Irwin, Steve Jones, Stadler (since he became a Coloradan), Brandt Jobe, Jonathan Kaye and others have gotten a taste of the weekend action at Augusta.
Generally speaking, though, local players have rarely been in contention to actually win the Masters on Sunday. Irwin, the former Boulder High School and University of Colorado athlete, threatened the most, finishing in the top 10 seven times, including a stretch where he ended up fourth, fourth, fifth and fifth in consecutive years in the mid-1970s. His closest call was in 1974, but even then he finished three shots behind champion Gary Player.
Of all the majors, the U.S. Open has been by far the kindest to locals. Only four players in history have won more U.S. Opens than Irwin’s three — Jack Nicklaus, Ben Hogan, Bobby Jones and Willie Anderson, each with four titles. And Irwin remains the oldest U.S. Open champion, at 45 years and change when he prevailed in 1990.
Jones, the former Yuma resident and CU standout, claimed his U.S. Open title in 1996. In addition, Orville Moody, who once was stationed at the Fitzsimons military base in Aurora during his Army days, won one PGA Tour event, but it happened to be the 1969 U.S. Open.
As for the other majors, none of the prominent players with strong Colorado ties has ever cracked the top four in the PGA Championship (Irwin was fifth in 1975), though Dow Finsterwald won it in 1958 before becoming a Coloradan. Irwin, however, came very close to winning the 1983 British Open, finishing a shot behind Tom Watson. During the third round of that tournament, Irwin went up to tap in a putt that was only a few inches from the hole. He whiffed it with a backhanded attempt, a stroke that proved the difference between second place and a playoff.
Sixteen years later, in an interview with Golf Digest, Irwin called it the “phantom putt” and said he had been “careless.”
There is one current Coloradan who did win the British Open — and finished second twice at the Masters — but David Duval did it all while living in Florida. He didn’t move to the Denver area until he was more than two years removed from his last PGA Tour win, the 2001 British Open.
Monday, April 14, 2008
