Everything golf

[CBear3]

Duval is pretty good, I enjoy watching him

Agreed. He's very much a golfer first, commentator second I feel. It's the kind of positivity that nicely balances out the set.

[MrKennethTKangaroo]

what is tiger tracker

[willeyeam]

what is tiger tracker

https://twitter.com/GCTigerTracker?lang=en

follows tiger around each tourney and live tweets each shot. golf channel employee

[dodint]

Based on some of what I've read, seems like his second shot on 18 hit a tree limb, which is why it was so short.

...the announcers never mentioned it

They were too busy trying to decide which major Tiger would get 19 at to pass Jack.

[MWB]

It was definitely weird... ball goes that short, from that distance, and they don't even talk about it. I was also surprised by how much the announcers were just accepting that it was over. Obviously they turned out to be correct, but announcers rarely take the outcome for granted.

[dodint]

I kept thinking of Jean van de Velde.

[willeyeam]

I kept thinking of Jean van de Velde.

I thought of that when he stepped up to the tee. Then he pulled out his 3 wood and I remembered he was Tiger Woods

[dodint]

Yeah. That's why I didn't mention it in real time. Tiger isn't Jean. But then Jean had 6 strokes, twice as many as Tiger to work with, so it was at least worth a thought. As soon as Koepka yanked that putt it was done, though.

[shafnutz05]

Another cool NUGGET from yesterday.

Joe LaCava, Woods' caddie, won The Masters 27 years ago with Freddy Couples. Long journey for him too.

[willeyeam]

Another cool NUGGET from yesterday.

Joe LaCava, Woods' caddie, won The Masters 27 years ago with Freddy Couples. Long journey for him too.

Both shot -13. Good for him, I didn't realize he waited for Tiger to heal up over the years instead of taking someone else's bag.

[LITT]

Another cool NUGGET from yesterday.

Joe LaCava, Woods' caddie, won The Masters 27 years ago with Freddy Couples. Long journey for him too.

Both shot -13. Good for him, I didn't realize he waited for Tiger to heal up over the years instead of taking someone else's bag.

loyalty to the check writer

[willeyeam]

Another cool NUGGET from yesterday.

Joe LaCava, Woods' caddie, won The Masters 27 years ago with Freddy Couples. Long journey for him too.

Both shot -13. Good for him, I didn't realize he waited for Tiger to heal up over the years instead of taking someone else's bag.

loyalty to the check writer

Yeah well not sure he knew if he was ever going to get another check

[Dickie Dunn]

Another cool NUGGET from yesterday.

Joe LaCava, Woods' caddie, won The Masters 27 years ago with Freddy Couples. Long journey for him too.

Both shot -13. Good for him, I didn't realize he waited for Tiger to heal up over the years instead of taking someone else's bag.

loyalty to the check writer

Yeah well not sure he knew if he was ever going to get another check

I’m sure OP could speak more accurately about it than I can, but the caddies for the top of the line guys typically get a salary in addition to a percentage of winnings. Tiger might have been paying him to stick around.

[Orlando Penguin]

So you ARE tiger tracker

*cue Maury Povich* OP....you are NOT the Tiger Tracker. I do know who are, though and they are not on-air personalities but they sometimes show up on camera. Hmmmmmm....

I’m sure OP could speak more accurately about it than I can, but the caddies for the top of the line guys typically get a salary in addition to a percentage of winnings. Tiger might have been paying him to stick around.

I'm pretty sure that at one point, Tiger gave Joe the go-ahead to take on someone else if he wanted but Joe is so financially secure that he didn't need to take another bag and he got to spend a ton of time with family. There is a salary involved among a lot of the players who keep a regular guy from week to week.


Other 'inside baseball' stuff from the Masters...

--It was pretty cool to see other players come out to congratulate Tiger as he finished. But it was even cooler to see all of the past Masters champions who stuck around and they had their green jackets on -- Zach, Immelman, Langer, Bubba, Weir. I think it shows the genuine respect that the players have for Tiger and it's an example of how Tiger has changed himself over the last 5 years to endear himself more to today's players.

--They had canceled the Green Jacket ceremony because of the threat of severe weather but it all held off and they brought Tiger out with Reed to do an informal ceremony for photographs and they were standing 5-6 deep around the green and the noise was deafening. Everyone loves a winner and likes being a frontrunner so naturally, everyone was jumping on board the train.

--After Tiger was done with the one-on-one interviews, he was a bit slow to get out of the chair and had an audible groan as he did it. Could certainly tell that all those holes of major-level golf on that course had taken a toll on that back of his. On down the line this year, it'll be interesting to see if Tiger plays the WGC event in Memphis, which is the week after the British Open. Based on what I saw last night, I'd be skeptical.

--Thanks to the early start, we got finished with everything at about 7:00. The last two years, we've wrapped up in the clubhouse between 11 and midnight and have walked out of Augusta National in the pitch black. But yesterday, the storm clouds had moved out and it was bright and sunny as we left the clubhouse. There was NOBODY on the course -- no grounds crew, no sanitation workers, nobody. I stood up near the 1st tee and just looked out all over the grounds and I don't get reflective all that often but I couldn't help but be that way in that position. Could almost hear the ghosts of Hogan, Sarazen, Nelson, and others as I took it all in.

--And inside the spoiler, some pics...

[Dickie Dunn]

Since you mentioned people showing up on camera at golf events:

[shafnutz05]

@Orlando Penguin thank you so much for sharing this stuff! This is awesome. I'm sure it was incredibly serene after the storm came through and the sun was going down. Just awesome

[willeyeam]

Awesome stuff. I like the manual leaderboard in the second pic, like the local tourneys have. Pretty cool.

Weather question.. could they have played the regular tee times? Or did it come down hard at some point?

[Orlando Penguin]

Awesome stuff. I like the manual leaderboard in the second pic, like the local tourneys have. Pretty cool.

Weather question.. could they have played the regular tee times? Or did it come down hard at some point?

In hindsight, they could have. They sounded the alarm just as they brought out Tiger for the informal Green Jacket ceremony. Given what the radar said and what they were forecasting, they made the right call. It rained hard for about 45 minutes and then started to clear up. Since a delay like that would have forced them to give a 30-minute warmup on the range, you're losing 75-90 mins and that probably would have meant play called by darkness with the final group on 14 or 15. But at the time they made the decision on Saturday, all indications were that Augusta was gonna get pummeled at around 3-3:30 and fortunately, the system kept moving more northeasterly and dissipated as it moved closer to Augusta.

Also, I tried to get a shot of the big leaderboard on 18 that was all filled out but I wasn't gonna walk that far away from the clubhouse to try to get the pic and risk a sniper's bullet in the buttocks.

[shafnutz05]

Yup. I'm happy they made the safe call to get play in on Sunday. No one wants to have the Masters go to Monday.

[willeyeam]

Yeah was definitely the right call given the forecast. Just wondering if the big stuff ever came or not. Jealous as always OP

[willeyeam]

Have you gotten to play Augusta on the media day? I don't recall.

[willeyeam]

https://www.instagram.com/p/BwTAvtvl1yj ... gyrscfsp7v

[Orlando Penguin]

Have you gotten to play Augusta on the media day? I don't recall.

Not yet. Only been eligible for it the last 3 years. The amount of nerves in anticipation on Friday afternoon is off the charts...almost like checking the list in the locker room to see if you made the basketball team.

[MWB]

Great stuff OP, thanks.

[willeyeam]

Have you gotten to play Augusta on the media day? I don't recall.

Not yet. Only been eligible for it the last 3 years. The amount of nerves in anticipation on Friday afternoon is off the charts...almost like checking the list in the locker room to see if you made the basketball team.

What are the odds of getting picked? Would be unreal. My dad got to play it in the 90s