Tiger Woods’ return and fans back in full force has made The Masters feel electric – now time for battle to commence, reports Martin Lipton.*
Another Rainy night in Georgia has left Augusta National in receptive mood.
For the second day running, thunderstorms forced a truncated practice session, the “patrons” ordered off the course, players hustled back to the clubhouse.
But the real electricity is at ground level, not in the heavens. A sense of something special. Potentially unforgettable.
No prizes for guessing why. Whatever happens over the course of the next four days, the first round of the Masters will be about one man – and a comeback story few could have envisaged.
Even if Tiger Woods misses the cut, he is already a winner.
And the galleries that will accompany him along every painful step of the 7,510 yards from 1st tee to 18th green, up and down the hills and valleys, will be united in their desperation to see the greatest player of this millennium confound medics, pundits and rivals alike.
Tiger’s 2019 triumph, when even some of his keenest fans had begun to doubt he could ever recapture those days of glory, remains a beacon.
Yet by so many standards, merely striking his opening drive down the first fairway will be an even greater victory.
Pure adrenaline, that competitive spirit, will be at the core of Woods’ determination.
But there is more of that than usual this time round, a tournament that feels like a celebration of the sport – and the end of the worst of the pandemic that changed the planet.
In 2020, with Woods absent, the Masters was held in November, behind closed doors.
Last April, when he was still in his hospital bed, with the possibility of losing his right foot after the horror car shunt not yet abated, the crowds were heavily restricted as Hideki Matsuyama became the first Japanese winner.
But this week, even with the weather doing its best to put a dampener on proceedings, normality has been even more joyful.
Whoops and hollers, full galleries, the smell of cigars hanging in the air.
As Rory McIlroy put it: “It feels like we’re back to normal life, like a normal Masters again.
“We’re sort of at the light at the end of the tunnel, I guess, is the way I would put it.
“In 2020 it was a very strange Masters, last year with some limited fans was much better.
“But this year the crowds this week already have been amazing.
“Even driving up Berckmans Road to get to the course, what is a 10-minute drive usually, it took us 45 minutes to get here.”