By Harry King
LITTLE ROCK — Maybe it was the Masters-green cap and visor visible through the clear tote bag, but two people in the Augusta airport asked about the tournament and both wanted to know about Tiger Woods.
A few hours later, former Gov. Mike Huckabee parroted the question while staking out a luggage carousel at the Little Rock airport. In between, before the pilot mercifully killed the lights on a 6 a.m. flight, a sports page from the Augusta newspaper was folded to the headline, “Ho-Hum Feeling.”
Huckabee earned a pass when he prefaced his query with the admission that he is not a golf fan. For others, know that The Masters is more than Woods.
A 48-year-old with a funky swing, an erratic Argentinean, and a 13-time winner on the Hooters Tour collaborated for a grand display of drama on Sunday at Augusta National.
Woods and playing partner-rival Phil Mickelson were only the opening act, warming up fans’ vocal chords for the trio to come.
For hours, the 12:35 p.m. dream pairing was center stage, captivating fans on site and at home. CBS was more than happy to provide the pictures and the network’s announcers promoted the spectacular play to the point of short-changing the top three finishers.
Woods exited quietly — stage left, no right — done in by errant tee shots on the final two holes. It wasn’t until Mickelson shoved two short and important putts that the network zeroed in on Kenny Perry, Angel Cabrera, and Chad Campbell. All the time that Mickelson was putting together his front-nine 30 with Woods close behind, it was clear that Perry, Campbell, or Cabrera would have a chance to win if they could avoid disaster through No. 12.
Both 13 and 15 were easily accessible par fives and the typical Sunday pin on the 16th is a magnet.
Like a college basketball team under attack from 3-point range, the leaders’ assignment was to hunker down, knowing that there were birdies to be had and that the hot shooters would cool.
Once Woods and Mickelson were gone, the script was tight, with unanticipated twists and turns and red herrings that would fool the best sleuth.
Perry persevered through oh-so-close misses on 8, 10, and 11, a three-putt par on No. 13, and deep-throated roars from holes ahead, and slipped one arm into the green jacket with a two-putt birdie on No. 15 and a tap-in on No. 16.
Needing only one more par, he made two bogeys. Sloppy at times, Cabrera snuck into the playoff with two excellent chips — those soft-handed shots that can bite when nerves are frayed.
At that point, the notes gleaned from TV were about as useless as the play-by-play from the first 60 minutes of the Arkansas-Kentucky football game in Lexington in 2003.
In the three-way playoff, all the evidence said Cabrera would be the first man out. His slice off the tee wound up behind a tree and he was fortunate that his second caromed off more wood and into the fairway.
But, golf is fickle, one of those traits that makes it addictive.
From the fairway, Perry’s manufactured swing — pick the club up and drop it on an inside line — failed to repeat for one of the few times all week and Campbell couldn’t find the putting surface from what is normally a green light-distance for a PGA Tour pro. Campbell departed and on the second playoff hole, Perry’s swing was out of kilter again.
Woods, the one player who attracts those who have never pushed a wooden peg into the ground, shared the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor with Mickelson.
Cabrera, Perry, and Campbell were the leading men and they were highly entertaining in the latest rendition of The Masters.
Harry King
The dean of Arkansas sports writers, Harry King updates his column five days per week with the latest on the Razorbacks. A 35-year veteran of The Associated Press, King joined the Arkansas News Bureau in May of 2002. He’s covered the Razorbacks since the Arkansas-Texas game dubbed the Big Shootout in 1969.
