IN CONTRAST to the last two years, it's all happening here at Augusta National, folks. Y'all have no idea what you've been missing back there in cute little ol' Scotland, England.
John Daly is down the street selling T-shirts from a caravan and bragging about losing 40 pounds in weight.
Former tennis great Chris Evert was asked to leave the driving range as hubby Greg Norman practised. Hey, despite what you may have h
eard, this is a non-discriminatory club: they are rude to everyone in equal measure.
Tiger Woods went into a long and loud rant at coach Hank Haney on the same range after missing the 18th green with a "f-----g 8-iron" and dropping a shot to close his second round of 72.
Norman, Ernie Els, Retief Goosen, Fred Couples, Adam Scott, Robert Karlsson and Jose Maria Olazabal – amongst others – went home after missing the cut.
Fuzzy Zoeller and Gary Player played their final Masters, the great South African after making a record number of 52 appearances. The poor man has now spent a year of his long life in Augusta, Georgia.
Mark O'Meara, one month after getting divorced, got engaged.
Anthony Kim made a record 11 birdies and shot 65.
In the space of only three holes, Rory McIlroy first four-putted, then made a triple bogey as he did or did not break one of golf's many esoteric and nonsensical rules in a bunker right of the 18th green. I say that as it only took four and a half hours for the green jackets to give the world No.17 the green light to compete in round three. Nothing happens quickly here in the sleepy South.
Padraig Harrington got confused at address over a putt for birdie on the 15th green, the ball moved and he was penalised a shot. Never mind that his club was nowhere near the ball it shifted, coincidentally when a strong gust of wind blew across the glass-like putting surface.
And, by jove, lone Scot and 1988 champion Sandy Lyle, at the ripe old age of 52, turned back the clock and made five birdies in a row on the back nine of his second round en route to making it through to the weekend. Yee-ha!
Truly, but for the fact that Chad "you know" Campbell and Kenny "I don't do majors and don't call me Fred" Perry ended up leading the thing, the first half of this 73rd Masters tournament could almost have been described as interesting. What is more certain is that, after so much one-dimensional tedium recently, the year's first major has finally been anything but dull.
That happy trend continued into the third round, too. Apparently not content with his rules snaffoo on Friday afternoon, Harrington returned to the newly soaked course on Saturday morning – forgot to mention the tornado warning and hail storm overnight – and promptly made a quadruple bogey nine at the par-5 second hole. Oh well, so much for mind man Bob Rotella's assertion that "Padraig's head is in the right place" and, not insignificantly, any possibility of the Dubliner posting a third successive major victory.
Of course, Harrington is nothing if not a fighter. Only Woods displays the same sort of persistence, no matter how badly things seem to be going. So it was no real surprise to see the Open and US PGA champion record three birdies in his next seven holes. Thereafter, he stalled, however. Two bogeys to start the back nine were followed by a brace of birdies at the 14th and 15th and he finished in 73 to be only one under par.
Not to be completely outdone in the bad-start stakes, Woods began his third round with a rather untimely double bogey six. Oh well, so much for that 15th major victory. But, like Harrington, Woods steadied. By the time he reached the 18th tee, the world No.1 was back to two under par for the day, having started at two under the card.
As for McIlroy, the 19-year old golden boy of European golf played the sort of steady round he had been looking for but hadn't managed less than 24 hours earlier. One bogey and three birdies were the young Ulsterman's only deviations from strict par as he shot 70 for 215, one under the card for the 54 holes played. Not that the waiting press pack was too interested in the third round of McIlroy's first professional major championship. Oh no, 'sandgate' was the only thing on their agenda.
"I played my bunker shot and didn't get the ball out," he explained. "I didn't even think about what I had done until (official] Fred Ridley rang to tell me what happened and what he had seen on tape. That was about 6.30. They asked if I wanted to see the tape before they made a decision. I said no because I was confident I hadn't done anything wrong.
"They rang back later to say it would be in my best interests to come and see the tape. We looked at it and I told them it was my natural instinct to smooth out my footprints. I do that same on every bunker shot. The big thing is testing the condition of the sand. The definition is kicking it. I didn't kick it. It was more of a sweep. I didn't feel I did anything wrong."
And he didn't, of course. But Americans, so used to using rakes and/or caddies when it comes to the unseemly matter of sand smoothing, are unfamiliar with the British/Irish way of things. It's a cultural thing. Yet again, we are two nations separated by a common language.
Speaking of nations, our own representative, Lyle, followed up his remarkable back nine on Friday with a solid display reminiscent of McIlroy's round. There were only two birdies at the 6th and 14th to brag about, but the former Open and Players champion slipped up only thrice, at the 3rd and 5th and 14th. All in all, he was steadiness personified – not normally his forte – en route to a one over par score of 73 that leaves him one under par for the week so far.
One European who did make a significant move towards the leaders was Ian Poulter. Round in 68, he was four under and seven shots behind Perry and Campbell, who were still tied on 11 under par after nine holes of the third round.
