“It was like he designed the hole to be played like that,” Green said. In other words, ideal for skipping shots. in 1946 and ’47 from a short hole with a benign pitch over a small stream into a longer, harder hole, with the tee shot played entirely over a pond. Named “Redbud” for the ornamental tree that flowers in purples, pinks and magenta, the 16th was transformed by the late architect Robert Trent Jones Sr. Green was a little fuzzy on some of the details, but we were able to piece together that their first skips must have been in 1987 (Green made his Masters debut in 1986, but Calcavecchia didn’t join him until ’87, and Green missed out on the fun in ’88).
None of their attempts found the putting surface that first year. “I had to talk Calc into it,” said Green, who remembered setting a two-skip minimum and a $100 bonus for each additional skip. Skipping it across the pond that day was Green’s brainchild. Everything from 100-foot putts with 20 feet of break to dropping a ball next to a hazard stake or against a range basket with $100 makes and $50 for lip-outs. Practice rounds can be mundane on Tour but not so for Green, 57, and pal Mark Calcavecchia, who concocted an array of impossible shots to attempt, with a little money riding on the results. Seve has been given credit for it, but it was clearly me.” When Green answered the phone, he said, “I’m definitely the one who started it. “You need to talk to Ken Green,” he said. When told the names of the usual instigators, Hale Irwin, whose Masters career stretched from 1971 to 1996, could confirm only that if such shenanigans took place during the reign of the late Clifford Roberts, the club’s iron-fisted co-founder, “You’d be out on Washington Road within 30 minutes.”īilly Andrade provided the first clue. The investigation continued at two PGA Tour Champions events in February. Ernie Els, 46, had no idea and suggested asking some of the older players. Some heard that Lee Trevino or Seve Ballesteros may have had something to do with it. More than two dozen current Tour pros who have competed in the Masters – and participated in the skipping – within the past 10 years were just as unknowing. When asked, Steve Ethun, who heads the department, shot a puzzled glance and conceded that no one had ever asked him about it. How did this tradition come to be? Not even the Masters communications staff knows for sure. Skip doing it, and you are greeted with a chorus of boos. Still, attempting to replicate such magic has become a time-honored tradition at Augusta. “It’s not like I made a hole-in-one,” he said. (Martin Kaymer, in 2012, matched the feat.) Singh didn’t even buy drinks afterward. Singh lifted his left hand meekly in recognition of the cheers and carried on as if nothing special had happened. When he gathered himself, he bent over, picked up his ball and galloped to the green.
The ball skipped – once, twice, three times – leaped onto the green and then, as if drawn by a magnet, caught the slope, made a sharp turn left and fell into the cup. The crowd clapped as his ball jumped across the top of the water and onto the green.
More: Jon Rahm makes his second practice-round ace at Augusta National Now it was time for one of those practice-round traditions: skipping a ball across the pond that fronts the green.Īfter hitting their tee shots, O’Hair stepped first to the front of the tee box, at the water’s edge and placed a ball on the downslope in the second cut between the tee and water. It was April 7, 2009, a Tuesday practice round with Sean O’Hair and Vijay Singh as well as his first trip through Amen Corner in front of the patrons. Ken Duke couldn’t wait to get to the 16th hole at Augusta National. In an article published on Apin, Adam Schupak tried to solve mystery of who was the first to skip. It also happened on his 26th birthday and a day after he made an ace, at the par-3 fourth hole. But the skip shot at the 16th hole pond shot has been around at least since the 1970s. Jon Rahm's hole-in-one during a practice round at the Augusta National Golf Club on Tuesday - skipping the ball on purpose across the pond in from of the 16th green - went viral.
0 kommentar(er)
