Right now in the States there’s a televised event they call the Mega March Madness.
Right now in the States there’s a televised event they call the Mega March Madness. This is the college basketball play-offs, and the eight nightly games are all played simultaneously. So if you go into a bar anywhere from Hoboken to Hawaii, from Manhattan to Monterey you can take your pick from eight screens to watch with your Bud. Or all at the same time. And it’s looking like next week’s Masters will be golf’s equivalent to the Mega Madness.
Sport has many heralds of spring — but nothing makes you get that endorphin rush quite like the first sighting of the bougainvilleas at Augusta National.
Just when you thought the build-up to the Masters couldn’t get any better, up pops Tiger Woods to claw back Sean O’Hair’s five-shot lead in the Arnold Palmer Invitational at Orlando in a nerve-shredding climax late on Sunday night. It was, astoundingly, Woods’s 66th PGA tournament win and has propelled him straight into short-priced favourite for next week’s Major. It was the same for the last two years though, and at even shorter prices, when Woods lost out to Zach Johnson and Trevor Immelman. The Orlando epic has turned Masters thinking on a sixpence: from ‘Did Tiger make his comeback too soon?’, it’s now ‘Can anyone beat Tiger?’ It looks like Woods is coming to the boil just nicely, and who will bet against a fifth green jacket for the Florida walk-through closet?
Or will you be watching one of the other huge storylines that could unroll this year? Look at Rory McIlroy, Belfast’s finest, and the centre of a perfect storm of media frenzy. Can he? Will he? Just 19, and with a girlfriend still at school, is Rory the man to conquer Augusta as a teen? Well, it’s hilly and long and rough on most youngsters, but then McIlroy’s not most youngsters. In truth, it would be a triumph of sorts if he makes the cut. A top ten finish would be nuclear.
You could pick Padraig Harrington, who’s also running into form (six shots off the lead at Orlando) and going for his third consecutive major at Augusta. There’d be one hell of a party if there’s any Guinness left in Dublin after the heroics of O’Driscoll and Co. And don’t forget Phil Mickelson, a two-time Masters winner who hasn’t been out of the top ten in all but one of the last 10 Masters. Until Woods cruised back to the top of the tree on Sunday, this was seen as Mickelson’s chance to overhaul Woods as world No 1. Hmm.
And there can’t be a golf fan in the world who won’t be wishing, in some outlying part of their mental galaxy, that this will be Norman’s final conquest. The Shark’s had it rougher than anyone at Augusta. He’s finished second three times (though not since ’96) and third three times. Now he’s 54 and giving it one last bash, thanks to that incredible third at the Open last year. And it’s always nice to see Chris Evert too. Am I getting overexcited or is all this just too much high drama, human interest, and tests of character for one sporting event?
Fedoras off for the England football team’s fabulous new retro white shirts, all neatly tucked in too, that made Lamps and the lads look like a prep-school hockey team. Even Wayne Rooney might feel a bit of a twerp if he tries to punch the corner flag in his elegant crisp whites. But well done Fabio: just what you’d expect from an Italian.
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