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AUGUSTA, Georgia – Someone will don one of Augusta National Golf Club’s green jackets on Sunday as the champion of a Masters tournament that the coronavirus pandemic has delayed by seven months.
Dustin Johnson will enter the final round at 16 under par, giving him a four stroke lead. But there is much tighter competition just below him in the standings. Abraham Ancer, Sungjae Im and Cameron Smith, all 12 under par, are tied for second. Dylan Frittelli is behind them with a shot, just as Justin Thomas drags Frittelli by the same margin.
Augusta National officials expect the tournament to be decided by mid-afternoon, much earlier than usual due to scheduled NFL games that follow the CBS television broadcast.
One thing that hasn’t changed in 2020: the Masters handbag.
Augusta National will distribute $ 11.5 million in prizes to professionals participating in the tournament, the same amount as last year. The winner will earn nearly $ 2.1 million (with a green jacket, lifetime tournament participation, and annual dinner invitation), while the runner-up will receive over $ 1.2 million. Even the 50th-place player in the tournament will receive a payout of $ 28,980.
The Masters wallet is among the largest in golf, although the US Open awarded $ 12.5 million in prizes, including $ 2.25 million to the winner, after the September tournament.
Cameron Champ starts off hot.
Masters rookie Cameron Champ had his first three holes to climb to the top of the standings but returned those shots back by tripling fourth. At the BMW Championship in August, Champ, who is biracial, wore a black and a white golf shoe to protest police brutality against blacks following the shooting of Jacob Blake by police. The New York Times spoke to him last month about racial injustice and his take on the Masters, with its roots in the Old South.
As he prepared for his master’s debut last month, Champ saw no reason to hold Augusta National responsible for a segregationist history similar to that endured by his paternal grandfather, who caddied on courses around Houston who did not allow him to play.
“Growing up, you don’t really learn this stuff until you’re older,” Champ said in an interview last month.
“It’s obviously a super historic tournament and something that obviously still means a lot to me,” he added. “I don’t think it should be avoided. I think it just has to do with the weather. Now we are at different times, things have changed.
As a child in South Korea, Sungjae Im stayed awake all night in early April. It was the only way for him to watch the Masters as they unfolded.
Now it’s South Korea who will remain standing for Im, who started on Sunday four strokes behind Dustin Johnson at this year’s Masters and three points for second.
“I know a lot of people at home stay up late and don’t sleep watching the Masters, watching me play,” Im said through a performer on Saturday. “I want to stay calm again and make sure I finish strong to make them happy.”
History suggests it won’t be easy. No first-time Masters player has won the tournament since 1979, when Fuzzy Zoeller got his green jacket. But Im, who first played Augusta National on Monday, said he was comfortable with the course. Watching the fairway from each teeing area he said he was able to visualize his strategy with ease.
“I can see where to hit him and where not to hit him,” he said. “I think that’s why I feel comfortable playing here.”
His Sunday group includes Johnson and Abraham Ancer, who is also making his masters debut.
Bryson DeChambeau is not totally out of things.
Say whatever you want from Bryson DeChambeau, but the man can get well.
A disastrous second round left DeChambeau, the pre-tournament favorite, exactly at the cup on Saturday morning. He didn’t waver: he scored a 69 on Saturday, his best round of the tournament, and was tied for 29th at three under par.
A comeback to win this year’s green jacket is highly unlikely – the tournament record after 54 holes, set by Jack Burke Jr. in 1956, is eight strokes – but DeChambeau could still end with a much more believable performance than he did. didn’t seem so very recently. could.
DeChambeau started Sunday on the 10th hole with a bogey, but beat the par-5 # 13, where he posted a double bogey in the second round.
The 14th hole is another where DeChambeau has rocked the results this week: birdie, par and bogey. Once he made it to the third hole, watch to see if he got rid of the golf demons that left him with a triple bogey on Friday and almost derailed his tournament in its entirety.
The crux of any DeChambeau success could be whether his dizziness, which he says started on Thursday night, has resolved. He said he had tested negative for the coronavirus.
“Every time I lean over and come back I would like to lose my position a bit,” DeChambeau said on Saturday. “So I don’t know what’s going on. I have to go do some blood work, get checked out and figure out what’s going on this offseason.
Fog delayed Sunday’s departure
Heavy fog blanketed the Augusta region on Sunday morning, causing all departure times to be delayed by 10 minutes. By the time Rory McIlory, Brooks Koepka and Tommy Fleetwood hit their shots at No.1 just a little after 9 a.m., conditions were starting to clear, although the government’s dense fog advisory was not supposed to expire. before 11 a.m.
The fog pushed back the start times by ten minutes with the groupings below.
Eventually, according to forecasters, Augusta will experience a partially sunny day with a height of 80 degrees.
The final round will air on CBS starting at 10 a.m. EST, an earlier-than-usual Sunday start to welcome a 3 p.m. arrival and a presentation of the Green Jacket before the TV show gives way. instead to cover the NFL in the afternoon at 4 p.m.
The big losers of this year? Ticket Scalpers.
To reach the Augusta National Golf Club from downtown on Sunday morning, you passed restaurants, retailers, and even a church with a sign that read “THIS IS THE MASTER’S HOUSE”.
Absent: ticket scalpers. Usually an Augusta staple during Masters week, especially closer to Interstate 20, dealers don’t have tickets to sell as the club has banned customers, as fans are known in tournament parlance , this year.
“The Masters is really, in my opinion, the biggest ticket in the world,” said James DiZoglio, a ticket broker who estimated that about 40% of his business comes from this tournament, the only major golf tournament held. every year in the same club. “It is a once in a lifetime event for a lot of people.”
Club officials are hopeful fans can return next year, but have given no guarantees. And the collapse of the resale market around the Masters is a symptom of bigger problems in the ticketing industry at a time when there are so few live events.
Tiger Woods still feels the weight of the old Masters.
Defending Masters champion Tiger Woods knocked out a former winners dinner on Tuesday night when he swelled with emotion.
“He said he was on his way to the golf course, and he had to stop because he had tears in his eyes and paused for a little while on the road because he had so many memories. were crossing my mind very quickly, ”Gary Player, a three-time winner at Augusta National, recalled Thursday.
Jack Nicklaus, who has won the Masters six times, shared Player’s assessment: “I’ve never seen Tiger this way. But he was good. “
Woods, who is tied for 20th and entering the final round at five-under, will sure have to get his nerves in the air for Sunday, when he either ties Nicklaus’ Masters record or presents one of the green jackets from Augusta National to someone else. He posted a par 72 on Saturday, his highest round of this year’s tournament, and said he hadn’t thought about Sunday’s potential feelings.
“I wanted to be in contention for tomorrow,” said Woods, assigned to play with Shane Lowry, who won the last British Open, and Scottie Scheffler, who is making his Masters debut.
“We’ll see how emotional it will be after tomorrow’s round,” said Woods.
Softer greens reward aggressive play.
Augusta National was inundated with rain last week, saturating and slowing the greens, which are generally lightning fast. As a result, players were able to aim for the pins on the par-3s. In the first three rounds, Dustin Johnson played the shortest four holes in 4 under. His closest opponents have also done well: Sungjae Im (2 cents); Abraham Ancer, (4 years old); Cameron Smith, (3 years old); Dylan Frittelli (peer even) and Justin Thomas (2 cents).
“With the mild conditions you can be really aggressive no matter which club you have in your hands,” Johnson said.
The green jacket ceremony will take place in 2020.
Before long someone will be offered one of the green jackets that Augusta National has offered to members since 1937 and to Masters winners every year since 1949 (and, as we wrote this week, that no anyone – including you! – can sometimes buy on the auction block).
The green jacket ceremony, as usual, will take place at Butler Cabin. But Fred S. Ridley, president of Augusta National, said people watching from home would see more of the room than usual because attendees, including reigning champion Tiger Woods, will be spaced further apart in line. social distancing guidelines.
“We’ll have the same people in the booth with the same basic ceremony, but I think we can do it in a proper way,” Ridley said.
However, a typical part of the Sunday festivities won’t happen: There won’t be a ceremony on the 18th green, primarily, Ridley said, as this event is primarily designed for spectators attending the tournament.
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