AUGUSTA, Ga. — Welcome to Augusta National, Masters Sunday. Scottie Scheffler, now driving. Rory McIlroy in a practice bunker, just in case. Two p.m. creeping in. Under the tree, up by the clubhouse and in the shade, it’s almost cool, almost breezy, players and caddies coming through, amid the jackets and the lucky-badged. Out on the course, the fairways and the tees and the greens are baking. This is the first Masters in 15 years where no umbrellas have come out, per weather historian Justin Rose. He’s English. He notes such things.
Here comes Chema — José María Olazábal, two-time winner — in a green club coat and red pants, his prominent Basque nose sun-burned from his Thursday-Friday rounds. Past the tree and into the clubhouse. There’s always a table for him on its second-floor porch, red wine and Spanish flowing from his table. He must miss Seve. Seve Ballesteros represented freedom of a wild and windy sort as well as anyone ever.
For some moment there, early-ish on this Masters Sunday afternoon, all the world, or our little corner of it, was pure flow state. It won’t last but for however long it does, it’s all good.
Rory had it on Friday and Saturday, for some brief and shining moments. He was driving it all over the yardage book and still he was the 36-hole leader by a touchdown. We remind you of his Friday close, dinner on the stove: birdie on 15, birdie on 16, birdie on 17 and birdie on 18. Flow state, peak experience, in the zone, whatever. A dreamstate.
We all get there, now and again. We’re drawn to Rory McIlroy, co-leader with Cameron Young through three rounds, because we can all feel it when he has it, and share his pain when he does not. With Tiger it was different. Tiger was relentless, hole after hole and round after round, and he invented a whole category, the win as an act of humiliation against your opponents. That’s why there was and is so much awe for him, but less love. You might be asking: if McIlroy wins today, is there something diminished about it because he had a six-shot lead and gave it up? Absolutely not. Golf as the human experience, that’s what McIlroy shows, most every time he plays. Cameron Young doesn’t have that. Not his fault, at all. My all accounts, an admirable young man. But his peaks and valleys are not there for all to see.
You’ve had four-hole stretches where you played in even, right? Or fill in your blank, depending on your skillset. A dreamstate, to be sure. These things are out there, lurking, showing up without warning. Maybe you have heard Bruce Springsteen, last month at the Target Center in Minneapolis, singing the Prince anthem, “Purple Rain.” At the 5:20 mark, he’s offering a full-throated something. Who-who wa-who; who-who, wa-who. The band is with him, the backup singers are with him, the whole house is with him. A moment, if you were there, you’d want to last and last, but it can’t.
Or, to keep this Twin Cities theme going, here’s F. Scott Fitzgerald, native son of St. Paul, describing a train ride out of Union State, Chicago: When we pulled out into the winter night and the real snow, our snow, began to stretch out beside us and twinkle against the windows, and the dim lights of small Wisconsin stations moved by, a sharp wild brace came suddenly into the air.
Where do you think those 44 words came from? The same place where McIlroy found those four birdies early Friday evening. He can’t tell you the source. Bruce and his mates, they were in an altered state, five minutes into “Purple Rain.” They can’t tell you where it came from. Fitzgerald, closing Gatsby, had to be the same.
It can happen in the last round of a major golf championship, dreamstate golf. It can happen, where the golfers get out of their own way and the ball is just another moment along the swing. McIlroy has been talking about playing with freedom, now that he has won a Masters, now that he has completed the career Grand Slam. Freedom comes and goes. It comes and goes. In 1977, at the British Open at Turnberry, Jack Nicklaus shot a final-round 66. His playing partner shot a final-round 65 and won by a shot. It was hot and still and their golf was free and easy. Rare.
McIlroy scorched his tee shot on 1 on Sunday. He used the bank over the hole for his second shot and he got to the green and saw he had maybe 15 feet for birdie. An easy two-putt par. What’s next? What will happen next?
Michael Bamberger welcomes your comments at Michael.Bamberger@Golf.com
