THERE is no Masters winner this year. Covid-19, the samanagun, had wiped out the one momentous major held hitherto every year that is considered the Vatican of golf.
April being the Masters month has sunk into a catharsis no one has ever imagined would happen in this era of Facebook, Instagram and Zoom. OK, include Netflix.
The cancellation culled Tiger Woods’s chance to defend his crown. A pity, indeed, as it would have afforded him an incredible aim to gun for a record-tying sixth Masters since he first won it in 1997.
Jack Nicklaus owns the most number of Masters trophies with six, winning his last in 1986 when he was already 46 years old. Now long retired, Nicklaus won his first Masters in 1963.
But if Woods is still sulking over the lost opportunity, I can’t blame him.
Who knows he might won it on Monday, the supposed final day of this year’s Masters.
As things stand, the Masters getting gouged out this year also wrecked Woods’s wish to nail a 16th major that would have moved him to within two of Nicklaus’s all-time best of 18 majors.
Thus, for the first time since World War II, Augusta National in Georgia fell deathly silent, the roars from a crowd that applaud lustily only once every decade muffled horribly by the pandemic virus that has infected millions already and killed thousands worldwide.
Bobby Jones, the eminent founder of the Masters in 1934, must be turning in his grave.
Do you know that the Masters is the most revered golf event in the world—by the Americans most especially?
I was there in Augusta National covering the 1991 Masters and I saw and heard people profess passionately about their love for the tournament.
I met one Augusta resident who confessed to me he had reserved a ticket to the Masters when he was still in high school.
“I am now a dentist and it is only now that I got my ticket to my first-ever Masters,” he said.
Frankie Miñoza was our bet that year, becoming only the third Filipino to be invited in the Masters after Bantam Ben Arda and Luis “Golem” Silverio (bless their souls).
Although Miñoza missed the cut after scoring 78-75, his stint at the most beautiful golf course in the world was something special if only because he played all 36 holes with only one good eye.
He suffered an eye allergy on the eve of the event caused by a pollen, aggravating the ailment by taking a medicine not prescribed by a physician.
Playing on sheer instinct and an undiminished patriotic courage, he groped, literally, his way into a bunker-riddled and lake-laden layout, flailed unforgivingly as though his life depended solely on every stroke he swung.
“Nothing to be ashamed of,” said the late Rod Feliciano, our head of delegation and then president of the National Golf Association of the Philippines. “He played wounded. His love for country carried him through.”
Aside from covering his Masters exploits, I also had the honor to chaperone Miñoza. We were together in the Manila to San Francisco flight. Just the two of us. In SanFo, we linked up with Rod and Ramon Ballesca on our flight from San Francisco to Atlanta, the Georgia capital, where we boarded a coaster for the two-hour ride to Augusta.
Coming home, it was also only Miñoza and myself on the PAL jet.
At SanFo airport’s duty free, he asked me for advice about his wish to buy his wife a bag and a pair of shoes.
“What’s her favorite color?”
“Brown,” Frankie said.
“So go for brown,” I said.
He chose Gucci over YSL. Adding a scarf. Make that brown, too.
THAT’S IT Let’s continue praying for the virus to disappear. Fear not if we have Jesus leading the way. Heed the master of masters. Never waiver one bit. The shepherd knows best.