Old Masters still making their mark, but fishing lures Jack away

Published on Thursday 7 April 2011 22:11

JACK Nicklaus saw the shadows stretching across the first tee Thursday morning at the Masters as he and Arnold Palmer prepared to start the tournament with a ceremonial tee shot.

"I saw all those shadows and I said, 'I don't know if we can hit out of our shadows,"' Nicklaus said.

As usual, they came through.

In a Masters tradition that never gets old, thousands of fans gathered around the tee and lined both sides of the fairway to watch Nicklaus and Palmer hit tee shots to get the 75th Masters under way.

Palmer, the 81-year-old with four green jackets, hit his shot to the base of the hill in the fairway. Then came Nicklaus, the six-time champion who turned 71 in January, pounding a shot at least 30 yards beyond Palmer.

They represent more than just ten green jackets.

Nicklaus said as they warmed up on the practice range that Palmer had noted he first hit shots at Augusta in 1955. Nicklaus arrived in 1959 to play the Masters as an amateur.

"That's 56 and 52 years. That's a long time," Nicklaus said of the 108 appearances between them. "I guess it's still kind of fun to lop it off the first tee and be part of a great event."

The honorary starter has been around since 1963, and there was a time when the starters hit more than just an opening tee shot. One shot was all Nicklaus wanted to hit.

Palmer walked off the tee and headed upstairs in the clubhouse to have breakfast. Nicklaus held court under the oak tree, as he often does, for about five minutes.

There was a time when Nicklaus, golf's greatest champion with 18 majors, did not like the idea of anything related to ceremonial golf. But he realises he stopped being competitive a decade ago, and he waited a few years so that Palmer could have the tee to himself.

"I don't have any objection to it," Nicklaus said. "I'm having a good time with it. People enjoy it. It's Augusta's way of honouring its past champions and people such as Arnold and myself. It's really quite nice they allow us to do this."

As for the rest of the week? Nicklaus is going fishing.

"I'm not going to sit around and watch a golf tournament," he said. "I'll come in and watch in the evening. But it's not like there's going to be business happening this week. Anyone in the game of golf is here. I can go sit in an office and wait for no phone calls, or go fishing. And that's what I'm going to do."

Meanwhile, Augusta National chairman Billy Payne has said officials will take a close look at their entry criteria after this Masters to decide whether a change is required. It comes after 99 players teed off yesterday, the most since 103 players in 1966.

"We say every year in response to that question that we look and we study the qualifications, which we do," Payne said. "But we are really going to look at it this year, because there is a maximum number of competitors for which we can give the experience that we want them to have and do it in a way that's manageable. The 100 pushes that limit quite significantly."The biggest change over the past few years has been taking the field of the 30-man Tour Championship to conclude the FedEx Cup, along with the top 30 on the PGA Tour money list. The Masters also began taking winners of PGA Tour events, as long as they are not opposite-field events or part of the Fall Series.

Kevin Streelman and Kevin Na got into the Masters based on getting to the Tour Championship. All that was required of Streelman was finishing third in a playoff event. What also increased the field were 10 players who won PGA Tour events. It's possible that Tiger Woods not winning and Phil Mickelson winning just once in the last year contributed to that.

"The trends vary every year, and we do look at that and we'll have a thorough evaluation after the tournament this year," said Fred Ridley, chairman of the Masters' competition committee. "And we'll make adjustments if we think it's necessary."