It’s time for the old guard to put on their green jackets and say how great things used to be. Gary Player and Jack Nicklaus belt a few ceremonials down the fairway to kick things off. Then Jim Nance can begin to carefully chat about the azaleas and the “patrons” — the Augusta-mandated way CBS must refer to the denizens of the gallery at The Masters. It’s all a marvelous combination of tradition and innovation: some things never change (pimento cheese sandwich prices, for example) while some things bound forward heedlessly — like Bubba Watson’s monster drives. Nicklaus knows how to put his thumb in this dam though. Change the ball and you’ll get your golf course back. Because these guys are just overwhelming Bobby Jones’ gem.
“The simplest solution is change the friggin’ golf ball,” Nicklaus said at a press conference. “The golf ball goes so far.”The privileged Augusta can keep changing the course and stay one step (kind of) ahead, Nicklaus says, because it has the big money. But everybody else is screwed. So Nicklaus, always one of the smartest guys in the room, offers a simple Tom Brady-esque solution: just take the air out of the ball, figuratively speaking. (Oh, and make sure you take the air out of everybody’s.)
