Charles Barkley has decided that the whole reason Augusta National implemented such major changes recently is to keep Tiger from winning. Because Tiger is black (yes, I know he's actually more asian than black, but this is what Sir C had to say). So Augusta National GC are a bunch of racists.
Full text of story here.
I have to say that this is possibly the dumbest thing Barkley has had to say since the whole "I'm not a role model" debacle. The main thing they did to the course was to make it longer (300-odd yards longer). This will of course punish the shorter hitters on tour as they will have to hit longer irons into Augusta's ultra-fast greens, and longer irons don't make the ball check like shorter irons do....meaning a lot of missed GIR and a lot of chipping (and potentially lost strokes). Let's look at the tour driving distance stats to see who the longer hitters are that might benefit from this...
DRIVING DISTANCE
Rank Name Rounds Stat
1 John Daly 17 316.7
2 Tiger Woods 16 299.3
3 Tim Herron 22 297.5
4 Harrison Frazar 16 295.6
T5 Davis Love III 15 295.4
Oh look. Tiger hits the ball a long damn way. I guess the longer course will actually benefit him. How interesting.
The sad thing (and the point that Sir Stupid completely missed) is that what these changes will really do is prevent past champions from coming back to play every year because they don't want to be embarassed by the scores they'll shoot on the new course(it's Master's policy that past champions may play every year for as long as they wish). So the crowd will likely not get to see Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, etc from now on.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.:|
Fausto
Full text of story here.
I have to say that this is possibly the dumbest thing Barkley has had to say since the whole "I'm not a role model" debacle. The main thing they did to the course was to make it longer (300-odd yards longer). This will of course punish the shorter hitters on tour as they will have to hit longer irons into Augusta's ultra-fast greens, and longer irons don't make the ball check like shorter irons do....meaning a lot of missed GIR and a lot of chipping (and potentially lost strokes). Let's look at the tour driving distance stats to see who the longer hitters are that might benefit from this...
DRIVING DISTANCE
Rank Name Rounds Stat
1 John Daly 17 316.7
2 Tiger Woods 16 299.3
3 Tim Herron 22 297.5
4 Harrison Frazar 16 295.6
T5 Davis Love III 15 295.4
Oh look. Tiger hits the ball a long damn way. I guess the longer course will actually benefit him. How interesting.
The sad thing (and the point that Sir Stupid completely missed) is that what these changes will really do is prevent past champions from coming back to play every year because they don't want to be embarassed by the scores they'll shoot on the new course(it's Master's policy that past champions may play every year for as long as they wish). So the crowd will likely not get to see Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, etc from now on.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.:|
Fausto