Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - April 13, 2020, Winnipeg, Manitoba C M Y K PAGE C3 C 3SPORTS I MONDAY, APRIL 13, 2020 ? WINNIPEGFREEPRESS.COM The galleries are invariably im- mense, so a successful trip involves equal parts accumulated knowledge and pure luck. That day, my walking companions were not only friends Michael Rosenberg and Stephanie Apstein, both of Sports Illustrated, but, thanks to the goodwill of friends with access to a ticket, my father, who came down for the weekend. The company was good. The theatre was tremendous. Before the 12th, the top of the leader board was relatively static: Molinari with a bogey at 7 and a birdie at 8 to remain at 13 under, Woods with a tongue-lashing from his caddie after back-to-back bogeys at 4 and 5, then birdies at 7 and 8. Sort it out, and he came to the 12th even for the day, 11 under, still two back. There is no spectator access behind Augusta's 12th green, so the drama is viewed from a slope and grandstands behind the tee. The hole played that day at 158 yards, so the eyewitness his- tory is from 200 or more yards off. The pin was on the right side of the shallow green. Tempting, but not to be flirted with. Molinari held both the lead and the honor, so he hit first. If the Italian had played confi- dently to that point, he didn't show it either in thought or execution. He had aimed toward the flag. He never had a chance. His ball took two bounces off the embankment, then trickled into Rae's Creek. And here's where Woods took the most significant step toward winning the tournament, toward flipping the feel of the Masters. He took 9-iron from his bag, and didn't think about the pin. He put his ball over the bun- ker, in the center of the green, more than 30 feet away: safe. But more than that: smart. Seconds later, Finau swung. Like Molinari - as well and Koepka and Ian Poulter in the group just ahead - he found the water. And so began the revealing walk: As the top of the Masters leader board was about to get tighter, the players themselves moved farther apart: Woods to the left over the Hogan Bridge, Molinari and Finau to the right to take their penalties and play their third shots into the green. Molinari and Finau made double-bo- geys. Woods made a nervy eight-footer to save par. He was tied for the lead. From there, mayhem. The gallery around Woods's group went from immense to unwieldy, and catching a glimpse of the important swings to come grew dodgy. I lost my father near the 14th green before Woods birdied the par-5 15th to take the out- right lead. I didn't see him again until dinner. Even in a practice round, seeing Woods play the par-3 16th at Augusta National presents a challenge for those who hadn't camped out there since the morning. My companions and I knew this, so we elected to watch Koepka - now just a stroke back of Woods - play 17. We ended up beneath the leader board behind the green. The day before, Molinari had said, "With Tiger, you don't even have to look at the leader board. You hear what's going on, pretty much." First, then, was the roar that fol- lowed Woods's tee shot, the ball that played perfectly off the slope and nearly grazed the cup, settling just outside of tap-in range. The next roar came when he made the birdie putt to get to 14 under, a two-stroke lead. What followed, I'll never forget. The operator of the manual leader board behind 17 pulled back the window in which he would insert the number that would make Woods's birdie official for all those fans who only had heard it from afar. I'll forever believe that man, that day, paused for dramatic effect, and then slammed the board closed, exposing that red 14 for the waiting masses with what amounted to a fist pump of his own. By the time Woods went to the 18th tee, still nursing that two-shot lead, there was no hope of glancing any- thing meaningful from the edges of the galleries. So Rosenberg and I head- ed into the clubhouse, to a bar area where, it turned out, everyone from Justin Thomas to Woods's mother, Kultida, watched on television. The emotion Woods showed on that screen - his full-body clench and arms-in-the-air celebration, then the separate hugs of his son, mother, and daughter - will be played time and again this Masters-less weekend. The 2019 Masters not only enhanced Woods's legacy and created the idea that he might further it still, because his body was able again. More than anything, though, he showed the ability to change how we all felt about an event, to seize it as his and his alone, to make the result feel inexorable even if two hours and six holes remained. That's what Tiger Woods once provided every time he teed it up. That's what he did that Sun- day last spring, when his body finally was able to follow his mind, and we all felt the way we used to. - The Washington Post UNRIVALLED MIND ? FROM C2 A panel of 15 golf writers were asked to vote on the top Mas- ters in history. The 1986 Masters was voted No. 1 by a large margin. The following story moved on April 13, 1986. BOB GREEN A UGUSTA, Ga. - Jack Nicklaus was down, playing poorly, and his pride was hurt. The unwelcome, hurting question kept coming: "When are you going to retire?" But it was a newspaper article which re- ally enraged golf's Golden Bear. "It said I was dead, washed up, through, with no chance whatsoever. I was sizzling. I kept thinking, 'Dead, huh? Washed up, huh?''' He answered with one of the great per- formances in golf's long history, a stunning, thundering rally that brought Nicklaus a record sixth Masters championship. In perhaps the finest hour of a career that is unmatched in golf, he won the 50th Mas- ters by overcoming an international corps of the game's finest players in a dramatic run over the final nine hilly holes at the Augusta National Golf Club, a stretch he played in a record-matching 30. His round of 65 was highlighted by a 12- foot eagle putt on the 15th hole that pulled him within two shots of the lead. "I remem- ber I had that same putt in '75, and I didn't read enough break," he said. He called on more than a quarter-century of experience, of winning and losing at the game he's played with more success than any other man. "This was Sunday at the Masters. There's a lot of pressure. The other guys feel it, too. They can make mistakes. I knew that if I kept my composure down the stretch, as long as I kept on making birdies, as long as I kept myself in there, I'd be OK. I kept that right at the front of my mind," he said. And he was right. Seve Ballesteros made a mistake. Tom Kite failed to take advantage of an opportu- nity. Greg Norman made a mistake that led to a bogey on the 72nd hole and cost him the tournament. "I don't like to win a golf tournament on somebody's mistakes. But I'm tickled pink," Nicklaus said. "Over the last few years, some people have done things, things I have no control over, that kept me from winning golf tournaments. "This time a couple of guys were good to me and allowed me to win." The 46-year-old Nicklaus used the op- portunity to answer the questions about retirement. "I'm not going to quit. Maybe I should. Maybe I should say goodbye. Maybe that'd be the smart thing to do. But I'm not that smart. I'm not the player I was 10 or 15 years ago. But," he added, with a grin, "I can still play a little bit at times." He was at his best on a hot, sunny spring Sunday when he turned back the clock with a 7-under-par 65. "I didn't expect to be in position to win, but I felt this morning if I shot a 66 I would tie, 65 I would win, and that's exactly what happened," Nicklaus said. "I was doing things right. I finally made a bunch of putts. That's what was fun. I haven't had this much fun in six years." What had been a season of success for "no-name" players and misery for the game's luminaries turned abruptly in the Masters. Five of golf's biggest stars - Nor- man, Ballesteros, Bernhard Langer, Kite and Nicklaus - led or shared the lead at one point over the final 18 holes. In the end, it was the biggest name of all on top of the leader board. "Fantastic," he said. "You don't win the Masters at age 46." - The Associated Press Remarkable victory in 1986 named best Masters victory ever by AP Jack's win at age 46 tops list 'Fantastic. You don't win the Masters at age 46' - The Golden Bear, shown draining a birdie putt on 17 during the final round GOLF LOSES COLOURFUL, STYLISH DOUG SANDERS DOUG Sanders brought a flamboyance to golf fashion ahead of his time, a colourful charac- ter known as much for the 20 times he won on the PGA Tour as the majors that got away. Sanders died Sunday morning in Houston, the PGA Tour confirmed through a text from Sanders' ex-wife, Scotty. He was 86. Sanders was still an amateur when he won his first PGA Tour event in 1956 at the Canadian Open in a playoff against Dow Finsterwald, and his best year was in 1961 when he won five times and finished third on the PGA Tour money list. But he is best known for four runner-up finishes in the majors, the most memorable at St. Andrews in the 1970 British Open. He only needed par on the final hole of the Old Course to beat Jack Nicklaus, and Sanders was 3 feet away. He jabbed at the putt and missed it, and Nicklaus beat him the next day in a playoff. Sanders also finished one shot behind Nick- laus in the 1966 British Open at Muirfield. 'MR. MOTOR RACING' DIES AT AGE 90 LONDON - Stirling Moss, a daring, speed- loving Englishman regarded as the greatest Formula One driver never to win the world championship, has died. He was 90. Moss died peacefully at his London home following a long illness, his wife, Susan, said Sunday. "It was one lap too many," she said. "He just closed his eyes." A national treasure affectionately known as "Mr. Motor Racing," the balding Moss had a taste for adventure that saw him push cars to their limits across many racing categories and competitions. He was fearless, fiercely competitive and often reckless. That attitude took a toll on his slight body. His career ended early, at age 31, after a hor- rific crash left him in a coma for a month in April 1962. DULUTH DEFENCEMAN WINS HOBEY BAKER MINNESOTA Duluth defenceman Scott Perun- ovich won the Hobey Baker Memorial Award on Saturday night as college hockey's top player, becoming the Bulldogs' record sixth recipient. Perunovich, a junior from Hibbing, Minn., who recently signed with the St. Louis Blues, edged North Dakota forward Jordan Kawaguchi and Maine goalie Jeremy Sway- man for the award announced on ESPN. Perunovich joined Tom Kurvers (1984), Bill Watson (1985), Chris Marinucci (1994), Junior Lessard (2004) and Jack Connolly (2012) in the Bulldogs' Hobey Baker club. Perunovich was second in the nation with 34 assists and had six goals in 34 games, becom- ing the first defenceman to lead the National Collegiate Hockey Association in scoring. WOMAN WHO NAMED NHL'S FLYERS DIES THE woman who selected "Flyers" as the Philadelphia NHL team's nickname died Saturday night. Phyllis Snider Foreman, the sister of Flyers co-founder Ed Snider, passed away from cancer. She was 92 and died in Washington, exactly four years after her brother's death. In the summer of 1966, on the way home from seeing a Broadway show, Ed Snider and his wife, Myrna, and Phyllis Foreman and her husband, Earl, were among a group that stopped at a Howard Johnson's to get something to eat. "I was thinking of people skating and sliding around the ice," Phyllis Foreman said in Full Spectrum by Jay Greenberg, "and Flyers just popped into my head. Everybody thought it was great." At the time, it was decided that it would be the club's nickname, but that Phyllis couldn't be the winner of a "name the team" contest that was about to launch. The contest ran for 10 days and had more than 11,000 entries, including the Acmes, the Scars and Stripes, the Liberty Bells, and the Quakers. A 9-year-old boy who had submitted "Fliers" -with an i -was declared the win- ner, but the team used Phyllis's spelling. LOOKS LIKE SOROKIN JOINING ISLANDERS ILYA Sorokin, the New York Islanders pre- sumed goalie of the future, may finally be coming to North America to join the organiza- tion. Igor Eronko, who covers the KHL for Sport- Express, reported via Twitter on Sunday that Sorokin has opted not to re-sign with CSKA Moscow and will instead sign a deal with the Islanders after his contract expires on April 30. The Islanders selected Sorokin, who turns 25 on Aug. 4, in the third round in the 2014 draft. He has spent six seasons with CSKA Moscow, leading that squad to the Gagarin Cup in 2019 while being named the league's playoff MVP. - from the wire services BRIEFS C_03_Apr-13-20_FP_01.indd C3 2020-04-12 9:33 PM ;