AUGUSTA, Ga. >>
The choice made a few months ago was not an easy one. Tiger Woods or Jackson Browne. Jackson Browne or Tiger Woods.
Upon learning late last year that Browne would be playing at the Waikiki Shell, my family was immediately interested in attending the show. The famed singer/songwriter doesn’t come our way that often, and the last time we saw him in Honolulu, he and the band put on quite a performance.
It didn’t take me long to realize that Browne’s arrival the first weekend of April put him on a collision course with the Masters. I bought two tickets anyway for my wife and me, and then spent the next couple of months trying to decide which show I’d attend — Augusta National or the Shell.
Well, as you can see, Woods won out in a close call. My feeling was the Tiger might not have that many stripes of the golf ball left in him, particularly at this famed event. It was clear, even in December, that Woods was back on course and perhaps ready again to challenge the younger generation he helped assemble on the most famous 18 holes in the world.
That hope became a reality over the coming months, making it an easier decision than it was around Christmas, when we decided our older daughter would attend the concert with my wife, and I would walk along with Mr. Woods in the company of 10,000 Masters patrons hoping to witness a little history themselves.
It has been 13 odd — very odd — years since Woods won his fourth green jacket. He has been up and down these hills more times than he can count since, always hoping to be fitted for a fifth time, only to fall short. This year many of us thought it might be different; that maybe he really would be the one standing alone at the end.
But that doesn’t look likely at the halfway point of the first major championship of the professional golf season. Woods spent some time in the woods, so to speak, on Friday, spraying golf balls here and there for a second straight round en route to a 75 and a two-day total of 4-over 148. Nearly everyone in the field struggled to keep their nerves in place, with Woods proving no exception. He couldn’t trust his swing often enough to put himself into contention, and now must be satisfied with completing this 72-hole journey the best way he can.
Some 4,600 miles away in Honolulu, Mr. Browne, at age 69, wasn’t facing that situation. He has a comfortable catalogue of songs that his fans know as well as he does. They can follow along and sing “Doctor My Eyes,” “For a Dancer” and “The Pretender” and go home satisfied that they spent the evening with one of their favorite performers. Much like golfers, who can keep on swinging after their prime has met Father Time, singers can keep on singing as well, long after their hits have grown dim with age.
As for the rest of us residing on the borderline of Georgia and South Carolina, we may greet this morning and afternoon at Augusta following someone else. Maybe Rory McIlroy or Jordan Spieth. Perhaps it’s time to see if world No. 1 Dustin Johnson or even a lesser known like past Maui champion Patrick Reed can be the one to hoist a trophy on Sunday.
As for myself, I kind of wish I’d been sitting next to my wife Friday night as Browne went through his songbook, as opposed to watching Woods scribbling crooked numbers on his scorecard. My daughter, who used to call him Mr. Brownie when she was young, and came to know her mom and dad’s own shortcomings through his music, hoped he’d fly an airplane upside down and walk out on a wing.
I’m not sure he did. I was fast asleep somewhere in South Carolina when the curtain went up in Hawaii, running on empty much like Tiger Woods.
