AUGUSTA, Ga. – It was just Monday of Masters week. A chill, gray Monday at that, the conditions dulling the sharp edge of splendor.
Nobody’s going to really let it rip this soon. Any Monday at the Masters is for easing into the demands of the season’s first major. And that goes for the spectators, too. So, as the practice round throng reported for duty around Tiger Woods’ morning stroll, it performed but a little light limbering of its collective throat. The patrons – working stiffs in their real life, but patrons here – must build to the moment also.
Woods made a subtly stiff-legged tour of the back nine Monday. It’s not a limp now, really. Nor is it the confident, casual lope that any 47-year-old athlete should possess if only he had exercised more good judgment in his life. Now and forever more, we presume, Woods walks a little older than he is.
