When the Big Names Falter Augusta Still lets the Small Guys Write Their Own Stories
Tuesday April 20th, 2020
Hideki Matsuyama won The 2021 Masters Tournament in a year where many of golf’s biggest names played themselves out of a chance to win early. He is the first Japanese male to have won the Masters or a major championship on the PGA Tour according to the Masters.
Hideki Matsuyama, the 14th best player in the world beat and was well known among avid fans but made his grand entrance to all golf fans this weekend, finish the tournament at 10-under-par 278. Will Zalatoris took home second with a 9-under-par 279 in his first Masters appearance. Jordan Spieth, who is a part of the young resurgence, finished in a tie for third place but was out of contention before starting the final round 6 shots back. Xander Schauffele and Justin Rose were tied with Zalatoris for second going into the final round but early and late mistakes for both put them too far back. Xander Schauffele tied with Spieth for third with a 7-under 281 par. John Rahm came from even to finish in a tie for fifth with Marc Leishman coming in with a 6-under 282 par. Justin Rose went into the weekend with a 3-shot lead due to a first-round 7-under 65 but struggled the rest of the week in route to 5-under 283 par. The full leaderboard can be found on the Masters tournament webpage.
Some of the favorites like former Alabama golfer Justin Thomas were in contention but a triple bogey on the 13th hole on Saturday all but made it impossible for him to stay in contention to win his first green jacket. Bryson Dechambeau who in his second go-around at Augusta since he bulked up to add distance to his shots. He was expected, both times, to break the course with his distance but Augusta’s unique layout and tough greens reminded him that distance isn’t everything and he limped to a 5-over par 293. Reigning champion Dustin Johnson and hopefuls Brooks Koepka and Rory McIlroy didn’t even make the weekend after missing the cut. Tiger Woods, a 15-time Major winner and 5-time Masters champion, who was in a car accident earlier this year has still not recovered enough to play and might not play anytime soon.
The lack of prohibitive favorites and fan favorites didn’t matter to golf fans since many still tuned in with the final round averaging over 9.45 million viewers according to Nielsen ratings. That is close to double last year’s Masters which had to move to the fall due to the Covid-19 pandemic which averaged 5.5 million viewers on the final day. Even with the higher ratings, this goes around, this year’s tournament was the lowest-rated regularly held Masters Tournament of the modern era for Nielsen ratings.
The golf fans who watched the event were very pleased with the showing that the players gave them. The tournament lead was never too far ahead until Xander Schauffele errant tee shot on the 16th hole found the water and Matsuyama lead went to three with two holes to play. George Gilbertson, whose favorite golfers are Tiger Woods, and Justin Thomas, enjoyed watching the tournament even without his favorite golfers, not in contention or competing.
“I really enjoyed it,” George said, “It also gave golfers a chance to see many players that they didn’t know shine. Finally, it is historic that the first Japanese male won a major, and that was really cool to watch.”
Part of the allure of the Masters is that when big-name players falter that the sports smaller names can write their name into the trophy and walk away with a nice new green jacket. While Matsuyama was known in golf circles, he wasn’t one of the superstars that many thought would go out and win the tournament.
Another fan Philip D, who would like his last name to stay private and whose favorite golfer is Justin Thomas, was pleased with the viewing experience and that the smaller guys were able to perform well.
“It was beautiful to have springtime at the Masters again. It sucked not to have Tiger there and I thought that other big names would make their mark but I’m glad that the smaller names got a chance to make their name known.”
Clay Sullivan who also is a fan of Justin Thomas thought this year’s Masters were different with the new names on the leaderboard but it was nice to see them come out of nowhere and place inside the top-10.
“Watching this year’s Masters was different than most. There were golfers who usually are on the leaderboards that weren’t and golfers that came out of nowhere that placed top 10,” says Clay Sullivan. “The big names being out of it kind of made it more interesting. There were still a couple of guys like Matsuyama, Spieth, and Rose still playing well but seeing guys like Zalatoris, Leishman and Schauffele contend at the top gave me a feeling of wanting to root for the underdog.”
The Augusta national course challenges even the very best golfers and past success at the course doesn’t always help out a golfer, Dustin Johnson learned the hard way after breaking the Master Tournament scoring record last fall to not making the cut this time around. On the other hand, the runner-up Will Zalatoris was playing in his first Masters but if you were watching that was hard to tell. It’s the beauty of the Masters that it’s hard to put four quality rounds together and win the Masters.
Maxwell Donaldson 
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