Portrait

The Masters 2003

Martha Burk and Tiger Woods
plugged in the sandtraps of Augusta

For the world of golfers, The Masters' 2003 tournament was supposed to have one story line: Tiger Woods would try to become the first one to win the tournament three times in a row. For Martha Burk, chairman of the National Council of American Women Organizations, it was the deadline of her ultimatum to Augusta National Golf Club to admit women in its "all-men" membership. Both ambitions seem to have been plugged in the sandtraps of Augusta.

Tiger Woods wasn't supposed to need a 3-foot putt to make the cut after the first 36 holes, at 5 over the par and 11 strokes behind the leader Mike Weir. On the third round, he made an extraordinary comeback ending the day at only 4 strokes from the new leader Jeff Maggert. But his pursuit of an unprecedented third straight victory at Augusta National went in serious jeopardy after his enormous strategy mistake on the third hole. Thinking about hitting an iron off the tee on the short par-4 and then a wedge into the green, Woods listened as caddie Steve Williams urged him to bust a driver to the green instead to get within chipping range. Six adventurous shots later - one of them left-handed - Woods walked off the green with a double bogey.

      
Woods never recovered from but, appeared at the ceremony to put the Green Jacket on his successor, the Canadian Mike Weir.

On her side, Martha Burk's protest - outside of Augusta National on a small field hand-picked by the local sheriff - has been a flop. As he always has said, Hootie Johnson, chairman of Augusta National, never changed his mind and never accepted to change the club's membership policies because of external pressure he called as "a point of a bayonet". At a press conference hold before the tournament, the Augusta National chairman said the all-men's club was united in the belief that it had a right to choose its members. More than 60 green-jacketed members stood nearby in silent support. ``It's not my issue alone,'' Johnson  and he also rejected a suggestion that Tiger Woods or any other past champions could influence members to change their minds. ``I won't tell Tiger how to play golf and he doesn't  tell us how to run our private club,'' Johnson said. He began by reading a statement saying he had said everything he had to say on the women's issue during the last 10 months and would answer no questions about it. Although Johnson did talk about the controversy, he refused to get drawn into questions about Burk. So when someone asked whether players would be allowed to lift, clean and place the ball because of soggy conditions this year, Johnson said: ``Thank you. That's why we're here.'' And he added :"Placing the ball will never be admitted during the Masters". What has been unanimously approved in the world of golf.
Nevertheless Burk called her protest at Augusta National on Saturday a success because ``the American people heard our message,'' even though the turnout was small and protesters (about 50) were confined to a vacant lot where club members could not see them. She said the next phase is a ``corporate accountability campaign,'' which she insists could be even more effective now that it appears the club doesn't plan to admit a female member any time soon. ``I don't think they can remain silent any longer''.

Wait and see, as said Winston Churchill.

The Green Jacket to Canadian Mike Weir

after very hard times

Mike Weir and Len Mattiace added another chapter to The Masters, famous for all the great golf and great things that have happened over the years on the second nine in the final round. They went a little bit further, to a sudden-death extra hole, before Weir became the first left-hander and the first Canadian to win the coveted Green Jacket. It's worth remembering how hard it was for the little lefty from Ontario, to get here.

Michael Richard Weir was born May 12, 1970. His first love was hockey but that turned to golf in his teenage years. Like many Canadian golfers, Weir is left-handed, a by-product of playing hockey the same way. Only three percent of golfers in the U.S. are left-handed compared to 22 percent in Canada. When Weir was 13, he wrote to Jack Nicklaus, asking whether he should switch to playing right-handed. Nicklaus' response was to stick to his natural swing. The story has been told over and over ever since.
In the mid 1990s, he was scraping by : "It took me five years going to Qualifying School to get out here. And I can remember  that I was missing cut after cut on the Australian Tour and I was by myself and didn't have any money. I'll always have those tough times in my memory bank. If anything contributes to my determination it is because I know how hard it is to get out here."

His performance at the Masters this week is just the latest chapter in his story. "I came from out of nowhere really just playing the Canadian Tour and Australian and trying to get better," Weir says. "I was always in a search to try to get on the PGA Tour and become a better player, top-50 player and from there try to become a top-10 player and from there hopefully to be the best player."

Who knows! But most people have been very impressed by his calm and precision.

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