Good Luck to Them

In this game you need some luck. The game isn't played on a perfect surface. A bounce off a tree can go deeper into the woods, or back into the fairway--hell it could go in the hole. Bad shots can end up being good, while perfect shots can end up in a divot, or in the drink. 

Consider Tom Watson's approach shot into the final green on the way to trying to do the unthinkable, win an Open Championship at almost sixty years of age. It was a perfect strike. But it ended up over the green and the rest was history. Consider Tiger's famous Nike golf ball teetering on the edge of the hole at Augusta before it finally dropped and led to another green jacket. That ball could have just as easily decided to stay in the light. What about that ball of Freddie Couples that hung impossibly on that bank sloping sharply into Rae's Creek. That's golf, and all you can do is keep the faith and keep on hitting it, hoping you'll have as much goid luck as bad over the years.

The Masters begins today and, once again, we will likely see a point at which the eventual champion gets the lucky bounce that pushes him over the top. He will sense it, and perhaps we will sense it. But guys that battle in Major championships tend to become a bit fatalistic. They know that luck, or the golfing gods, must smile on them if they are to win.

And, talk about luck, imagine DJ, at the top of the golf world, falling down a flight of stairs and hurting his back. You really have to wonder. In any case, some lucky character will have the green jacket put on him on Sunday. That golfer might feel awfully proud, because you obviously don't win a green jacket by luck alone. But he'll surely feel awfully blessed as well.