AUGUSTA, Ga. — Joaquín Niemann couldn’t hear his caddie.
He had made one other Masters Match. He had navigated the thicket of spectators. Now, because the 23-year-old Chilean stood at Augusta Nationwide Golf Membership’s first tee on Thursday, Gary Matthews, who was carrying Niemann’s bag, could as properly have been anyplace else.
Such is life enjoying alongside Tiger Woods.
It was solely weeks in the past that Woods, whose medical doctors weighed amputating his leg after a automobile wreck final 12 months, appeared sure to overlook the Masters. However his resolution to play within the event, his first skilled competitors since November 2020, immediately remodeled how spectators would observe the motion — and any participant accompanying the five-time Masters winner at Augusta Nationwide.
Woods’s presence in a pairing or group has lengthy outlined the enjoying surroundings round his slice of nearly any event, along with his followers, and very often simply the curious, providing up a barrage of cheers, commentary, cameras, bustle and scrutiny. The highlight, it appears, solely barely tilts away from him, if it does in any respect.
And so the chaos, or no matter counts for chaos on a golf course, could make Fred {Couples} — a Masters champion, as soon as the world’s top-rated golfer and a hero to child boomer duffers — look extra like an afterthought than a number one man. It could render Stewart Cink, a British Open champion and one of many best golfers of his period, a merely thrilling bonus, or Francesco Molinari, additionally a British Open winner, one thing lower than a pairing’s marquee title.
“It’s means totally different whenever you play with Tiger wherever, and Augusta Nationwide isn’t any totally different,” mentioned Cink, who has usually had an up-close view of Woods on the Masters.
Woods, who earned the primary of his Masters inexperienced jackets 25 years in the past, has lengthy commanded one of many largest Augusta galleries, with another champions sure {that a} “Tiger roar” by way of the pines merely sounds totally different than cheering for different gamers. And with Phil Mickelson, one among Woods’s rivals for consideration and affection, absent from this 12 months’s Masters, Woods is much more the participant with the best following round Augusta this week.
The frenzy of this notably intense week started properly earlier than Niemann, Woods and Louis Oosthuizen discovered themselves peering down the 445-yard No. 1 on Thursday. {Couples}, who performed in his thirty seventh Masters this week, joined Woods for a pair of apply rounds and was left agog on Monday, the primary day the course was open to spectators.
“I’ve by no means seen something prefer it,” he marveled. {Couples} mentioned he discovered a strategy to get to the tee the place Woods’s followers “have been solely 4 deep.”
He added, “They wished to see the massive man, they usually noticed him, they usually noticed good golf. He will get that right here on a regular basis.”
However frequency doesn’t essentially make the situation simpler for others pursuing their very own ambitions.
“The largest factor is simply the power within the crowd and the depth of the reactions and the scrambling for place,” mentioned Cink, whose greatest end at Augusta was a tie for third in 2008. “There’s numerous motion on the market.”
Cink mentioned that Woods had routinely tried to maintain it a good struggle by permitting others to complete enjoying a gap earlier than he did, protecting the group in place just a bit whereas longer.
“If you play with him, it’s busy, it’s noisy,” mentioned Molinari, who received the 2018 British Open at Carnoustie when he was paired with Woods and, the following 12 months, performed with Woods on Sunday at Augusta. “I don’t assume it makes a giant distinction if it’s right here or some other place.”
Woods, mighty as he’s, has solely a lot management.
On Thursday, the spectators started to amass across the first tee field lengthy earlier than Woods emerged from the clubhouse to start out his event. A drone flew overhead. No less than one man shouted “let’s go Tiger!” at the least twice, although it was laborious to inform in a crowd that appeared about 25-deep in locations so individuals might see Woods (or perhaps simply the highest of his cap) as he took his first shot.
Niemann and Oosthuizen acquired well mannered, restrained welcomes from the group, which began to interrupt up as quickly as Woods, who hit first, completed swinging his driver, all the higher to get a head begin down the golf green or to the second inexperienced, to see Woods once more.
The din quieted sufficient on later holes that Niemann mentioned he might, in the long run, hear Matthews as he performed his strategy to a three-under-par 69. He mentioned he had even come to search out pleasure within the monumental crowds.
“They have been at all times telling me to ensure you attempt to end earlier than Tiger, that means the individuals don’t begin shifting,” Niemann mentioned. “However they have been actually respectful, so it was an pleasurable spherical.”
Daniel Berger instructed {that a} worse destiny than being paired with Woods was enjoying simply in entrance of him.
“In case you are one or two forward of him, then it’s at all times a wrestle with individuals attempting to run as much as see him,” mentioned Berger, who debuted on the Masters in 2016.
Padraig Harrington, one other British Open winner who has performed with Woods, had an analogous evaluation.
“It’s very troublesome when you’re the group forward of him,” he mentioned. “It’s very, very troublesome as a result of the crowds are watching him they usually’re shifting on to see him. If you’re enjoying with him 20 deep, you’ll be able to’t hear a factor as a result of there’s a lot occurring.”
However Harrington, who has received two Opens and a PGA Championship, had no complaints about life with Woods as a enjoying accomplice.
“He’s truly one of many best guys to play with over time,” he mentioned. “He’s a quite simple man to play with. He performs golf. He says ‘good shot’ solely whenever you hit a great shot. There isn’t any messing round, no garbage about it.”
Follow rounds are, in fact, much less pressurized, and {Couples}, who has lengthy been near Woods and is now within the twilight of his profession, signaled that he generally performs the courtroom jester. It appeared that means this week when Woods performed with {Couples}, who received at Augusta in 1992, and Justin Thomas, who was born the following 12 months and was 3-years-old when Woods first received the Masters.
“I like to inform them tales, however often on the tees it’s very quiet and I allow them to do their factor, and as quickly as we step down the golf green there will likely be a narrative about this man or that man or me or Tiger,” {Couples}, who mentioned that Woods and Thomas make him hit final, recalled this week. “Then we chuckle till we get to a ball.”
The crowds are at all times thick, and at all times watching, and at all times bouncing. However {Couples} mentioned there’s a good thing about enjoying with Woods and Thomas, all the theatrics and distractions apart.
“It’s good as a result of they solely need to play 9 holes,” {Couples}, 62, mentioned. “I’m nice with 9 holes.”
