History Shots (via fastcodesign.com)
The Masters
On Aug 4, Bobby Jones’s green jacket will go up for auction in conjunction with the Chicago National Sports Show. Jones was the co-founder of both Augusta National and the Master’s.
It’s pretty rare for a green jacket (especially Jones’s) to come up for auction since they’re not allowed to leave the club. As you might guess, getting your hands on this is going to cost a pretty penny. Estimates are that it could go for $100k or more.
Golfwrx has some amazing pics of Kevin Streelman’s yardage book from Augusta. The level of detail is just amazing. It’s definitely worth a click.
Yes, the 2011 Masters is over, but that doesn’t mean the Masters posts have to stop! For those of you not familiar with the Augusta National institution known as the Pimento Cheese sandwich, here’s a run-down from CNN.
I’ll be honest. I was really rooting for Adam Scott to win the Masters. Mostly because a) I wanted to use the headline “Great Scott!!!”, b) he could have single-handedly made long putters cool and c) I don’t have any pictures of Charl Schwartzel to post. So instead I’m using a picture of Rick Moranis from Spaceballs, because he definitely knows the “Power of the Schwartz(el)”.
Schwartzel earned his victory at the 2011 Masters. He was 1-behind Adam Scott, who looked destined to finally break through with a victory in a major. But with 4 to play Schwartzel reeled off 4 straight birdies to get to 14-under, 2-strokes ahead of Scott and Jason Day. That included an amazingly confident birdie putt on 17, which I believe was only the 5th birdie there all day.
[Update] My apologies to Gary Woodland, it was a hooked drive that his a patron in the face, not his club. That’s what I get for trying to watch multiple feeds at the same time 
Gary Woodland, one of my “darkhorse” picks this week at Augusta, didn’t exactly have a career round today today at Augusta. On the 15th tee box, he hooked his drive into the gallery and hit a fan in the face.
It looked painful for the fan, although it didn’t seem like it caused any serious harm. A few minutes later Woodland was shaking the fan’s hand after apologizing.
Woodland went on to make par for the hole and finished the day with a 2-over 74. Hopefully he’ll have a better day out on the course tomorrow.
In the latest Masters odds from Bodog.com, Phil Mickelson remains the favorite at 6-1. Tiger is 8-1 (again, wtf?). Both Lee Westwood and Nick Watney are 14-1, with nobody else under 20-1.
The odds on my dark horse picks? Justin Rose is 30-1. Anthony Kim is 33-1. Ben Crane is 100-1. And Gary Woodland and Ryu Ishikawa are sitting at 150-1.
Interestingly Tom Watson is sitting at 400-1. That might be a good long shot bet. He came damn close to winning the British Open 2 years ago and was on the leaderboard going into Friday at the 2010 Masters after firing a first round 67. Yes, at 61, he’s probably too old to realistically contend at the Masters. But at 400-1 it might be worth a little fun money.
Courtesy of a last week from Graeme McDowell, us mere mortals can get a sneak peek of the view from the back porch of the clubhouse at Augusta last week as they prepared for the Masters. Very cool.
Everybody knows that Phil and Tiger are the two favorites to win the Masters. And of course there are guys like Dustin Johnson and Lee Westwood that have sniffed at glory in the majors and come up just short. But there are a number of other players who have legitimate shots at winning their first major this year. Keep reading to find out who I like as “dark horse” picks.
It’s official. People that bet on golf are idiots. Tiger Woods is currently 10-1 to win the Masters this week. He was the odds on favorite to win this week until Phil Mickelson won in Houston over the weekend. He dropped from 8-1 to 10-1 while Phil did the reverse.
Seriously, what the hell are people thinking? I’m not saying that Tiger should be 100-1, but 10-1? That’s nuts. Tiger hasn’t done anything recently that would warrant those odds. If he had finished well at the Bob Hope, I could see it. But a T24 performance doesn’t bode well for his chances at Augusta.
