Augusta in '96 was not by any stretch of the imagination as difficult as PH#2 was yesterday. Norman shooting 78 on that course was a little worse than Goosen shooting 81 yesterday. yes, Goosen played poorly, and on a US Open golf course, once the slide starts -there is no coming back because the course is so unforgiving. that's why they play all 72 holes. Stroke average for the field yesterday was about 74 - (remember, that's 4 over par)i don't know what it was for Rd 4 of the 96 masters - but probably around 71 or 72 max. (around even par) - so at first glance, their performances seem pretty equal.
For those of you who think that a guy who shot 80 on a course like that played horrible, and a guy who shot 70 played well - you don't know what playing an a course like that is like. You can play great shots all day long and make bogeys (or worse) all day long. Granted, Goosen wasn't hitting very many good shots, but there is such a fine line between where you have to land your ball to stay on the green, and landing it in a bunker or a swale where it misses the green, that's it's hard to judge what are good shots and what are bad shots.
the guys who are making those tough par putts are the guys who stay at the top - Goosen did it for 3 days, but it caught up with him. Now, if Vijay or Tiger would have putted well - this would have been a blowout. Campbell made everything he looked at those last nine holes - a couple of them were over 25 feet. that's what it boils down to in the end.
But yeah, Gore did have the highest score of the day, and Goosen tied for the next worst round - so you definitely could say they folded pretty badly.
tibor75 said:
on a completely unrelated topic, Ben Curtis missed the cut again.
On another unrelated topic, Ben Curtis' name will ALWAYS be on the British Open trophy, Jack Fleck's name will ALWAYS be on the US Open trophy, and Nathaniel Crosby's name will ALWAYS be on the US Amateur trophy.
How many of us have reached the same level at anything we've done?
