Hlas column: No Augusta noise for Tiger, just McIlroars

AUGUSTA, Ga. - I wanted to see Masters magic up close. I wanted to be in the middle of the roars that echo off the pines and thunder across Augusta National.

You know, that stuff Jim Nantz romanticizes on CBS Masters telecasts to try to get the bad taste of that UConn-Butler game out of his mouth.

So I decieded to walk the front nine holes with Tiger Woods and several thousand others who must have felt the same as I. We would watch the continued rebirth of Tiger, who charged through the back nine on Friday just like old times in playing his way within three shots of the lead.

Woods promptly bogeyed the first hole. All the better for the drama, I surmised. Don't peak too soon. Be the ball.

The winner of four Masters and 14 majors got that shot back with a birdie on the third hole. I nodded knowingly as the fans who lined the ropes three-deep cheered with joy. Game on, again.

Then Tiger hit his tee shot on the par-3 No. 4. It went right. Way right. Right of the frontside bunker, a long way from the pin-placement in the back left of the wide green.

“Where'd he hit it?” cried a fan. Once he learned the answer, he uttered “Oh my God!”

Woods hit his pitch shot. “Roll! Roll! Roll!” yelled another fan. Then, “Stop! Stop! Stop!” It didn't stop soon enough.

Tiger two-putted for bogey and got some of the most-tepid applause in the history of tepid applause.

He proceeded to make pars for the rest of the time I followed him, which didn't really justify the price-hikes Augusta scalpers were suddenly getting for Saturday Masters badges Friday night and Saturday morning. Tigermania, and all.

Just as Woods missed a long birdie attempt on No. 6, we got to hear one of those Augusta weekend roars. But it was for Jason Day, who had birdied the fifth hole up the hill from 6.

Day was playing with Rory McIlroy in the day's final pairing. I wanted to be able to use the clever phrases “Rory roar” or “McIlroar” in the previous paragraph, but those came when he had three birdies in the last six holes.

As many of us in the crowd waited for Woods and K.J. Choi to pass us so we could cross from one side of the No. 7 fairway to the other, a large man in his 50s or 60s with a booming baritone shouted “Keep doin' what you're doin', Tiger!”

“What, making pars?” a younger man behind him whispered to a friend.

At the No. 8 green, I was struck by something I wonder if you could experience in any other situation or setting on the planet. There were several thousand people within eyesight of Woods' birdie putt try. Yet, there was silence as he lined up the putt, except for some tweeting from birds in the distance.

And even they respectfully kept their voices down.

It didn't help, though. Woods settled for yet another par. His putting matched his body language, with neither representative of someone about to make more golf history.

At the No. 9 tee a few minutes later, someone insisted “You got this, Tiger! You got this, Tiger!” before he lined up his drive. The dtee shot was fine, but he parred the hole and I returned to the media center convinced not every fan is psychic.

Woods played the next nine holes in an unremarkable 1-over, and was seven shots behind leader McIlroy at day's end. The 21-year-old Irishman leads the field by four strokes.

The top seven players on the leaderboard are either from Northern Ireland, Argentina, South Africa, South Korea, Australia or England. Graeme McDowell of Northern Ireland won last year's U.S. Open. Now McIlroy, here.

NASCAR, anyone?