No One Has a Ball Out There

So far in this Masters tournament, the main topics of conversation have been the rain; how the rain prevents you from eating lunch outside on the clubhouse veranda; when the rain might stop; how much rain it takes to drench your clothes; and how the rain turns the walking paths beside the fairways into muddy ruts.

The rain in Spain has nothing on this place. Not so much wet and wild, more like wet and boring, that’s the two-day story of the 69th Masters tournament, which is rapidly evolving into the most atmospherically challenged edition in a while, possibly since the invention of the rain gauge.

Let’s just say that sales of the $5 official Masters sunblock are lagging.

When they finally restart the second round, which should be this morning with any luck, Augusta National Golf Club isn’t going to play anything like it did on, say, Tuesday and Wednesday, when it was firm and dry.

Now, it’s moist and soggy, conditions that affect other things besides footwear. It’s no secret that wet fairways and greens treat golf balls much differently than dry ones and nowhere is it more noticeable than Augusta National -- famous for its length and its greens.

First, the ball does not roll much on wet fairways. This makes the course seem much longer than its official 7,290 yards. Even worse, much of it is seemingly uphill. This is not especially bad news for the big hitters, but troublesome for everyone else.

On the greens, where placement of the ball is paramount, it may be tougher to spin the ball to the right location on soft greens, but even more important is that the speed of the greens is slowed when they’re wet.

Actually, golf balls have become something of an issue this week, though certainly not on the same level as the incessant rain. It stopped play Thursday and again Friday, when the first round was mercifully completed and the second round got underway, but just barely.

Hootie Johnson, the chairman of Augusta National, said the Masters was concerned about the technology of the golf ball, specifically relating to how far it travels when struck.

Johnson left open the option that the Masters could introduce its own ball and it would be the only kind allowed in the tournament. Presumably, it would not be green or have the aroma of Rae’s Creek.

A Masters golf ball was not the kind of news that Tiger Woods wanted to hear and he spoke out about it. Players have performance-expectation levels with their golf balls and issues over spin, trajectory, feel and launch are personal. So Woods insisted that one standard ball for everyone wouldn’t cut it.

Instead, Woods says that if someone is going to start tinkering with the technology of golf balls, the way to go is to pull them back, all of them, by setting new limits.

If anyone’s going to do that, it will require a groundbreaking decision from golf’s ruling bodies -- the U.S. Golf Assn. and the Royal & Ancient. These two groups have been worrying more lately about drivers, not balls, although the USGA did send a memo to equipment manufacturers recently indicating “areas of interest” that included balls.

According to the memo, the USGA wants the manufacturers to know that it has concerns in the area of “spin generation” and may come up with new tests and possible limits for golf ball parameters affecting spin. Who actually decides this is anybody’s guess, but they’re probably going to have to call in a spin doctor to make the examinations.

Meanwhile, here at the Masters, Johnson sounds as if he isn’t going to get involved unless the USGA and the R&A; can’t get their acts together, which is always possible.

But if anyone or any tournament can get the ball rolling, so to speak, it’s probably going to be Johnson and the Masters.

In the meantime, life goes on at Augusta National, although not exactly as usual. They say they’re going to play 72 holes, come rain or high water, which means the Masters might last longer than expected, possibly long enough for the clubhouse veranda to dry out in time for lunch.