An Unlikely Trio Shares Chat Room

Only at the Masters.

Jack Nicklaus comes from behind at age 46 to win his sixth. Larry Mize, a hometown hero who rarely won before or since, chips in from 140 feet to beat Greg Norman in a playoff. Ben Crenshaw goes home to Texas to help bury Harvey Penick, the only coach he has ever had, then returns to Augusta to win five days later. Tiger Woods plays for the first time here as a professional and wins by 12 shots.

All that has occurred in only the last 12 years of a tournament that was played for the first time in 1934.

So who can say he’s really surprised by anything that ever happens at the Masters?

Take Friday, for example. Since Fuzzy Zoeller offended Woods and other African Americans with his “fried chicken and collard greens . . . or whatever it is they serve” remark here last year, the two golfers have been entered in the same tournaments nearly 20 times. But not until they returned to Augusta did it happen that they had to play together.

Adding to the intrigue, on a day when tournament officials drew the players into threesomes instead of twosomes to hasten play after Thursday’s first round was suspended by darkness, the third player in their group for the second round was Colin Montgomerie.

Besides Zoeller, the only player who has gotten under Tiger’s stripes since he has been on the tour is Montgomerie.

On the eve of the third round here last year, Montgomerie vowed he would “get a piece of Tiger.” When Woods’ coach, Butch Harmon, reminded him of that remark the next morning, Woods assured him he hadn’t forgotten. Then he overwhelmed the Scot in a head-to-head pairing, shooting 65 to Montgomerie’s 74.

The grouping of this threesome, the result of all shooting 71s Thursday, created an atmosphere usually reserved for the final round, in terms of both the size of the gallery and the tension accompanying the players.

So who won?

El Nino.

There were no fireworks. It only sounded as if there were because of the sound of the flags whipping in the fickle wind. That is what got a piece of Tiger on Friday.

After Woods scored a record 18 under par here last year, Masters officials fretted for months about how they could Tiger-ize their course. Should they move tees back? Should they create rough? Should they add fairway bunkers?

They did little. As it has turned out so far, that’s all they had to do.

Even Woods, as we now know, is not wind resistant.

It wouldn’t be entirely accurate to claim that the gusting winds here the first two days have turned him into just another golfer. After all, he is one under at 143 and tied for fourth place, four shots behind co-leaders David Duval and Fred Couples.

But he did look--dare we say it?--average on the second nine Friday. Two under through nine for the second day in a row, he bogeyed three times and birdied once on the back side for an even-par 72.

Woods even three-putted once, something he didn’t do in four rounds last year. Add an asterisk here because, according to the official statisticians, he didn’t really putt three times on the 15th because the first was from the fringe. According to Woods, however, he did because he used his putter three times.

When he walked up the 18th fairway, head down and hands in his pocket after hitting his tee shot into a fairway bunker, he looked thoroughly whipped.

The fact that Zoeller and Montgomerie were more whipped, with a 74 and a 75, was little consolation to Woods.

For Woods, the round that began five hours earlier wasn’t about beating Zoeller and Montgomerie, although it might have seemed like that to some.

Scott Hoch saw Woods, Zoeller and Montgomerie walking toward the first tee together and asked, “Who’s refereeing?”

The patrons, as they are known here instead of spectators, greeted Montgomerie with polite applause when he was introduced. They greeted Woods with more prolonged applause, like they might give a virtuoso violinist. They greeted Zoeller with whoops and hollers.

For the most part, however, the crowd was unusually subdued.

There was only one heckler, a woman who yelled at Zoeller as he walked up the eighth fairway, “Hey, Fuzzy, how was your dinner the other night?”

He didn’t react.

There was some interaction among the three players, although not as much as Montgomerie imagined.

“Tiger chatted with Fuzzy; Fuzzy chatted with me; I chatted with Tiger; Fuzzy and Tiger chatted with each other,” he said. “It was just a chatty round.

“We should have concentrated on the golf.”

Zoeller was testy with the media, as he has been since his controversial remarks became public last year.

“It was a gentleman’s game; it was a gentleman’s round,” he said.

“You’ll make a big deal about it. I don’t think it was a big deal. [Tiger’s] a player like everyone else, boys and girls.”

He paused.

“It’s not politically correct to say boys,” he added. “I apologize.”

We’ll probably accept after a few days, just as Woods did last year.

“It’s over for me,” Woods said Friday. “Fuzzy and I buried it a long time ago.”

Woods’ foe now is the wind, which offers no apologies.