Masters Golf Tournament

FACTS When: Today-Sunday. Site: Augusta National Golf Club. Length: 7,290 yards. Par: 36-36 -- 72. Format: 72 holes of stroke play, sudden-death playoff if necessary. TV (PDT): Today, 12:30 to 3:30 p.m., Channel 2. Sunday, 11:30 a.m. to 4 p.m., Channel 2. * HOLE OF THE DAY Hole: 13 (Par 5). Yardage: 510. Stroke Average: 4.9. Key Fact: After 21 holes without a birdie, Tiger Woods had a tap-in for a four, then added birdies on two of the next three holes.

This time, the putt didn't slip past the hole. This time, Adam Scott's world did not crumble around him by the width of a thumbnail. Ernie Els was right. It wasn't just lip service back in July, at Royal Lytham & St. Annes, when he took the occasion, as the new British Open champion, to tell the world in the aftermath of his victory that the man who had barely missed a 15-foot putt that would have taken them back out on the course for a playoff would be a major champion soon. And so he is. Adam Scott is the 2013 Masters champion, a member of golf's coveted Green Jacket Club.

Some of the worst winds Jack Nicklaus has seen in 30 years of playing in the Masters blew across Augusta National Thursday, when shooting par or better was anything but a breeze. So how bad was it? "I would describe the conditions in one word--very difficult." Uh, that's two words, Jack. "OK. Tough." The leaders after the first round are in four words--Larry Nelson, Robert Wrenn.

Tiger Woods may seem long overdue for his first Masters win since 2005, but writers from around the Tribune Co. have some other ideas about who will be wearing the green jacket Sunday afternoon. Bill Dwyre, Los Angeles Times Brandt Snedeker will win this year's Masters Golf Tournament because he is playing well, has gone through enough blips in recent years to draw on when the going gets tough and because the game of golf needs him to win. Why, you ask? Because he has a sunny, pleasing personality, is a genuine decent guy and, most important, because he plays fast.

It was a great day for golf and for Sandy Lyle Friday at Augusta National, where the uncommonly hot Scot took a two-stroke lead and also discovered a cure for the common cold. Lyle, this year's leading money-winner, shot a five-under-par 67 when the wind slowed down, the greens sped up and the afternoon sun got the course about as warm as it was under Fuzzy Zoeller's collar. Last week, Lyle won at Greensboro, N.C.

When Mark Calcavecchia was asked Wednesday who had the best chance to win the Masters golf tournament, beginning today at Augusta National, he didn't hesitate. "Myself, Seve (Ballesteros), (Ben) Crenshaw, (Craig) Stadler and (Greg) Norman," he said. Then, he paused and added: "I forgot about Tom (Kite) and Curtis (Strange). You better slide me back." Calcavecchia also said it wouldn't be surprising if a relatively unknown player wins the tournament.

For awhile, it looked as though Sandy Lyle would run away with the Masters. But when he left the 18th green Saturday afternoon at Augusta National, he was walking away, not running, after shooting a 72 for a 210 total. It is still Lyle's Masters to win today since he is the leader by two shots with 18 holes to play. However, this is also a period when leaders very often become followers. Accordingly, Lyle said he will carry one thought with him when he walks out to the first tee.

On the last hole on the last day of the Masters tournament, Sandy Lyle thought his last chance to win had come to an end in a pit filled with sand. First, though, he would try to hit his golf ball and lift it out of the bunker dug into the red Georgia clay, the one that guards the left side of the 18th fairway at Augusta National. "I personally thought it was over," Lyle said. "I didn't think I would have a chance to get it out." He was wrong.

Down the road from where the world's most prestigious golf tournament will soon be held, Todd Manzi and a handful of friends are warming up for the big event. Waving placards at passing traffic near Augusta National Golf Club, the group is taking aim at Martha Burk, the women's rights advocate who has stirred passions with her campaign to get the private club to accept female members.

William Biggins of Camden, S.C., pleaded not guilty to charges that he made and sold fake admission badges for the Masters golf tournament.

A decade after former Augusta National Golf Club chairman Hootie Johnson swore that the home of the Masters golf tournament would not admit women “at the point of a bayonet,” the club has quietly invited two prominent women to join. Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and South Carolina financier Darla Moore have accepted membership invitations, the club announced Monday - 22 years after admitting its first black members. The move came with little advance notice, and at a time when controversy over the previously all-male club in eastern Georgia had cooled somewhat.

On a day when Augusta National needed no more magic, when the trees kept perfect posture, the sun glistened and the greens ran like Usain Bolt, the Magical Masters Man began pulling rabbits out of hats. Phil Mickelson shot 66. That wasn't the best score of the day. Sweden's Peter Hanson shot seven-under-par 65. Nor did it get Mickelson the lead. Hanson had him by a stroke at nine under par. But with due respect to Hanson and his marvelous round, Phil is Phil and this is the Masters and the only bigger story and emotional mover here might be Tiger Woods, had he made a run. But he was long gone, perhaps at the shop having repairs done to the clubs he has slammed and kicked this tournament, when Mickelson started running in birdie putts and sending the galleries into a frenzy.

The expectation that the Augusta National golf club would do the right thing and avoid another wave of controversy over its male-only perception ended quickly here Wednesday. The issue, which created great noise and no action back in 2003, when Martha Burke campaigned for female membership at the host of the legendary Masters Golf Tournament, emerged again recently when IBM named a woman as its chief executive. Most previous IBM CEOs have been Augusta members, and IBM is one of the main sponsors of the Masters.

Augusta, Ga.  The obvious plot line for this year's Masters golf tournament, which begins Thursday, was established and addressed Tuesday, well before the first ball was struck.  Sports Illustrated started it with a recent article that said the only story lines in golf these days revolved around Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy. That premise probably would not have been put forth had not Tiger finally won a tournament two weeks ago at Bay Hill, after a 30-month drought. And it was helped along by the revisiting by reporters Tuesday morning of McIlroy's collapse from a four-stroke lead on the back nine of the final round in last year's Masters.

Reporting from Augusta, Ga. — The crowds that had reveled in the Augusta National sunshine were either headed to the exits or already headed to dinner by the time Alvaro Quiros stepped to the 18th tee. After all, it already had been a long day. Masters icons Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer were cheered as they hit their ceremonial tee shots. Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson drew their usual flocks of followers. Rory McIlroy carried the banner of the next generation with a scintillating seven-under-par 65. And then Quiros finished it off with an unexpected flourish.

He was surrounded by deep green, he was covered in thick black, but I couldn't stop looking at the living pink. On the side of Phil Mickelson's cap Sunday, there was a decal of a pink ribbon, the international symbol of breast- cancer awareness. Through Augusta National's thick spring air, it glowed. Through the 74th Masters' weighty final round, it rocked. It sat atop Mickelson's head but played from his heart, his personal fight fueling his public battle, the pink pushing him past the coolness of Lee Westwood, the bluster of Tiger Woods, the charges from every corner, finally dropping him into the arms of his wife, Amy. Together, in afternoon shadows that felt like dawn, they tearfully hugged in celebration of a Masters victory that wrapped the sports world in a jacket of life.

An Augusta man committed suicide, allegedly because he was unable to fulfill ticket orders he had brokered to the Masters golf tournament. Allen Caldwell, 40, was found dead Friday morning in his Augusta home from what appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound. He was part-owner of The Clubhouse, an exclusive club across the street from Augusta National Golf Club.

They say professional golf is an equal-opportunity sport. They are liars. They say any great golfer can win the Masters. They are wrong. The proof is in front of me now, on the 13th fairway at Augusta National, attempting to walk briskly to his ball, taking a painful detour through middle age. Fred Couples stops, twists his back to the right, winces, twists his back to the left, winces, starts walking again, twisting, wincing, walking....

Finally, stunningly, the Masters bit back. After three weeks of being tossed about in the relentless grip of Tiger Woods' sex scandal comeback, the staid golf tournament has found its legs and bared its teeth. In a monologue at the beginning of his annual news conference Wednesday, Augusta National Chairman Billy Payne basically ripped the stripes off Tiger. There's no green jacket you can drape on it. There's no azalea you can plant over it. It was, as they say here, a torching unlike any other.