Sergio-Seve connection makes fate walk again at Augusta National

There was a quarter of century starting in 1982 when I covered most of the Masters tournaments. Augusta always was a great place to be in early April, even though the "toon-a-mint'' clashed with the start of the baseball season.

Now as a television viewer, it is a bit annoying to get a full dose of the reverence with which CBS covers the event. It ranks right up there with a Wild game on Fox Sports North when it comes to cloying.

You would think it might be time to change the pompous music or for Jim Nantz to ditch his "tradition unlike any other'' repetition after all these years, but the keepers of Augusta National enjoy the pap, and if they don't get it, the Masters would wind up on another network.

This said, a newspaper reporter (and presumably those for on-line sites) faces none of those pressures to put the Masters and Augusta National in the best possible light.

We sort of do it naturally, and for this reason:

More than with any sport, fate lives in golf, and more so at Augusta in April than at any place or time.
I became convinced of this in 1995, when Ben Crenshaw won his second Masters. He won his first in 1984 at age 32 and was a outstanding players.

By 1995, he was 43 and his lack of length off the tee had gone from a challenge to a ruinous flaw.

For all we know, he never won the member-guest at Sand Hills, the fantastic course than Ben and partner Bill Coore designed in the rolling outback of western Nebraska.

Yet, in that April of 1995, Crenshaw became a story at the start of the week in Augusta, because his mentor, his teacher, almost his second father, Harvey Penick, had died.

Nobody voices complete sadness better than Crenshaw, with that nasal-driven Texas accent. He talked of his love for Penick in formal and informal interviews at Augusta, then flew home to give the eulogy at Harvey's funeral on Wednesday.

He teed off the next day, giving up hundreds of yards per round to the best players at the increasingly elongated National, and he won the tournament.

My belief in mysticism at Augusta National was gaining momentum again at mid-afternoon Sunday, as Sergio Garcia took control of the final round on the extra-tough early holes.

Sergio messed up on the easy 2nd and took a par, yet he moved to a three-shot lead over Justin Rose.
Then came the par-5 8th, where he managed only a par after a monstrous drive, and right there, Sergio started to leak.

By the 13th tee, Garcia was in meltdown mode. He was already trailing the unflappable Rose by two, and then failed miserably in his attempt to blast a drive around the left corner and give him an easy reach of the par-5 in two.

Garcia caught the trees, and the ball came down in thick stuff, where he had to take an unplayable. And the drop next to creek and the hazard line left the ball in a tangle and with trees to escape.

A bogey 6 was in the offing; a double bogey 7 was possible. Meantime, Rose was in a position for one-of-those routine birdies available to those that stay out of trouble on No. 13.

There was nobody in the history of championship golf more famous for extricating himself from messes as Ballesteros. For instance: Seve won the 1979 British Open by hitting a miracle shot from a parking lot, or "car park,'' as he called it.

And this time, the miracle belonged to Sergio: He hacked out his third to the fairway, hit his fourth in close and made a par. And with Rose's miss of a birdie putt, Garcia walked off the 13th still 2-down, rather than 4 or 5.

Two hours later, he had two putts from 10 feet to win the first hole of a playoff with Rose, made the first one, and Sergio had finally won a major in his 74th start … on Seve's birthday.

Fate rides again at Augusta National.