Monday qualifiers: AT&T Byron Nelson

Daniel Berger saved par on the first playoff hole at Colonial, then won when Collin Morikawa missed a 6-foot par putt.

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AUGUSTA, Ga. – Five things you may have missed amid the history-making excitement of Tiger Woods’ fifth Masters Tournament, 15th major, and 81st PGA TOUR victory. 1. The Masters juju was in full effect. When Woods won his historic first Masters title, in 1997, he played alongside Costantino Rocca in the final round. Rocca was arguably golf’s most prominent Italian touring professional until—Francesco Molinari, with whom Woods played in winning his fifth Masters on Sunday. While that was probably just a coincidence, nowhere is the Masters juju in greater effect than at the 12th hole, and once again there were strange, spooky happenings there. How could not one but four players in the last two threesomes find Rae’s Creek at the shortest par 3 on the course? Answer: the famous swirling winds at pretty-but-deadly Golden Bell.  “I played exactly how I wanted to play,â€� said Brooks Koepka, one of those who found the creek and double-bogeyed the hole on the way to a final-round 70 to finish 12 under, a shot back and in a three-way tie for second. “Didn’t really miss too many shots. Even the one on 12, I hit it exactly where I wanted to and the wind can kind of make you look stupid on that hole.â€� After ranking no harder than the 10th most difficult hole the first three days, the 12th was the hardest hole Sunday, with nine double bogeys and a 3.385 stroke average. 2. Woods hit the big shots in the clutch, but he got away with some. We can debate about whether or not this was the greatest comeback in sports history, but not whether, as usual, the win required a little luck. Because while Woods managed his game better than anyone and hit several terrific shots, he admitted he got away with some clunkers. “The tee shot at 11 was awful,â€� he said. He was talking about Sunday, but could have just as easily been talking about Saturday. Both times, though, he was far enough right to get lucky and be afforded a clear shot at the green—albeit a frighteningly narrow gap in the trees in the final round. (You couldn’t have drawn it any better with the ShotTracer.) Also, Woods got away with a left miss off the tee at the par-5 13th hole Saturday, his ball kicking out of the trees and into a playable spot in the grass. Golf is about not just great shots but also managing your misses, and with a little luck, Woods did that. Like many others, he never really figured out how to play the newly-lengthened, par-4 fifth hole, making bogey each day, but cited his 22 Masters starts as helping him get across the finish line. “It helps to be experienced,â€� he said, speaking of the devilish 12th hole, where everything changed. “That’s all I was concentrating on. Don’t be fooled. The other guys ended up short.â€� 3. It was age before beauty, but the kids are alright. Woods joked about the stress of trying to win causing his hair loss, but the reality is he was hardly the first person with male pattern baldness to slip on the green jacket. He was the second oldest Masters champion after Jack Nicklaus (46 in ’86) and the seventh player in his 40s to win. The others: Ben Crenshaw (43 in ’95), Gary Player (42 in ’78), Sam Snead (41 in ’54), Mark O’Meara (41 in ’98), and Ben Hogan (40 in ’53). What’s more, Woods broke the record of years between Masters victories (14, ’05-2019), previously held by Player (’61-’74). Bernhard Langer, 61, made the cut. Still, the kids and newcomers acquitted themselves well. Four amateurs made the cut, led by Oklahoma State’s Victor Hovland, who shot 72-71-71-71 to finish T32 and win low amateur. Meanwhile, newcomer Justin Harding of South Africa, a relatively unknown Presidents Cup hopeful, birdied the last hole to tie for 12th, which means he gets to come back next year. And while Xander Schauffele (68, T2) didn’t succeed in becoming the fifth straight first-time major winner at Augusta (Patrick Reed, Sergio Garcia, Danny Willett, Jordan Spieth), he led the field with 25 birdies and looks like a big-game hunter. Of course, we already knew that about Koepka, who has three victories and a T2 in his last eight majors. He also has made 19 consecutive cuts in the majors after missing his first two, at the 2012 U.S. Open and 2013 Open Championship. This marked his second T2 of this season (The Honda Classic), which he began by winning THE CJ CUP @ NINE BRIDGES.    4. Bryson’s ace was nearly a bookend, and he called it. In the course of shooting an opening-round 66, Bryson DeChambeau (70, T29) came within inches of making a hole-in-one on 16. He spoke afterward of never having made an ace. His disappointment lasted all of three days, though, because DeChambeau made one of two aces at 16 on Sunday, the other authored by Justin Thomas. “I knew back three years ago,â€� DeChambeau said after the final round, which he began with double-bogeys on 10 and 11. “I said to my caddie and to everyone in my camp, it was like, ‘I’m going to make a hole-in-one here one day, and sure enough it was my first one three years later.â€� 5. McIlroy and Spieth saw silver linings at T21 Jordan Spieth shot a front-nine 40 and an opening-round 75, but rallied with scores of 68-69-71. Not particularly memorable for a guy who won the tournament in 2015 and was in the mix to do the same in ’16 (T2) and ’18 (solo third), but Spieth is trying to crawl out of a long slump. “Positives,â€� he said, when asked what he took from the week. “I’m proud of kind of the progress I made, sticking to kind of the process,â€� he continued. “And I felt like I got to a position today that’s felt better than it’s been, tee to green, and even on the greens, in quite a while. So I’m just going to stick with it and hopefully get off to a little better start (at the RBC Heritage) next week, keep the consistency and have a chance to win.â€� Meanwhile, McIlroy, who won THE PLAYERS Championship last month and was going for the career Grand Slam at Augusta National, said he wasn’t far off but faulted his play on the par 4s. “And that’s just putting myself out of position off the tee,â€� he said after going 7 over on the par-4 holes for the week. “And then once you get yourself out of position it’s very hard to put yourself back in position. You miss greens, trying to get it up and down, you put pressure on yourself.  “So my driving accuracy wasn’t quite as good this week as it has been the last few weeks,â€� he added. “And that was probably the main reason why I didn’t contend this week.â€�

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Talk about beginner’s luck. The first time Graham DeLaet ever went fishing in Alaska, he caught a 55-pound king salmon. How do you put that in perspective? Well, consider this. A PGA TOUR pro’s fully-loaded golf bag weighs roughly 40 pounds — and there wasn’t a caddy in sight on the river that day. As big as DeLaet’s salmon was, though, it wasn’t near the record. According to the Alaska Sports Hall of Fame, that chinook weighed in at 97 pounds, four ounces. DeLaet was 3 years old when the late Les Anderson caught the fish on the Kenai River on May 17, 1985. Fast forward about two decades or so. Delaet, who is an avid outdoorsman, had gone to Alaska after the RBC Canadian Open several years ago for some much-needed rest and relaxation. He was using fish eggs for bait and hooked the salmon about 4 or 5 feet directly below the boat. The water was so murky, though, that DeLaet couldn’t see how big the fish was initially. “As soon as I hooked into him, they have a counter on the reel, he was 90 feet out before I even had the chance to think about what was happening,â€� the Canadian said. The battle with the stubborn fish was a challenge. And DeLaet said it felt like he fought to the salmon for a lot longer than the 15 or 20 minutes it probably took. “I almost gave the rod to my buddy,â€� DeLaet recalled. “He was like, man, you’ve got to pull this thing in. “When you are fishing the rivers there and they get into the rapids, it can get away from you so fast. It was kind of fight, fight, fight, fight, get to the boat, gone again, fight, fight, fight. It was fun.â€� DeLaet didn’t get to bring any salmon steaks home with him to Boise, Idaho, though. There were no fleshy pink filets to smoke, either. “It wasn’t the season for chinook, the kings, so I had to release him,â€� he said. Don’t worry. DeLaet says there is photographic evidence, so everyone knows this isn’t a fish story. DeLaet has been back to Alaska several times to see if he could catch another whopper like that one. He’s also fished for salmon in northern Washington with his wife, Ruby, and her family. The Boise State product initially started fishing to help him wind down from the rigors of playing golf for a living. He’s also a hunter and has sought big game in places as far away as Zimbabwe. “But I didn’t really start enjoying (fishing) until probably like 2010, something like that,â€� he said. “Kind of like my rookie year out here, I almost needed something to do to get away from golf, and that was it.â€� DeLaet’s twins, Lyla and Roscoe, now provide that release. When the two, who were born in 2015, get a little older, he hopes they’ll learn to enjoy fishing, too. “It would be a fun thing to share,â€� DeLaet said. That salmon remains the largest freshwater fish DeLaet has ever caught “by a mile,â€� he says. He did land a 40-inch barracuda earlier this year when he was fishing in the Atlantic Ocean near Fort Lauderdale, though. And this time he didn’t have to settle for a photograph. “I got that one mounted, so it’s coming,â€� DeLaet said. “It’s being delivered to Idaho to put up in my garage. It was a pretty nice barracuda.â€� Just in the garage? “Yeah. My wife won’t let me put it in the house, I’m sure,â€� DeLaet said. “Maybe if I get a cabin someday, I can put it in there.â€�

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