What we liked and didn’t like about the 1st ever Augusta National Women’s Amateur

The best amateurs in the world put on a fantastic show at the home of the Masters this weekend.

The first ever Augusta National Women’s Amateur was a success. There can be improvements, and some historical contexts were ignored in self-congratulatory hype, but overall, it was a success and a fantastic watch. Here are some thoughts on this new endeavor, and what we liked and did not like about its first run.

What we loved

1. This was a great show when you got down to the actual golf and characters playing the golf. Strip down all the hyperbole and over-dramatic framing of “what it all meant” in the grander scheme of things, and this was always going to be what made this a success. Amazing women playing amazing golf on an incredible backdrop that we’ve memorized. The golf made the show, with two top tier women’s college players, Jennifer Kupcho and Maria Fassi, in a head-to-head race striping the hell out of the ball on the back nine at Augusta National. The golf was beautiful and the course looked beautiful and it was a great Saturday afternoon show before the sports world turned to the Final Four.

With an eagle on No. 13 @jenniferkupcho is tied for the lead during the final round at #ANWAgolf pic.twitter.com/u7e3OK050r

— Augusta National Women's Amateur (@anwagolf) April 6, 2019

2. Kupcho not only played a second nine that any of the competitors in the Masters would take in their final rounds, but she also did it in a condition that might make many of them withdraw. During the coverage, she mentioned something about being able “to see again” on the 11th hole. It was a puzzling comment out of context, but then she dropped this in Butler Cabin during the trophy presentation.

“Actually, I don’t know if it was said on TV or not, but I actually got a migraine on the 8th green. From here over to the left, I just couldn’t see. It was blurry. I told my caddie, ‘Look, I’m just looking for you to read the putts. Just tell me where to hit it and I’ll do my best to hit it there.’

Amazingly enough, I knew it was going to — I’ve gotten these migraines before so I knew the blurriness was going to go away and I would just have a headache (Ed. note: JUST a headache). So on that 11th tee is where it kind of started to go away and I was able to finally see. And kind of from there, that’s where it all started. I knew that I was going to be able to do it. I was just trying to get myself under control and get through the holes where I couldn’t see anything.’

Jason Day considered withdrawing from the Masters just listening to that.

3. We’re so used to seeing this course only in Masters conditions, so it was fascinating to watch Saturday’s round played from the member tees and probably closer approximate what the original design intended. We need more elite women’s events on the great classic courses of the world. For the hardcore golf nut, it’s the best way to watch and appreciate these designs.

4. This was a commendable decision and endeavor by Fred Ridley, who introduced the women’s event as one of his first orders of business when he took over as chairman. We’ll to the extraneous hype of it, but the decision to do this as soon as he became chairman is worth recognizing. The players then delivered to make it a show.

5. TV ratings should not dictate whether this endeavor (or most sports productions for that matter) was worthwhile or not. But there is an appetite for this. We knew this. We knew it with or without TV ratings data as some sort of affirmation. But if that’s the kind of thing that is important to you, Nielsen added that it was the highest ranked amateur event — men’s or women’s — since the 2003 U.S. Amateur at Oakmont.

6. It’s hard to overstate how much of a joy it was to watch Kupcho and Fassi, who most of America and even golf nerds had probably not heard of before this weekend, play together in the final round. Kupcho said after the round that they made an effort to put on the show together, beyond just golf shots, and that made it so fun in the final hours.

Coming out of it with Maria in the final group with me, I think both of us kind of just wanted to send the message that golf is about having friends, and to be out there with her, we were cheering each other on, and that’s kind of how golf is supposed to be.

And to make it look fun; it is fun. So to make it look that way for everyone watching, I hope it encourages people to pick up a club and go play.

It may be treacly, but it did look fun. Sports are fun. We should enjoy watching sports. Even this hardened cynical heart was smiling as I watched the two put on a stripe show in biggest stage of their competitive lives to date.

Play Amen Corner✅#ANWAgolf pic.twitter.com/4emB6qQBtU

— Augusta National Women's Amateur (@anwagolf) April 6, 2019

What we didn’t like

1. Saturday was special, but if it’s going to be called the Augusta National Women’s Amateur, every invitee should get to play a competitive round at Augusta National. Instead, the full 72-woman field played at nearby Champions Retreat for 36 holes and a cut was made. Every player got to play a Friday practice round at Augusta. Why not just make that a competitive round? You have the full field out there already so it’s hard to cite the wear-and-tear concerns a week before the Masters. Play one round at Champions retreat if you must, but then move the field to ANGC and the post-cut final 30 to ANGC on Saturday.

2. The hard cut on Thursday should have been flexible. We had 11 women tied above the cut line forcing an 11-for-10 playoff that felt unnecessary. Playing the first 36 holes well enough to be tied for 21st, and then being the one of 11 to not make it to Augusta National in the playoff feels like just about the cruelest way to miss a cut. It’s hard to predict all this and have flexibility in advance, but an odd-numbered 31 with a playing marker, as we have in the Masters, seemed like the best and obvious way to go.

3. Scheduling this opposite the first major championship of the year, the LPGA’s ANA Inspiration, is not ideal. That Saturday rating, and all the attention Golf Channel paid ANWA during the week, certainly took some of the shine and pub away from a major championship. These are two premier events in women’s golf that should not be competing for oxygen. The desire to put this back-to-back with the Masters is understandable, but I’d love to see the ANWA on a fall Augusta National setup. But you can probably guess who’s going to move their championship first. It’s not the green jackets.

4. I’ve already noted this was a commendable decision by Ridley to create this event. But then there was the hyperbolic framing, not necessarily from Ridley, proclaiming that it was busting through some wall. The game of golf, and Augusta, put up so many of those walls so it was hard to hear from these same voices that they were doing something historic. This hype from those around the event, not the competitors, grew tiresome. Something like it should have happened a long time ago. Why not just create it and let these women put on the show that they did? Why not just let it breathe? If the competitors think it’s monumental or historic or that they were hoping to inspire new generations, let them state that. Some did state it, but it got Iost as those same messages were force-fed in hyperbole to us by interested parties desperate to make it work.

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