Georgia on their minds
Masters champ Mike Weir gives his dad another priceless memory of Augusta National
By KEN FIDLIN -- Toronto Sun
PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. -- Father's Day came early this year for Rich Weir.
I mean, how many kids can pick up the phone and casually invite their fathers to join them for a couple of days of golf and stay in one of the famed cabins at Augusta National, home of the Masters?
Mike Weir can. And did. Sunday morning, Rich found himself on the most famous first tee in golf with the defending Masters champion who calls him "Dad."
DIFFERENT LOOK
"What an experience," Rich Weir said yesterday, as he walked along in his son's gallery during a practice round for The Players Championship.
"It's one thing to be out here," he said, waving a hand at the ropes that separate the playing area from the spectators. "But it's a whole different look from in there.
"It ate my lunch but it was something just to be out there."
The Weirs, father and son, were joined by Brennan Little, Mike's caddie, and Augusta member George Roberts, a good friend of Weir.
"We stayed in the Bobby Jones cabin, right there on the course," Rich Weir said. "It is really something to have that view out your front door."
Now, Mike Weir inherited many fine traits from his mother and father, but his golf skill came from someplace else. Rich is, at best, an 18 handicap, but that big number got no sympathy from his son.
"We took (Rich) all the way to the back on Sunday, to the very back," Mike said with a diabolical laugh. "From the tips, it was an eye-opener for him. He didn't announce his score."
Maybe not, but the elder Weir kept close tabs on his son.
"He picked up right where he left off last year," papa Weir said. "He made every putt he looked at, shot 66 on Sunday, maybe two-under (70) on Monday."
This was an important scouting trip for Mike Weir. There has been significantly less rain in eastern Georgia this year than in the previous two, with little chance of serious moisture before the Masters. That means the effect of the dramatic course changes introduced two years ago will, in all likelihood, finally be revealed. This will be a very different experience than Weir's soggy trek to the championship last year on rain-soaked fairways and greens.
"This will be the true test of the changes they made to the course," Weir said. "You'll see the ball running on the fairways and the greens hard and fast.
"It does make it play a little bit shorter than what it has been the last couple of years, but it's harder to get the ball closer to the hole from the fairway. You'll see a lot of lag putting, a lot of putting from a long ways away, just because the ball hits and feeds and catches the slopes and runs away. Last year (when the greens were soft) it might hit and stick."
Weir hasn't played in a month but the past two weeks have been a period of intense preparation, both for this week and then, the Masters, two weeks hence.
"I've been practising hard the last couple of weeks. I've had a taste of what winning a major is like and now I want to do it again," he said. "I've got to put the work in."
In many ways, TPC is a perfect tuneup for the Masters because it is played on a dry, firm course that puts a premium on the short game.
"The short game is going to be so important around here and around Augusta," Weir said. "You're not going to hit every green, especially when the ground is firm and it's blowing. I know (the Masters) is still a couple weeks away but they're expecting it to be dry and that means you're going to see some balls rolling off the greens. You're going to have some difficult chips. That's what I'm going to be working on."
FANTASTIC TIME
As much as Weir was in Augusta last weekend on business, he was nearly as pumped about the experience as his dad.
"It was a fantastic couple of days," he said. "It was just great to be able to have my dad out there, show him around, show him the Champions Locker Room. That's the cool thing about the Masters as compared with the other majors. I'm back here every year for the rest of my life and I can take my kids when they get older and someday, my grandkids."
First, though, he kept his priorities intact. He gave his dad a priceless memory. Make that another priceless memory.
