Augusta National Turns Green In A Week

When money is no object, you can do amazing things with a golf course and Augusta National Golf Club, as we all know, is no ordinary golf course.

A couple of weeks ago, The National looked like a pair of khaki trousers — totally light brown — as all the fairway grasses had gone dormant.

Add about a million pounds of rye mixture overseed, add water and voila — it’s all green again!  Look closely at the picture above and you can see the sprinklers pouring water on the fresh overseed.

There’s still a lot of work to do as the grounds staff prepares the course for the 2020 Masters, which begins in just 38 days.  It takes a lot of water and warm air to get that rye to grow and it appears the formula has been just right.

Once the overseed has taken root, it will begin a drying process to get some firmness to those fairways.

Greens are no problem, the overseed will be a hybrid mixture to assure the putting surfaces are nothing short of perfect.

So we’re on the final countdown.

Only thing missing will the be flowers and azaleas.

Mel Reid Breaks Through With Win At Shoprite:

Perhaps the most popular win of the LPGA season came to life Sunday afternoon not far from the Jersey shore.

England’s Mel Reid hit two great shots to finish off her first LPGA Tour win at the Shoprite Classic.

From the right rough on the par-five 18th, Reid hit a six-iron that came out hot and finished at the back of the green.  Two putts and a closing birdie gave Reed a 67 and a tournament record 19-under par, two better than rookie Jennifer Kupcho.

It was total redemption from her last start two weeks ago at the Cambia Portland Classic where she held the 54-hole lead but couldn’t close the deal.

After Reid holed a two-footer for the four, she dropped her putter and her celebration began.  Fellow players and caddies showered with a combination of beer and champagne.

“Relief, just relief; Thank-you to everyone; A lot more to it than just me — family, friends, my whole team,” Reid said before she took a drink of champagne.

“I’m just over the moon, so emotional. So happy for myself and my team, there is a lot more to it than just me hitting a golf ball,” she continued.  “I read a tweet yesterday and it was probably one of the only bad tweets that I got saying she’ll choke. It gave me a bit of motivation. I know it sounds stupid, but probably the best thing I could have read. I was definitely not letting that happen.  The older you get in this game you do create a few scars. But being 33 years old and lifting this trophy when I had some young players behind me, it goes to show I guess that I like adversity. I’ll always be a fighter and try and fight my way through things. I’m so happy and relieved that I got it done.”

Reid had won six times on the Ladies European Tour but has struggled for that first win since joining the LPGA Tour in 2017.

She played in 2006 Curtis Cup and was low amateur at the 2007 Women’s British Open, her personal life derailed in 2012 when her mother was killed in a car crash near Munich while driving to watch her play a Ladies European Tour event.  It took time for her to recover from the loss but on Sunday on the Bay Course at Seaview, she got the job done.

Shoprite Scoreboard: