AUGUSTA, Ga.
As Alvaro Quiros and his playing partners Jhonattan Vegas and Gary Woodland walked off the ninth tee Friday here at the Masters, an eerie reality dawned on the gallery. They had just seen three men utterly emulsify drives that traveled more than 1,000 yards combined — on the fly. No roll required, thanks. We’ll just go Express Mail direct. It’s a whole new world.
“That is the first time in a long time that I can check the clubs of the colleagues who are playing close enough to me,” said the 6-foot-3 Quiros, a Spaniard whose amused relaxed candor has captured fans here as he has smiled and joked his way into a third-place tie.
Usually Quiros is so far into the next zip code, there’s no point in his paying attention to his partners. His average drive on the European Tour is 314.8 yards — farther than J.B. Holmes, Bubba Watson, Dustin Johnson or any U.S Tour belter.
This Masters monster-mash trio — ages 27, 26 and 26, all of them as fit as big league outfielders — exchanged glances with players leaving nearby No. 1 green, including Rickie Fowler, 22, last year’s PGA Tour rookie of the year, and Rory McIlroy, 21, the rookie runner-up.
There, captured in a moment, you saw the balance of power at the top of the youth movement in elite golf. On one hand, you have traditionally-built golfers, like the slim 5-foot-9 McIlroy who’s still trying to “gym up” and the violent 150-pound contortionist Fowler. You wouldn’t want to spend the next decade as Rickie’s spinal column.
Most of golf’s greatest players have been less than 6 feet tall because the fine motor coordination needed for the short game manifests itself less often in gents such as Vegas, who stand 6-3 and weigh 230 pounds, or Quiros, who says “I have brick-layer hands.” Those who were 6-4 — such as Tom Weiskopf, Phil Mickelson and Davis Love III — seldom looked like they’d spent their youths hurdling tacklers or slam-dunking on playgrounds.
The combination of sufficient power, shot-making prowess with irons and touch around the greens is still the confluence that makes players such as McIlroy the timeless tuxedo of golf.
“Can Rory win?” said Quiros, hardly believing anyone would doubt McIlroy, whose 65-69—134 work leads the field by two shots over Jason Day, 23, who shot 64 playing with McIlroy and Fowler. “Rory’s top 10 in the world, right? What do you think? He has every chance.”
But he’s young.
“And good,” Quiros quipped. “What’s the problem with it?”
None. But, on the other hand — and much bigger hands these days, we might add — golf now offers us players such as Quiros, Vegas and Woodland, whom Tiger Woods described this week as “the guys who have played other sports, then decided to play golf instead. It’s neat to see these guys transform our sport. They are doing things no one has ever seen on Tour before. . . . That’s the new game.
“When Gary [Woodland] steps on it, it’s like, ‘Whoa, are you kidding me?’ His ball is [compressed] flat. When you think it should be coming down, it just continues to fly.”
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