Columnist Dean Juipe: Barkley erred with remark on Augusta

Dean Juipe

Friday, April 12, 2002 | 9:25 a.m.

Dean Juipe's column appears Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. His boxing notebook appears Thursday. Reach him at juipe@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4084.

As an exuberant, wise-cracking former athlete who now has the platform of an analyst's spot on a cable TV network broadcasting professional basketball, Charles Barkley is in a position to be heard.

But something he said earlier this year is better left forgotten.

Barkley, in all his bombast, made headlines when he proclaimed that the course that hosts the Masters was lengthened, tricked-up and sabotaged in an effort to keep Tiger Woods from winning. Barkley cited racism as the catalyst behind the moves at Augusta National.

It was a foolish remark, made by someone who plays golf yet only thinks he knows something about it.

As was demonstrated Thursday during the first round of the tournament, there was no negative impact on Woods and there likely never will be. He may have hit a shot into a trap at No. 1 that he might have avoided a year ago, but he was not singularly affected by the alterations that have made the course some 300 yards longer and intermittently more narrow than it once was.

What Barkley failed to digest was this absolute fact: The tougher the golf course, the fewer the number of players who might win a tournament on it. On a hard tract, only a great player will post a low score.

And Woods is the greatest player of them all.

In truth, the Masters did Woods a favor. It took a demanding layout and interspersed a few more trouble spots, thereby eliminating another handful of guys who might have been able to win had the course not been subjected to renovation.

On an easy course by professional standards, such as the TPC at Summerlin here in Las Vegas, anyone in the field might win. But on a course as demanding as Augusta National, only the very best players in the world have a legitimate shot at victory.

Barkley couldn't have been more wrong. He recklessly shot from the hip and cast himself as something of a buffoon.

Woods, who opened with a 70 and has a spot on the leader board, will inevitably benefit anytime he's playing a course that the typical touring pro finds a struggle. The greater the skill it takes to play it, the better his chance to win.

This number is subjective, but I went through the 89 players entered in the Masters before a ball was struck and determined that only 12 have what I would call a "very good" shot at taking the green jacket Sunday. Another 24 fell into what I called the "might win if all goes right" category.

I'm not sure what those numbers would have been a year ago, but it's generally agreed that the likely candidates to win the Masters can be ascertained with a fairly brief head count.

Davis Love III, who led going into today's second round, is a viable contender and is one of the 12 I had circled in advance of the tournament as a potential winner. In fact, of the 17 players at two under par or better after the opening round, I had 10 circled as potential winners and three others designated as outside shots.

In other words, no matter who wins it's unlikely it'll be much of a surprise.

Whether it's Woods or not remains to be seen, but if he doesn't it will have nothing to do with racism.