"The course was certainly as firm as most (British) Open venues"

I don't know what these guys watched, but the last four days, the fairways at Augusta didn't look that firm and fast to me.

The greens did, but not the fairways.

Anyway, Brian Hewitt at TheGolfChannel seems to be reaching with this one:

It’s my contention Jones and MacKenzie gleefully would have told the second-guessers that this 71st Masters played much more like an Open Championship than a U.S. Open.
 
This notion began incubating in my brain early in the week when defending champion Phil Mickelson came off the course and explained the difficulty of the green complexes and their putting surfaces. It’s not so much reading the break that’s hard, Mickelson said. It’s figuring out exactly where the ball is going to stop rolling.
 
This, of course, is exactly what links golf is all about. And the more of this Masters I watched, the more I became transfixed by the troubles the best players in the world were having getting their golf balls to stop where they wanted them to stop on and around the greens.

"The course was certainly as firm as most (British) Open venues," Doak informed me. "Some people think it's impossible to keep it that firm and have it green, too. But it is possible if you have enough money to hand-water the dry spots. And Augusta certainly has the resources to follow through.

Well, I suppose if you think some British Open venues of late have been way too soft and green, yes! 

Comments

[Chuck]

Right. A British Open. That's the ticket. With 150 new pine trees.

[Josh Hoisington]

I'm not sure that Bobby or Alister strike me as people prone to fits of glee...

Yeah, that's a big reach. If Dr. MacKenzie had wanted the course to play like an Open Championship, I assume his original design would have been what he had in mind, unless he was secretly frustrated in his own lack of ability to create a course that played like an Open and was just waiting for 80 years of people better suited to the task to help him out.

[DAW]

RIGHT! another monday morning armchair quarterback, like Hewitt has played a British Open and a Masters for comparision! He must have mental telepathy, knows each shot the players were hitting and exactly how those shots were responding when they hit the ground. Stick to what you know Brian, and keep the B.S. to yourself.