Master Zach

Every year, my brother and I have a competition for each of the four major golf championships where we each pick ten players, and the winner is the one whose players do the best. Like our NCAA bracket competition, the only stakes are family pride, but it's pretty cut-throat competition that neither of us wants to lose.

Anyone who's followed professional golf over the last decade knows that one player dominates the sport, so we have the "alternating Tiger" rule for first pick. Each of us gets TW in two majors per year, and the other one gets the second and third picks, then each of us pick two players at a time until the final pick. Here were our picks for the 2007 Masters. My brother (who got the Tiger this year) is M (as in Mark) and I am S (as in Steve).



In our elaborate scoring system, his one ended in a flat-footed tie, which is frustrating. I think Americans haven't warmed to soccer because we don't like sports that end in a draw. We each only had one of our ten picks miss the cut, which is good, but neither of us picked the winner Zach Johnson, which isn't. This is the first time since we've been doing this that the Masters champion has been off our grid. Every so often, an unheralded player breaks through to win a US Open or British Open, but it never happens at the Masters.

Until this year. Before the tournament, the odds on Zach Johnson winning were 150-1 (Tiger was at 5-2). He's not a total unknown (former winner, member of the US Ryder Cup team), but doesn't fit the mold of a Masters champion. My brother and I could have picked thirty players each before one of us picked Zach Johnson. But he won, and he won by beating everyone instead of someone else losing, so yay Zach. And he went to Drake, so yay MVC! And this is two golf posts in a row, but I'll be back to my regular scheduled blogging soon.