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MCCARTHY: Fiery Augusta in card for Masters ... Jordan Spieth arrives ... Canuck trio to play Tuesday ... Lisfranc fracture for Tiger?

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Last November we got the Masters we all needed; now it’s time for the one we all want.

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Moving back to its familiar spot in April, the sport’s most famous tournament is once again a harbinger of spring, of a long golf season ahead, and of golfers staring in confusion at seemingly impenetrable green complexes.

Five months ago, Dustin Johnson did for the Masters what the Tampa Bay Lightning did for the bubble hockey season: validated it. Nobody cries out for an asterisk when the league’s best team is holding the Stanley Cup or the world’s best golfer is slipping on a green jacket. Sure, the colours were muted in November, the putting greens were unusually forgiving, and a new Masters scoring record of 20-under par was set, but that tournament could have been held in July on Mars and it still would have been Johnson in a green jacket eating sandwiches at the end.

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Enough about last year, aren’t we all trying to forget it anyway?

This year, it’s been a warm, dry spring in Georgia, so trade your joggers for slacks and shave that pandemic beard, because Augusta National is back and in great shape.

“It’s going to be pretty spicy if they keep progressing the conditions, the greens are pure, they’re as fast and firm as I’ve seen them in a long time,” said Kevin Kisner, who was born and raised a half-hour from Augusta. “The golf course is just playing drastically different (than November), totally different shot shapes around the greens and into the greens.”

The only thing that could soften a harsh test of golf this week are possible thunderstorms threatening to arrive during the tournament. The green jackets at Augusta have some pull with the golf gods, though, so assuming it stays warm and sunny there will be a premium on impeccable iron play, short-game prowess, green reading and putting and, of course, past experience.

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Is that all?

“Potentially less than 10-under par is a winning score, where it requires a lot more course knowledge about where you leave the ball, and you have to hit an even more precise shot to get it where you want it to go,” Jordan Spieth said on Monday, an hour after arriving victoriously from Texas. “I think the firmer the better.”

You’ll hear a lot of that from the game’s top players because, well, let’s be honest, nobody looks very cool standing in front of a gaggle of reporters saying, ‘I hope the course plays really easy this week.’ Also, though, because it’s true; the harder Augusta plays, the easier it is for the absolute best golfers to separate themselves.

And that’s the whole point, right?

JORDAN IS BACK, RIGHT?

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Spieth sure knows how to make an entrance.

The three-time major winner arrives at the Masters fresh off a slump-busting win at the Valero Texas Open on Sunday. Over the past two months he has gone from a 50/1 longshot to win his second green jacket, to the No. 2 favourite at 11/1.

It’s not just Spieth ending his winless drought that should strike fear in the rest of the field, but that his brain apparently barely recognized that Sunday was the end of a three-year struggle. The lack of emotion even surprised him.

“I was happy that it didn’t hit me that hard, that it felt more normal, that it felt like me and that’s where I’m supposed to be, and this is who I am,” Spieth said on Monday. “I thought I would have the memories of the downs and the struggles and the climb back … and it just kind of was like a one-footer to win.”

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Spieth said the final thing that pushed him over the top and lit a fire under him as his form came around was the fact that he didn’t qualify for the season’s first WGC event at the end of February at Concession Club having fallen out of the top-50 in the world.

“When there was a tournament being played that week that I was healthy and could play in and just didn’t have a spot in the tournament, that kind of hit me and it was a driving factor,” he said.

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While Masters pools, bettors, and pretty much the entire golf world is on the Spieth train this week, the man himself says he’s not all the way back.

“I just feel like there’s quite a few things that I still need to really improve on and get better, and I felt that over the weekend,” Spieth said. “It was pretty awesome when I look back and think there’s a next level that I’ve been at that I’m still searching for right now.”

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CHIP SHOTS

Mike Weir, Mackenzie Hughes and Corey Conners have plans to play a practice round together on Tuesday. “Once Mike won, he really opened up a lot of doors for Canadian golfers trying to follow in his footsteps,” Hughes told me before heading to Augusta Sunday. “We have a game planned on Tuesday: Mike and Corey and myself. He’s been great in that sense, very willing to help at times. It’s been really cool.” … Jason Day, 33, says a firm, fast Augusta National is even more difficult for the latest generation of tour pros. “It just goes against the way that the younger generation plays the game of golf now,” Day said. “It’s all offensive-based on golf courses we typically play, and around here you have to be more on the defensive side.” Day’s high ball flight and deft touch around the greens have always seemed perfect for the Masters … Day was world No. 1 five years ago and said on Monday his goal is to get back there and stay for a while. He also said his ailing back is feeling good and he’s a little sick of talking about it. “I haven’t had a pain whatsoever,” he said. “I think since 2014 I’ve had 16 MRIs on my back so it’s been a long journey but now I feel pretty good about it.” … Bill Mallon, an orthopedic surgeon and former PGA Tour player who has worked with Golf Digest, said on Twitter Monday that he has learned Tiger Woods suffered a Lisfranc fracture among his injuries. A Lisfranc injury may sound familiar to sports fans as several NFL players including Le’Veon Bell, Santonio Holmes, and Dwight Freeney have suffered one. It is a complicated mid-foot injury that often slows an athlete’s recovery. There are the faintest hopes that Woods could make an appearance at Tuesday’s Champions Dinner.

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