Wright Thompson's Essay on The Masters is Beautiful

We should be enjoying the opening round of The Masters this morning and complaining that the draconian television restrictions are impossible to stomach in 2020. Instead, we're left golf-less and largely joyless as the premier bird-chirping event of the sports calendar has been moved back to November. And that's the best-case scenario because there's a non-zero chance it gets canceled outright if the coronavirus keeps wrecking havoc in this or a subsequent wave.

ESPN's Wright Thompson, as he's wont to do, put the conflicting emotions of the moment into words and spoke those words for a magnificent short essay on the postponed tradition.

It will make you feel things.

"The Masters, like a few other things," Thompson says, "is a way we mark the passage of time and celebrate being alive. Because we all must believe that this too shall pass. We all must believe we'll return to the life we left behind or something close to it. Right now it is encouraging -- maybe even essential -- to believe that there will be a Masters come November and that we will not be scared to stand next to our human brothers and sisters."

There are few ideas worse in media than trying to add one's own words to Thompson's, but I'll make that mistake. The Masters resonates so much even with those who don't love the links because it symbolizes spring has sprung and once-dormant life is thriving again. It's the dawn of a hopeful, bright period. And being robbed of that right now stings in a place of the psyche that really needs some healing right now.

The tradition, though, will continue. Sometime down the road. Even if that's in the fall, it will still feel like the dawning of spring.