Steve Flesch has a chance to win the Masters. A long-shot chance, to be sure – he begins the final round today at 3-under par, eight strokes behind co-leaders Angel Cabrera and Kenny Perry – but Flesch earned an invitation to Augusta, and he survived the cut, and if he finishes among the top 16 today, he’s guaranteed to return next year.

Flesch is a bright guy with an engaging personality and a compelling underdog’s saga to share with the world. But on the best day of his life, Flesch does not have the golfing ability of Ryan Moore.

But Flesch is competing in the Masters today. So is Ken Duke, Todd Hamilton and Dudley Hart, not to mention Sean O’Hair, Nick Watney and Aaron Baddeley.

You likely have heard of Hamilton – he won the 2004 British Open, an epic upset reminiscent of Buster Douglas’ knocking the then-undefeated Mike Tyson into oblivion in 1990 – and Baddeley’s name might ring a bell, since he’s twice participated in Moore’s charity skins game at Chambers Bay.

But Ken Duke? Nick Watney? Dudley Hart? Sean O’Hair? Watching their names scrolling across the bottom of the TV screen Saturday, it was impossible not to wonder: Why are they still playing in the Masters while Ryan Moore – the Cascade Christian graduate who went on to become the world’s top amateur golfer while at UNLV – is left to ponder how lesser talents have surpassed him?

We know why Moore didn’t qualify for the Masters. He hasn’t won a tournament in the past 12 months. He isn’t among the top 30 money winners on the PGA Tour, or in the top 50 of the world golf rankings. Any one of those distinctions works. Moore went 0-for-3.

In the meantime, Duke earned his way into the tournament with the help of four top-10 finishes in 2008. Hart, ranked 448th as recently as 2007, had six top-10 finishes last year. They aren’t household names, but if you were watching the Masters at home Saturday, you saw their names in your house. They did what they had to do to get to Augusta, and they’ve made the most of their opportunity.

Same with Moore’s age-group contemporaries. O’Hair, born the same year as Moore, in 1982, earned his way into the Masters field by improving his world ranking from 157th two seasons ago to 28th.

Watney, the Fresno State golfer who preceded Moore onto the PGA Tour, began 2007 with a world ranking of 137th. But he’s won twice in the past year, and is now 35th – 122 slots ahead of Moore.

Baddeley has slumped since rising as high as 18th in the 2007 world rankings, but, again, to paraphrase Al Davis: Just qualify, baby.

What makes Moore’s absence from the Masters so frustrating is that he’s got the game for that course. At least, he used to.

Four years ago, when he still was in college, Moore finished 13th at the Masters, the best showing by an amateur in more than 25 years. With a tournament exemption in hand for 2006, it was easy to envision Ryan Moore as much as a perennial at the Masters as the blooming azaleas.

Then his career was detoured by a serious left wrist injury that required surgery and adjustments to his swing. The wrist problems prevented Moore from returning to Augusta in 2006, but he recovered to the point he was able to tie for ninth place at the PGA Championship later that summer. And he seemed poised to get back on track in 2007 when he took second place at Jack Nicklaus’ Memorial Tournament and missed making the U.S. Open cut by one stroke.

This isn’t to be mistaken for a tragedy. Only 26, Moore has won almost $5 million on the PGA Tour – more than enough to live in luxury for the rest of his life. He’s got a college degree in communications, and the charity event he organized put Chambers Bay in the spotlight before the USGA announced the former gravel pit would be home for the 2015 U.S. Open.

Furthermore, it should be remembered that Moore would have qualified for the Masters had he not been denied the win at the Byron Nelson Classic last May. (He finished second to Adam Scott, who drained a 50 foot putt on the third playoff hole.)

Close, so close.

Except close doesn’t count for a golfer with Moore’s transcendent ability. When you win the U.S. Amateur championship, the U.S. Public Links championship, the NCAA Division I championship and the Western Amateur championship in the same season, as Moore did in 2004, comparisons are made to another collegiate prodigy, Tiger Woods.

That’s unreasonable, of course. There is only one Tiger Woods.

But comparisons to Steve Flesch, Ken Duke, Todd Hamilton and Dudley Hart are legitimate. So are comparisons to Sean O’Hair, Nick Watney and Aaron Baddeley.

All of these guys will be playing today on the closest thing the American sports stage has to a Garden of Eden. All of these guys scored a ticket to Augusta, and played well enough to stay there through the weekend.

Ryan Moore has nothing to be ashamed about, but if he’s not doing a long, simmering burn today, he needs to check his surgically repaired wrist.

Just to make sure there’s a pulse.

John McGrath: 253-597-8742; ext. 6154

john.mcgrath@thenewstribune.com