Masters Friday

Well, Thursday certainly delivered the goods...Though I did have to review the leaderboard this morning to ensure that I remembered it correctly.  For instance, Kooch at -4 was a bit of a surprise.

Where to begin?  With him, I presume:

AUGUSTA, Ga. -- No other course makes him more comfortable. Even more familiar than a sharp short game was his name atop the leaderboard at the Masters. 

Jordan Spieth appears to be back on his game. 

Spieth took only 10 putts on the back nine Thursday at Augusta National, including five straight birdies. The last one was from tap-in range after another superb pitch, from the left gallery to escape with bogey for a 6-under 66 and a 2-shot lead over Matt Kuchar and Tony Finau.

I didn't see it coming, and I do hate it when the guys go aff my script, which is pretty much always.  But not only am I the '62 Mets of Fantasy Golf, but I asked the wrong rhetorical question on Monday.  I wondered whether Poulters dramatics might help save the Houston Open.  If anything might save it, it would have to be this guy.

Jordan had an interesting sequence early in his round...  He missed a short putt, which has been his nemesis this year.  Then, on the next hole, he had a tap-in that tried hard to miss right, but barely caught enough lip to drop....  After that, it was center-cut the hole way in.... 

Steve DiMeglio thinks this one might still deliver the goods :

Maybe this Masters will live up to the hype. 

On a Thursday that broke chilly but eventually warmed up under plentiful sunshine, the first round of the 82nd Masters didn’t fail to deliver an eccentric bounty of storylines and an eclectic leaderboard. 

Four-time major champion Rory McIlroy put himself in position to complete the career Grand Slam with a 3-under-par 69, a score matched by 2016 British Open champion Henrik Stenson as he celebrated his 42nd birthday. 

Three-time Masters champion Phil Mickelson is in striking range to become the oldest winner of the green jacket after a 70, Matt Kuchar shot 68 as he tries to win his first major, and Tony Finau, who dislocated his ankle Wednesday after making a hole-in-one in the Par-3 Contest, shot 68 in his first Masters.

Ya think?  Per my unofficial scorecard, the only Official Storyline that's in peril is Justin Thomas, who shot 74....  OK, fair enough, I'll concede that Sergio's chances of repeating took a small hit.... we'll get to that one for sure.

The leader did have this to say:

“I’ll always have demons out here,” said Spieth, who two years ago at the Masters

coughed up a five-shot lead on the back nine on Sunday. “But I’ll always have a tremendous amount of confidence out here. Once you win here, you have an advantage over anybody who hasn’t won here.” 

No matter that Spieth entered the week ranked 185th on the PGA Tour in strokes gained: putting. Never mind that he had missed two cuts this year and not won since last summer’s British Open. 

“I know that it’s close and that I’ve been saying that and not performing on what I’m saying,” Spieth said after missing the cut alongside Tiger Woods at the Valspar Championship in March.

All golfers have demons... But let's see how he putts today, before we concede him this one....

On Wednesday evening Theresa walked into the man-cave as a bit on Henrik Stenson was running, and proceeded to pick him to win.  I didn't have the heart to remind her of his record in this event:

Combined, Henrik Stenson and Patrick Reed had played in 16 Masters prior to this week. They had zero top 10s to show for it. 

That was especially baffling in light of the fact that Stenson didn’t seem to have a game ill-suited for Augusta. And he had multiple top-10 showings in every other major. Reed didn’t have a top 10 in any major until last year’s PGA Championship, but that drought was a surprise in itself.

Well, at least for a day something changed. 

Stenson and Reed both fired opening 3-under 69s Thursday at the Masters, putting the pair in a tie for fourth and in early contention for the green jacket. While Jordan Spieth went on a late birdie blitz to distance himself a bit from the field, Stenson and Reed are just three shots back.

Stenson provides today's perspective on our crazy game...  In pre-tourney pressers he's noted that perhaps he played too conservatively off the tee, vowing to unleash the big dog this year.  He followed through, but it wasn't working, so he ended up going back to that trusty 3-wood....

As for Patrick, well his sponsor seems to have better judgment than he himself does:

Ever since he was in junior golf, Patrick Reed has worn a red polo and black pants in homage to who he considers to be the greatest golfer to ever live, Tiger Woods. 

This year the tradition gained more likeness as Reed signed an apparel deal with Nike, Woods’ longtime sponsor. 

But should Reed make it to Sunday at Augusta National, he won’t be in his usual final-round attire, The Forecaddie has learned. 

“Nike … they’re doing a new thing where all the players stay in the same kind of storyline,” Reed said. 

This storyline, which included navy and dark gray options for Thursday, will continue throughout the tournament. So the only player who will wear red on Sunday, should he make the cut, will be Tiger.

Thank you, Nike.....  May I suggest a pink storyline for the U.S. Open?

We're all about the storylines this week, including this one that dates back to 5:00 p.m. on Wednesday.  First, this very interesting bit on the most watched warm-up since DJ a tear prior:

Finau showed up an hour and 20 minutes before his tee time, with a pronounced limp and a thick white wrap above his low-top Nike shoes. Instead of warming up on the flat range, he initially headed to a hilly spot in the short-game area. There, he tried a series of shots from every possible lie – uphill, downhill, sidehill, hanging – to test his stability. Still, Summerhays said, “His mind wouldn’t let him go into that left ankle.”

So he made a few adjustments. Finau shifted his alignment to the left. Then he put the ball further back in his stance, so he could put more weight on his right side. Even as he worked his way through the bag, he never swung up fully onto his right toes, opting to remain almost flatfooted. 

After receiving a few minutes of treatment, he headed back out onto the far-right side of the range, carrying two bags of balls, though just a handful would have sufficed. The entire range session lasted only 14 minutes, and he hit just four drivers. 

“He was in pain, but nothing overwhelming,” said his caddie, Greg Bodine. “And even if it was, I think he still would have made it to the first tee. He’s worked his whole life to get to this spot.”

Anyone that saw him go down on Wednesday was in disbelief that he could walk the golf course on Thursday.  But here's the miracle:

And then something bizarre happened. The longer Finau played, the better his foot felt. He erased an opening bogey with a birdie on 2. Then he flagged a 225-yard 5-iron on 4. Relying on tips from Billy Casper and Johnny Miller, he added birdies on Nos. 8, 9, 13 and 15 to move into the solo lead at 4 under, proving, perhaps for the first time, that pro golfers really are tough guys. 

“I told him: ‘You can’t say you’re an athlete and then you can’t celebrate. That’s gonna take that status away,’” Kelepi said, chuckling. “So he said, ‘I’m going go prove it tomorrow.’”

He's got a quick turnaround to do it again today, so let's hope the swelling wasn't too bad.... I know, beware the injured golfer.

And then there was Tiger.... per Alan Shipnuck:

AUGUSTA, Ga. — Let's start with the good news: Tiger Woods did not blow himself out 

of this Masters with his opening-round 73. He fought hard on the back nine to play the final five holes in two under and salvage his round. He didn't blow out his back or dislocate his ankle or get crushed by a falling pine tree. His kids still love him. 

Now for the bad news: Woods looked jittery off the tee. His distance control with his irons was erratic, leaving a series of frightening downhill putts. He made a mess of every par-5. He got curb-stomped by his playing partner, Marc Leishman. Facing the most benign conditions he is likely to get all week, Tiger is already seven strokes off the lead, looking less like the rejuvenated medical miracle who lit up the Florida swing and more like the post-scandal nearly-man who has repeatedly had his weaknesses exposed at Augusta National.

Can we assume that your fact-checkers confirmed that his kids still love him?

I do think that Alan nails it with this:

That's because, unlike virtually every other golfer in the field, he eschewed driver in favor of a 3-wood. It was a defensive play, as revealing as the iron off the 72nd tee at the Valspar. Tiger still made a fretful swing, yanking his drive into his favorite spot, the left trees. Has any great player ever had as much trouble hitting a fairway as Woods does on Augusta National's opening hole? Still, he scrambled to save par, and then on the par-5 2nd unleashed a towering draw 351 yards down the fairway. The driver has been the weakest part of Woods's game during this unexpected renaissance, and his discomfort in shaping the ball right-to-left with it has been a long-standing bugaboo. After the bomb on the 2nd tee, the swollen gallery breathed a collective sigh of relief. But Woods's wipey approach shot expired in the front bunker and the long third shot that followed was much too strong. The par was a letdown.

The par was fine, but you're not gonna win this event if you're scared of your driver.  Though, to be fair, I thought Tiger looked better with the big dog late in the round, so we'll see if there's any carryover.

Of course he's putting a brave face on it all:

Afterward, Woods was asked if he was relieved to have survived this good news/bad news round. "Yes," he said. "I played in a major championship again. But also the fact I got myself back in this tournament and I could have easily let it slip away. I fought hard to get back in there. It will be fun the next 54 holes."

I'll concede that just in the sense that he does have a tee time today... But he's looking up at a lot of names that have done things in the game...

That's a perfect segue to his old friend Sergio, whose honeymoon with Augusta National didn't have much of a shelf life:

A year ago, this fit the narrative. But now? We were supposed to be done with this part of Sergio's relationship with golf. Garcia-as-victim was a storyline that we thought he'd

buried on this very same hole, Augusta National's reachable par-5 15th, with a towering eight-iron and a triumphant eagle one year ago this week.

The cliffnotes, if you missed it: after a 322-yard drive down the left-center of the fairway, Garcia hit his second, fourth, sixth, eighth, and 10th shots into the pond (effectively!) guarding the 15th green. (The first water ball was a six-iron, and the next four were wedges from the drop zone.) He then got up-and-down for a 13, tying the highest score ever recorded on any hole at the Masters. His bounce-back birdie on No. 16 was impressive, but did little to counteract the scorecard-destructing octuple-bogey.

Let's get a few things out of the way...  We know the venue, where the difference between good shots and disaster is measured in millimeters.   And the 15th has always been a golf hole on steroids.  The best argument to going for it is how difficult the wedge is if one lays up.

Per Shack, it was even more treacherous this year:

I sat with the horrified onlookers in the 16th hole grandstand watching Sergio's Roy

McAvoyimpersonation and from the side, it was fascinating how quickly everyone knew each attempt was doomed due to a pair of factors: the severity of the hole location and a tighter shaving of the immediate lake surrounds, which had been more forgiving at times in recent years. Each time Sergio's ball passed the hole with any speed, it was a gonner (Marc Leishman chipped into the pond in the group prior.)

But, at a certain point, the stubbornness isn't helpful:

"I don't know. I don't know what to tell you. It's one of those things. I feel like — I don't know," he said. "It's the first time in my career where I made a 13 without missing a shot. Simple as that." 

Did Garcia have a legitimate gripe with the setup of the pin? Perhaps. But his words called to mind Garcia missives of years gone by, words we thought we'd heard the last of.

You can call them good shots, if you insist...  But what I saw was a guy stubbornly hitting the same shot over and over, seemingly expecting a different result.  

The only good news is the family's near miss...  at least they didn't name their little girl Firethorn.

Sam Weinman does a typical winners and losers take on the day, and I certainly agree with this take:

Birdie: Rory McIlroy 

Although he’s registered top-10s in his last four Masters appearances, McIlroy had only broken 70 once in the first round at Augusta National. That was in 2011, when he shot 65 to start then famously squandered a four-shot lead in the final round. The second time came Thursday, when McIlroy’s 69 placed him three shots behind Spieth, giving him perhaps his best chance to complete the career Grand Slam this week.

My favorite way to start a round of golf is to make a five-footer for par.... that's the kind of round Rory had yesterday.  His finish was quite sloppy, though he saved it with his short game and putter.  Sometimes that's all a player needs.....

 I might watch this afternoon...  How about you?