Previous Blogs from David
David Barrett blogging, on second round action.
David Barrett on how Phil Mickelson is in a good spot for the weekend.
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7:35 pm
Tiger Woods has got to be feeling a little better about his chances on the weekend after a tap-in birdie on 17 and a par save from the 10th fairway on 18 to finish with a 71 and his first subpar nine (35). He slipped to 1-over for the tournament with a bogey on 10, but came back with birdies on 13 and 17. Woods said after the round that he was battling the wind for 14 holes before it died down, and also found himself between clubs on a number of approach shots. He's seven strokes back, but there are only 12 players ahead of him and he wouldn't have to match the record 36-hole comeback of eight strokes by Jack Burke Jr. in 1956. Woods came from six back after 36 when he won in 2005.
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7:20 pm
Mike Weir just birdied the 18th for a 68, the best score under the more difficult afternoon conditions with the greens drying out and the wind swirling. All in all, it was an even better day for scoring than the first round, with one 67 and four 68s. The scoring average was 73.554 compared to 74.180 in the first round.
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6:55 pm
It's looking more and more likely that the cut will come at 3-over instead of 4-over. That means that Fred Couples' streak of consecutive cuts made would end at 23, encompassing all of his previous appearances at Augusta. Couples had an eight-foot putt for a birdie on the 18th, but it slipped past the edge as he finished at 4-over 148. Thus it looks like Gary Player will continue to share the record for consecutive cuts made at 23 (1959-82).
That would make it a good weekend in the record books for Player, who passed Arnold Palmer with 51 Masters appearances. He told TV interviewer Mike Tirico after the round that he planned to be back next year, too, so it wasn't just a matter of passing Palmer. Perhaps he's trying to post a record that will be tough for Tiger Woods to break.
[UPDATE] The cut did come at 3-over, the lowest since 2002. It eliminated Ernie Els, Aaron Baddeley, and Sergio Garcia by one stroke; also missing was Rory Sabbatini, the third straight Par 3 Contest winner to fail to make the cut.
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6:15 pm
It was a good day for long-hitting Masters rookies J.B. Holmes and Bubba Watson, who shot 70 and 71 respectively. Currently, Holmes stands in 14th place at 143 and Watson 23rd at 145. Both figured out the par fives a little bit better after going even par on them in the opening round, but they are still not overpowering them as Holmes was 2-under and Watson 1-under. Both made a bogey on a par five, showing that there is risk on those holes, Watson making a bogey on No. 2 for the second straight day and Holmes slipping up on the 13th.
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5:50 pm
None of the three amateurs was able to make the cut. Mid-Amateur champion Trip Kuehne posted the low score at 150 after a 72 on Sunday. Michael Thompson was right on the cut line at 4-over with a birdie putt on 15 when he called a one-stroke penalty on himself for his ball moving after address. It led to a bogey, followed by bogeys on the next two holes and a 78--151. British Amateur champion Drew Weaver of Virginia Tech finished at 156.
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Ian Poulter failed to break par in his first 11 rounds at Augusta, but he has now done it in all three rounds since then. After a final-round 70 last year lifted him to a tie for 13th place, Poulter opened with a 70 yesterday and bettered that with a 69 to move into a tie for third. His birdie at the 16th hole gave him a total of three strokes there through two days, after his ace in the first round.
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5:00 pm
Geoff Ogilvy made his first birdie of the week on the 11th hole of the second round, the last player in the field to make a birdie. Still, he's looking good for making the cut. Ogilvy is 3-over, and the cuts looks like it will probably be at 4-over, possibly 3-over. The Australian is coming off a win and a second in his last two starts, where he was a total of 31-under.
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4:55 pm
Tiger Woods is stuck in a rut, and it's not a good one. He just finished the front nine with an even-par 36, giving him a 36 on all three nines he has played so far. He had two birdies and two bogeys, one of them on the par-five second. It was only his second bogey on that hole in 52 rounds at Augusta.
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4:05 pm
The shot of the day was struck by Brandt Snedeker, who on the way to a 68 and 137 total chipped in for a par on the sixth hole--from the green. Snedeker pushed his tee shot and ended up on the top shelf on the back right, with the hole located on the extreme back left only four paces from the back fringe. With a precipitous downslope between his ball and the hole that would shoot the ball away from the hole and towards the front of the green, he didn't see how he could keep a putt within 30 feet of the hole. So he pulled out his lob wedge so that he could carry the slope in the air and also spin the ball.
"I knew there were a couple of members worried when I took out a lob wedge," said Snedeker. "But I figured it would be OK if I didn't take a divot, and I didn't." Even with spin, the ball was on its way to going 10 or 12 feet past, but it was on a perfect line and dropped into the hole.
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3:50 pm
Phil Mickelson jsut wrapped up a 68 that included four birdies and no bogeys to tie for third at this point at 5-under 139. His ball-striking today was exceptional, hitting 15 greens and 12 out of 14 fairways. He didn't get all that many putts to drop, but he looks like a good bet heading into the weekend.
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The last 52 weeks have not been easy for Trevor Immelman. First he picked up a parasite while playing in last year's Masters and lost about 15 pounds in two weeks. Then in December, after winning the Nedbank Challenge in his native South Africa, he had to undergo an operation for a tumor behind his ribcage that fortunately turned out to be benign. He couldn't walk for two weeks and couldn't even chip and putt for six weeks.
Before the physical woes, Immelman was well on his way to establishing himself as one of the game's top young players, and that's where he wants to get back to, and more. "I kind of felt like it was just a speed bump, really," he said.
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2:45 pm
Trevor Immelman's 68-68 start marks only the third time a player has shot back-to-back 68s to open the tournament. Sam Byrd did it in 1942 to trail Byron Nelson by one and ultimately finished fourth (75-74 finish. Tom Watson did it in 1991 to open a two-shot lead, ultimately tying for third (70-73 finish).
In 16 previous Masters rounds coming into this year, Immelman had broken par only once, a 65 in the third round in 2005 when he tied for fifth. He had shot 75 or higher in 10 of those 16 rounds and his previous average in the first two rounds was 74.9.
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2:40 pm
Steve Flesch is only playing in his fourth Masters, but the 67 he shot today was not the first time he posted that number. He also shot a 67 in the second round of 2004. The difference is that whereas that one came after a 76 in the first round, this time he had opened with a 72, so he is in good position at 5-under 139, in third place at the moment. The par fives are the place to do your scoring at Augusta, but Flesch took that to the extreme by playing the par fives in five under, with an eagle on the 13th and birdies on Nos. 2, 8, and 15. He parred the 14 other holes.
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2:20 pm
The wind picked up dramatically for about 10 minutes at around 1 o'clock. It died back down to a more moderate level, but it did raise a warning flag that players with tee times in the afternoon today might have gotten the wrong side of the draw. Trevor Immelman felt that in playing in the afternoon on Thursday the greens remained receptive because they had gotten some additional moisture due to the morning fog. There was no fog today, so the greens should firm up--even more so if the wind gets stronger.
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1:30 pm
In my foray into front-nine reporting today, I bounced back and forth between Phil Mickelson and Jim Furyk, who were playing in consecutive groups and trying to work themselves into serious contention. The two underwent a sort of role reversal, with Mickelson staying on the fairways and Furyk doing some scrambling after spraying tee shots.
Mickelson shot a no-bogey 33 on the front to move into a threatening position at 4-under for the tournament. Furyk also didn't have a bogey, but he had to work for it, including a par four on the seventh that included visits to the trees and a front bunker. He also missed the fairways on 5 and 8 and the greens on 5 and 9, but parred all of them and with a lone birdie on No. 4 shot a 35 to go to 3-under overall.
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