Previous Blogs from David
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8:35 pm
The players at the top of the leaderboard have less experience than is the norm, with four of the five players who broke 70 averaging a little more than two prior appearances: Brian Bateman (69) none, Brandt Snedeker (69) one, Justin Rose (68) three, and Trevor Immelman (68) five. Lee Westwood (69) has played here eight times before.
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8:30 pm
Justin Rose and Trevor Immelman ended the first round tied for the lead, and for Rose it's nothing new. He has played in only four Masters, but has held or shared the first-round lead in three of them. He was in front by himself after a 67 in 2004 and, after missing the next two Masters, tied with Brett Wetterich after a 69 last year.
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8:15 pm
Playing in the last threesome of the day, Lee Westwood was battling both for the lead and to beat darkness. He didn't get the lead, but he did beat the dark, barely. The Englishman was tied for the lead at 4-under until he missed a four-foot par putt on the 17th hole. Did the lack of visibility or rushing to get the round in affect him? Maybe, but he did get a nice break on the 18th to finish with a 69. His second shot went left of the green, but got a nice bounce back off a spectator back towards the green instead of bouncing down a hill and leaving a much more difficult pitch.
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6:30 pm
Two weeks ago, Justin Rose, Trevor Immelman, and Ian Poulter made a trip from their Orlando base to spend two days playing Augusta National getting ready for the Masters. It was obviously a good idea. Rose and Immelman both shot 68 to tie for the lead while Poulter, aided by a hole-in-one, shot a 70. "It took some pressure off the practice rounds this week," said Rose. "I didn't feel like I was chasing my tail trying to learn everthing." Rose, incidentally, came out ahead over those two days, said Immelman. "I think I might still owe him some money."
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6:00 pm
With a first-round 68 that included no bogeys, this is definitely looking like a better experience for Trevor Immelman than last year in Augusta. In 2007, the South African finished 55th and also picked up a nasty virus. It knocked him out for the next three weeks and weakened him for longer than that as he missed four of the next six cuts. He's also looking to turn things around in a year that hasn't gone well so far. Other than advancing to the second round of the WGC-Accenture Match Play, which goes down as a tie for 17th, his best finish is 40th.
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Justin Rose just finished with a 68 and Tiger Woods with a 72. Not what you would expect? Actually, they both followed Masters form. Rose, playing in his fourth Masters, now has a 69.25 average in the first round and a 74.44 average in other rounds. Woods has now failed to break par in six straight first rounds at Augusta and has never broken 70 in 14 appearances. His first-round average is 72.64 (as a pro it's 72.50). As a pro, his scoring average in the other rounds is 69.91 with 14 rounds in the 60s.
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5:00 pm
Sandy Lyle is 3-under and tied for second through 14 holes! How big a surprise is that? He hasn't shot a subpar round at Augusta since 1999. The 50-year-old has missed the cut in six of the last eight years and hasn't finished in the top 20 since his 1988 victory, a year after which he went into a slump from which he never really recovered. [UPDATE: With bogeys on 15, 16, and 18, Lyle finished with a first-round 72 so he still hasn't broken par since 1999.]
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4:15 pm
Got to keep up the play-by-play long enough to report that Tiger Woods chipped in from behind the green for an eagle on the 15th. The degree of difficulty was nothing like his chip-in on the 16th in the final round of 2005, but the ball did hesitate for a brief moment before dropping. Back to even par. OK, so he made an eagle, but he still hasn't made a birdie. So, if you want to get technical, he's threatening for only his second birdie-less round in the Masters, the other coming in a first-round 76 in 2003. [UPDATE: Woods parred the last three holes, finishing with 15 pars, two bogeys, an eagle, and no birdies.]
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4:10 pm
Conditions today are just about perfect. The temperature is in the 70s, there's just enough wind to keep the players on their toes but not to have a great effect, and the greens are medium firm. Good shots are being rewarded with birdies, but you wouldn't exactly say it's easy out there.
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4:00 pm
Tiger Woods is going in the wrong direction. A bad drive into the left trees on the 14th led to a punch back to the fairway, a poor wedge shot to the back fringe, and two from there for his second straight bogey and 2-over for the round. (OK, now that ESPN is finally on the air I will make this less of a play-by-play.)
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3:50 pm
What's this, 2007 all over again? Zach Johnson and Justin Rose are tied for the lead at 3-under, both on the back nine. Whoops, Rose is now in front by himself at 4-under. After making four straight birdies to close the front nine, he has added birdies on 12 and 13 to make it six birdies in an eight-hole stretch. Both of these medium hitters have obviously developed an affinity for Augusta National.
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Tiger Woods didn't put on much of a show on the front nine (see below), but in following him I did at least come into proximity of the first round's most exciting moment. Woods was on the sixth hole when England's Ian Poulter made a hole-in-one on the adjacent 16th, eliciting a huge roar from the crowd gathered around that spectator-friendly hole. The ace moved Poulter into the lead at 3-under, though he bogeyed 17 and finished with a 70.
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3:40 pm
Tiger Woods is not happy. He got off the par train the wrong way with a bogey on the 13th hole, and he did it in frustrating fashion. He went for the green in two and showed his displeasure when the shot failed to hold the green and rolled into the swale on the left. His chip failed to carry the top of the swale, his next chip went 12 feet past, and he missed the putt. That came after two-putt pars from 30, 15, and 30 feet on 10, 11, and 12.
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3:00 pm
Sorry for the late start. First there was a one-hour fog delay (after which the weather has been great), then I decided to follow Tiger Woods on the front nine, so I could give you a blow-by-blow of action that was not on television. It was a rather indifferent front nine, with all pars, but that's not my fault.
1st hole (par 4): drive left, second shot missed green to the right, chip to 6 feet, made the putt
2nd hole (par 5): drive fairway, iron to 30 yards short of green, pitch to 8 feet, two putts
3rd hole (par 4): hit driver to 20 yards short of green, pitch to 25 feet, two putts
4th hole (par 3): tee shot to 60 feet, two putts (tap-in second)
5th hole (par 4): drive fairway, second to 25 feet, two putts
6th hole (par 3): tee shot to 40 feet, two putts (second from 3 feet)
7th hole (par 4): 3W to fairway, second comes up 15 yards short of the green, pitch to one foot, made the putt
8th hole (par 5): I missed this hole because of a spectator logjam to the right of the seventh green; he made par
9th hole (par 4): drive fairway, second to 25 feet, two putts
The most impressive moment came at the third when he hit driver on the short par four and left himself with a short pitch. It wasn't all that difficult a pitch shot, but he knocked it 25 feet past to blow the birdie opportunity. [UPDATE: Turns out a missed one of the more interesting moments when his second shot on the par-five hit a pole on the grandstand next to the green, leaving himself in a difficult spot from where he was happy to make par.]
All in all, par golf isn't hurting him at this point, though with conditions not exceptionally difficult he'll be disappointed if he doesn't go under par on the back nine.
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More from 3:00 pm
U.S. Open champion Angel Cabrera, playing with Woods, had a much more up-and-down even-par 36 on the front nine, with two bad three-putt bogeys but a made 30-footer among his two birdies. Stuart Appleby, meanwhile, showed why it's dangerous to shoot at the flag when it's on the tiny back-right shelf on the par-three sixth. He missed the green to the right, his chip rolled all the way across the green and off the other side, his next chip failed to climb the hill and rolled back to the front of the green, his putt up the hill was woefully short, and he missed a 10-footer, ending up with a triple bogey. This is one of the few holes in golf with the capacity to make a pro look like a 20-handicapper around the green.
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