It’s thursday morning. On the early leaderboard (which is meaningless at this point), something called Steve Marino leads the field at -3 through 8 holes. A host of others, including Tom Watson and Angel Cabrera are at -2. Lefty is at -1 through 3.
Tiger tees off in about two more hours.
Marino seems to have quite a thing for quick starts in big tourneys…
What’s the weather like? I heard they were forecasting rain.
Commentators have been suggesting that it’s an advantage to have an early tee time, since the weather is going to deteriorate as the day goes on. Tiger’s in the next-to-last group. However, it sounds like it’s getting pretty bad already, so maybe he won’t have to play much before there’s a weather delay. That would be good for avoiding the weather, but might cause trouble if he has to play like 30 holes tomorrow.
One of the things I love about the great game of golf is that Geezers can compete with flat-bellies. Go Langer, Go Watson.
Steve Marino and Tom Watson are playing together, the played together in the 3rd round of last years British open when Watson made his remarkable run last summer.
I think Marino is the only player thus far to make an eagle. Eagles get you crystal goblets. Pass the Boonesfarm!
Nice start by Fred Couples - birdie, eagle, eagle on 1, 2, and 3.
Watson fired a nice round today. I don’t know/think he’ll be able to keep it up, but it’s still nice to see.
that would have been an awesome start but I think something is wrong with your scoring console.
I have Couples with a birdie-birdie-par-par start. A a very good start, but somewhat short of 5 under after three holes.
Andy North just reported that Tom Watson tied his career low round at Augusta. Wow.
You don’t want to play the back nine at Augusta in the wind. My team had a bouble bogey fest coming home. If only they had started an hour earlier.
At least I didn’t have Jim Furyk.
Tiger’s making it look easy from 8-12 (with a couple of assists from the trees.)
We’ll see if he holds it together for 4 days, but I don’t see why he shouldn’t.
Because he’s not showing Tiger-like consistency. He’s showing “Wow, GREAT shot,” interspersed with “Boy, is he EVER out of practice,” interspersed with “Holy cow, THAT was a lucky bounce.” I don’t think he can hang close for 72 holes.
'Course, in a discussion at work, I predicted that he wouldn’t even make the cut, and it certainly appears that prediction will be wrong, so you may want to ignore me.
He looked fine to me. Thursday is typically his weakest day. He often doesn’t even start trying to make his run until saturday. The fact that he’s only 2 off the lead after the first round basically means it’s over. I predict he’s going to win in one of his patented easy walks on sunday.
Tiger never broke 70 on the first day of the Masters. There is no way this day can be discounted.
The birdie, eagle ,eagle start for Couples was on the Pga tour site. He still played great. Most of the interesting contenders shot well today. But Watson and Couples are a surprise.
Hope Couples and Watson are in the final pairing on Sunday.What a story that would be.
I dunno. It seems to me to be the exceoption when Tiger is really firing on all cylinders from tee thru green throughout 72 holes. I’m thinking of the British when he eschewed his driver, his domination at Pebble, or that Masters he ran away with.
But more often it seems he is routinely pulling off miraculous shots/pars/birdies after horrendous shots to impossible locations. Not to mention the number of times he throws out one awful round, only to be there at the finish when the rest of the field falls back to him.
And I’m a firm believer that the better the golfer, the less those bounces actually reflect “luck.” Or as my dad used to say, "The harder I work, the luckier I get!"
yeah, Tiger is not necessarily always the most consistent player through all four rounds, especially off the tee, but he scrambles like nobody’s business and turns a lot of bogeys into pars. I think his ability to consistently save par after spraying a tee shot is one of the most underrated aspects of his game.
As someone who is always pulling for him to screw up, this has long been painfully clear to me.
Can’t remember how many times I’ve been gleeful after he knocked a shot so far off line they have trouble even getting a camera on it. And then - way more often than not - he either pulls off an incredible shot that no one else could have conceived, or it turns out his shot went SO wild that he actualy ended up with an angle to the green.
What were the 2 holes yesterday - 8 and 9? He got back-to-back 3s, eagle-bird, and I think they said he went something 1100 yds in 6 strokes.
Amazing. I wish I liked the bastard!
Moving Day!!
Leaders are just now teeing off, and CBS Coverage starts at 3:30 et.
Lefty birdied hole #2 and Woods birdied #1 to get within one shot.
After his tee shot on #6, Tiger Woods says:
so much for showing more respect for the game.
I disagree that swearing after a bad is shot is “disrespecting the game.” That’s just a normal part of golf. I think that whole angle was bullshit anyway. What does swearing after bad shots have to do with cheating on his wife? I never thought any of adultery scandal was any of my business anyway (I seriously doubt he’s the only guy on the tour who shags groupies – he can just get more of them than they can), nor do I get any of the sanctimonious commentary on how he needs to change his demeanor on the course.
Back on topic, this has been a dperssing day to watch Tiger after a promising first two days. Unless Tiger makes a miracle run in his last few holes, there won’t be any reason to watch on sunday.