The Masters
As Spieth takes flight at Augusta, Tiger grinds it out,
AUGUSTA, GA.— Before the 79th Masters began Thursday, it was easy to believe that the world had been introduced to a newly transformed Tiger Woods.
He looked a little bit slimmer, a lot more smiley, wholly relaxed — which is to say he looked nothing like the Woods we’d long come to know. That old Woods wore a death stare as his default workplace facial expression; this new one was seen happily dancing to hip-hop music in headphones on the range and warmly embracing everyone from estranged pals to his two children.
Eldrick T. Woods interrupting a practice session at no-nonsense Augusta National to hug it out? The scenario was jarring enough that it almost looked suspicious — or, at the very least, worthy of sarcastic mocking.
“Did you get a hug?” Masters champion and Golf Channel analyst Nick Faldo cheekily asked in the opening hours of Thursday’s broadcast.
Perhaps because Augusta National is a place where traditions are cherished, it wasn’t long after Woods’ opening round began that the “new” Tiger reverted to a familiar character. Gone was the practice-round softie. Back in view was the Woods with the body language of a sullen teenager; the Woods who dropped his club in disgust after he let his tee shot on No. 6 leak to the right; the Woods who angrily chided himself — “Oh Tiger, you dumbass!” — when he pushed his drive on the 15th into the pine straw.
Still, Woods’ opening-round 73, considering it came in his first competitive round in a couple of months, was hardly a disaster.
It was a reminder that, while Woods has seen many parts of his once-majestic skill set erode, his shot-by-shot doggedness remains intact. But it was also the latest evidence of a sad reality; that, at age 39, the former great still looks confused by a swing that can leave him looking lost even on the majorchampionship venue he knows best.
Day 1 of the tournament came with more cheerful realities, too — especially the fresh face occupying Woods’ once-near-perennial place at the top of the leaderboard. That was Jordan Spieth, the 21-year-old Texan who ravaged the course with an eight-under-par round of 64. The scintillating trip, marred only by a mud-ball bogey on the 15th hole, left him one stroke short of the Masters scoring record of 63 co-held by Nick Price and Greg Norman, and three strokes clear of a four-man tie for second place that included Charley Hoffman, Justin Rose, Ernie Els and Jason Day.
Spieth, in just his fifth competitive round at Augusta National, played the place like he’d designed it. He birdied eight of his opening 14 holes before he gave back his only bogey. He ended the day with a 20-foot birdie putt on 18 — one of his 11 oneputts on the day.
Jack Nicklaus, working as a guest analyst on Britain’s Sky Sports broadcast, pronounced Spieth’s putting stroke “magical.”
Indeed, even when Spieth seemed sure his flat stick had failed him on Thursday — like when he reacted to a birdie putt on No. 12 as though he’d yanked it — the ball found the hole. It wasn’t the only improbable moment of fine fortune that Spieth authored. In another, he missed the par-four 14th fairway to the right, only to artfully shape his approach around a tree and bang it off the flagstick for a near eagle. It was a masterpiece of a 182-yard seven iron.
“That was a nice break,” Spieth said. “It’s tough to sleep on a lead here and I saw that last year.”
A year ago, as a 20-year-old Augusta rookie, Spieth shared the 54-hole lead with eventual champion Bubba Watson before a final-round swoon left him tied for second. He has yet to win a major. But Spieth has finished first, second and second in his most recent three starts on the PGA Tour.
In other words: He’s the most obvious candidate to become the chief rival of Rory McIlroy, the world No. 1 who shot a one-under 71. Woods, the world No. 111, just isn’t in that conversation at the moment, even as he admirably insists he is.
“I’m still in it. I’m only nine back,” said Woods, who made repeated note of Thursday’s uncharacteristically slow greens. “And we have a long way to go.”
Longer for some than others. Thursday didn’t go well for the two-man Team Canada. Mike Weir, the 2003 champion, continued to struggle with the wonkiness of his surgically repaired right elbow, shooting a 10-over-par 82. His playing partner, Listowel-bred amateur Corey Conners, finished with an 8-over-par 80.
Only South Korean amateur Gunn Yang (85) and 63-year-old former champion Ben Crenshaw (91) shot worse scores.
“It was a ball of laughs,” deadpanned Weir.
Weir, though, said he would soldier on this season despite the weakness in his elbow.
“Rest doesn’t seem to be doing anything,” said Weir, who took more than a month off in the lead-up to the tournament. “I need to build up the endurance and the strength in there.”
While Weir is playing in his 16th Masters, Conners is making his debut. And the latter’s opening 18 began impressively — with a perfect drive down the middle on the first fairway.
“I tried to breathe as much as I could. I’ve heard some horror stories of guys trying to tee up their ball and having their hands be a little wobbly,” Conners said. “But it was pretty good. I teed it up and picked a target down the fairway and made a smooth swing . . . It was pretty cool to walk off the tee hitting a good one.”
The good times didn’t last for Conners, who said he left himself too many difficult putts to score well. And they never really began for Woods, whose driver was erratic all day. On the ninth hole, in one of the worst examples of his wayward full swing, Woods yanked his tee shot nearly a football field left, only to spray his second shot wide right. While critics have focused on Woods’ recent woes with his wedges — former coach Hank Haney had diagnosed the problem as the chipping yips — his short game was often his par-saving grace.
“That’s the strength of my game,” Woods said. “That’s the way it should be.”
As for his full swing — on a day he hit just 11 greens in regulation, that’s clearly still a work in progress. As Nicklaus said on the Sky Sports broadcast: “He just sags down into the ball. That’s been his old habit for a long time.”
It wasn’t exactly the renaissance storyline many had hoped to see — same-old Tiger, same-old habits, and golf’s new blood running away on the game’s biggest stage.