Willett’s wobbler!
MARTIN SAMUEL AND DEREK LAWRENSON AT THE MASTERS
Drive for show, putt for dough is the professionals’ saying about tournament golf. in the case of rory Mcilroy around Augusta these last two days, it has been more a matter of driving for d’oh. They could have let Homer Simpson loose with a Big Bertha and he would have hit more fairways.
That Mcilroy is in contention, even still favoured to win this tournament by some, is a surprise, having recorded the poorest driving accuracy statistics of the entire field. Worse than Toto Gana, the Chilean amateur, at the back of the field on 17 over par. And worse than Mark O’Meara, at 60 the oldest player in the field. O’Meara got 18 of his 28 drives where they needed to be, 64.29 per cent.
Mcilroy got just 10 of 28 on target, 35.71 per cent. He was the only professional player in a field of 93 to average below 40 per cent accuracy, and his sole companion in the thirties at one stage was Stewart Hagestad, an amateur from south California, but even he rallied.
it is testament to Mcilroy’s powers of recovery, then, that he finished close to where he started, shooting another par round, but making ground on the tournament leaders after Charley Hoffman’s initial breakaway.
Of course, Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson were not always fans of fairways and they have seven green jackets between them. Yet, heavens, Mcilroy made it hard for himself at times.
The rare occasions when he found position were some of his best holes — not least the second, where his 393-yard drive off the tee set up a birdie and was recorded among the top 20 longest strikes on the PGA Tour this season.
The 18th should have been similarly rewarding when, playing from the heart of the fairway for a change, Mcilroy struck the pin with his second and ricocheted off the green. it could have dropped, it could have been another birdie putt to end in the red. instead, Mcilroy chipped on then sent a nervy four-footer the same distance past the hole for a dispiriting bogey, one over par, finish. His frustration was plain.ain.
STILL, better weather is forecast today, most thankfully less wind, which will aid Mcilroy’s game. He is no Dustin Johnson, long and straight, and the Georgia breezes affect him. Maybe the significance of Augusta does, too, it being the sole major he requires to complete his career Grand Slam.
That pressure cannot be underestimated. Mcilroy talks of becoming a different person as the date of the season’s first major approaches. He singles it out — as most do — the event he has dreamt of winning all his life.
The achievement and difficulty of a personal Slam in golf cannot be underplayed, either. To compare, there are eight tennis players who have won a career Slam, including two who have gone round the four titles twice. There are just five golfers.
if Mcilroy, 27, joins the elite band of career slam golfers, he will be the first european and only the second player from outside America. Gene Sarazen, Ben Hogan, Gary Player, Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods: four Americans and a South African.
So just to get this far, and at his age, Mcilroy has achieved a feat. And if this final step fills him with tension, well that is understandable, too. But it didn’t change the demands of yesterday.
Hoffman having played what Nick Faldo described as the greatest Masters first round in history — not since 1941 had a golfer established a greater 18-hole lead around Augusta — Mcilroy needed to catch up quick.
He had to bring the game of a potential Masters champion, and just about did so. By the end of the day, the leading pack could hear Mcilroy’s footsteps approaching, even if they seemed to be ploughing through a lot of pine straw.
Certainly, it was not the most auspicious start, Mcilroy taking an age to emerge on the first tee. He arrived on the putting green five minutes before his due time and, after the briefest practice, was off again. it brought back memories of his hurried entrance at the ryder Cup in 2012, having overslept — although, to be fair, it soon became apparent why he preferred to spend more time on the range.
The first drive gave a taste of what was to come. left, way left, concluding with a bogey. There were nine shots between Mcilroy and Hoffman at that point.
And then, from the second tee, boom. The most compelling aspect of Mcilroy’s round was that, amid the scrambles and the wildness, were moments of quite astonishing, explosive, brilliance.
equally, seeing Mcilroy’s distance when he did hit one straight, Johnson — who has hit the two longest drives this season — must have more than ever regretted his tumble down stairs on the eve of the tournament. Now there’s a man who will be renting a bungalow in Augusta next year.
Yet, perhaps because accuracy was such an issue, Mcilroy bounced between extremes of champion play and utter wastefulness. At the third, he had an 11-foot putt for birdie that he contrived to turn into a threeputt bogey. Mcilroy recorded a single par in an opening six holes of three birdies and two bogeys. Frequently, he seemed set fair for one and turned it into the other.
As at the fifth, where his tee shot went right towards the trees and Berckmans road, before he recovered with a wonderful fade to 12 feet of the pin, sinking birdie. On the next hole, a par three, he was short of the green, 18 yards to the pin, and chipped in. Marvellous stuff. For the first time over the two days, he was under par.
This being Augusta, naturally, it didn’t last. How could it when so wayward? He found five fairways of 14 all day, the same number as on Thursday. if there was a copse marooned on a convergence of fairways, he made its acquaintance. The saving grace was that Hoffman was having an even greater struggle, although not off the tee.
‘last year in the final group i was more in defence mode rather than attack,’ Mcilroy said. ‘it’s a completely different mindset going out there to make birdies rather than not to make bogey.’
And one further consolation. Since 2010 nobody under 50 has made more double bogeys around here than Mcilroy — 14. And 17 of the last 20 winners have not had a double bogey on the scorecard. Nor has Mcilroy this year: yet. He needs to straighten up or it will surely only be a matter of time.