Jacket quest draws crowd
Little room at the top
AUGUSTA, Ga. — The Masters’ leaderboard was as stuffed as a sandwich from Kelly’s Roast Beef on Revere Beach yesterday, which made for a mind-boggling third round and surely a wild ride this afternoon at Augusta National.
Eight golfers were within 5 shots of the co-leaders,
Sergio Garcia and Justin Rose, who at 6-under were 1 shot beyond Rickie Fowler and 2 ahead of hard-charging Jordan Spieth, Ryan Moore and only slightly fading Charley Hoffman.
Hoffman was trying to go wire-to-wire for his first victory in a major and trying to become the fifth player in the last 21 years to win his first major at the Masters after holding the 54-hole lead, but a momentary lapse leading to a double bogey on 16 dropped him off the top of the leaderboard for the first time all week.
Garcia is 0-for-73 in major championships and so will carry with him an especially heavy burden, but also will come armed with a positive omen. Today would be the 60th birthday of the late Seve
Ballesteros, who is both the patron saint of golf in Spain and Garcia’s boyhood idol. To win his first major on such a day, Garcia has said, would be “a tremendous feeling.”
“I don’t even know how much it would mean to join both my idols (Ballesteros and Jose Maria Olazabal) as Masters champions,” Garcia said yesterday.
Garcia was staring over a 4-foot putt on 18 to maintain his position that looked a lot longer and hit it dead-solid perfect into the middle of the cup to walk off with a share of the lead. As it fell, Garcia did a slow fist pump, then flipped the ball into the gallery, quietly elated that he would be in today’s final pairing with his Ryder Cup teammate Rose.
To win his first Masters in 19 tries, Garcia will have to beat back some of golf’s best, including Rose, whose 67 included playing 5-under on the back nine; Spieth, who was 10 strokes behind after Thursday but closed to within 2 after rounds of 69 and 68; and Fowler, who like Garcia long has been projected to be a future major winner but also has failed to do it.
The third round at the Masters had been an Achilles’ heel to Garcia, until yesterday. In 18 previous starts, he was an aggregate 38-over on Saturdays with an average score of 75. Yesterday he held firm most of the afternoon, finishing with that 2-under-par 70 and a share of the 54-hole lead.
“I’m glad I took the scoring average down a little bit,” Garcia said. “At the end of the day, it comes down to myself to be able to do it. I can be in your ear, I can tell you what to do, but if you don’t want to hear it, if you don’t want to do it, it doesn’t matter.”
Today somebody will. And many people won’t.
Good Day for Jason
After barely making the cut at 6-over, Jason Day’s third round began as the first man off the tee, which is never good in tournament golf. Playing with a marker because the final cut left the field at an uneven 53 players, Day rallied to shoot 69, leaving him 3-over for the tournament and with no shot at challenging despite the low totals at the top of the leaderboard.
Yet Day was far from disappointed at his day after opening rounds of 74 and 76, especially when he posted four consecutive birdies on 12, 13, 14 and 15.
“I think I feel like I can actually play golf again, which is great when I play like that,” Day joked.
Day said his only real goal yesterday was beating his playing partner, Augusta marker Jeff Knox. Knox is the club’s best player and since 2003 has been called upon a number of times to play on the weekend when the cutline leaves an odd number of players.
Knox became famous in 2014 when he beat Rory Mc
Ilroy by shooting a 70 in the third round and then beat 1987 Masters champion Larry Mize the next day. Knox holds the club record with a low round of 61 but remains a mystery to most spectators when he plays. He is listed on the starters sheet only as “Marker” and his name does not appear on the scoreboard or the back of his caddy’s overalls.
“I just didn’t want Jeff to beat me, right,” Day said. “I heard that he beat Rory. He said he was nervous on the first tee and I’m like, in my head, I’m kind of nervous because I don’t want to let my marker beat me.
“So it was kind of neck and neck. I bogeyed the second hole and he parred it and he had a little 1-up lead there for a bit, so I’m glad I ended up carrying out the back side.”
Despite sitting at 3-over for the tournament and 10 shots behind the leaders, Day looked on the bright side.
“I got to shoot a really good one but anything can happen on a Sunday at Augusta,” Day said. “Guys can either melt down or guys can come from behind and win big. So just got to try and do the best job I can and hopefully put everything together. Give it a good shot. The first two days kind of put me out of it and today was a good round to get myself kind of back to good form.”
Up-and-down Phil
Phil Mickelson had the kind of up-and-down-and-up-and-down day he’s famous for. It’s why we love him, but it’s also taxing.
Mickelson birdied the first two holes to put himself in the conversation, but over the next seven holes was 5-over with three bogeys and a double bogey. He finished with a 2-over 74.
Elevators don’t go up and down as often as Mickelson can in any single round.
Money growing
The Masters’ total purse is up $1 million from a year ago. It is now $11 million, with $1.98 million going to the winner. That’s an increase of $198,000 from a year ago.
Only the U.S. Open has a higher purse among the major championships at $12 million.