Hearty yells for Els, as gusts bust Weir
Watson walks the glorious grounds of Augusta National one last time
AUGUSTA, GA A lesser human might have crawled out through the foliage and flagged a cab after six-putting the first hole of the Masters, but Ernie Els didn’t quit.
In the end, his 73 Friday wasn’t enough to keep him around for the weekend, but he had all the galleries cheering him on over every putt. He made four birdies in the round.
Before his round, he said, “It was like I walked on to the range and even the players and caddies, they kind of just looked at me as if I don’t have pants on or something. And so I just really — not a nice feeling. But they’ve got a good reason to look at me funny for what happened yesterday.
“I was feeling down, really down. I didn’t feel like myself. And it kind of showed again on the first hole, I missed another very short putt (he made double bogey) and I’ve got to address whatever the issue is and see if I can make it better.”
Asked what he thought the issue might be, Els said, “it could be anxiety, it could be a lot of stuff. It could be because I’m running out of time at this beautiful place and maybe putting a bit too much pressure on myself. So, we’ll figure it out.”
Cut claims Weir: There were two eruptions of applause as Mike Weir made his putt for par at the 18th green Friday. The larger one was for Jordan Spieth, teeing off at the first hole 50 yards away.
Weir, done for the week after shooting 76-78; Spieth, aiming to build on his Thursday 66, striding up the first fairway toward the green where he would start his round with a birdie on the same hole Weir double-bogeyed 4 1/2 hours earlier.
“At least I drove it great,” Weir said, looking for positives from his round of 10 pars, two birdies — one from out of Rae’s Creek on the 13th — four bogeys and two doubles.
“I hit, I think, 12 (actually 11) of 14 fairways. I only hit three yesterday. So I can take that forward into next week at Hilton Head, where it’s tight and you need to hit it straight.”
It was a day when cool temperatures — especially when Weir’s group, first off the tee at 8:20 a.m. began its round — and gusty, swirling winds had most everyone in the field flummoxed.
“It’s a brutal course when it’s like this. Wind blowing in a lot of different directions today, and if you guess wrong, it makes you look silly,” Weir said.
“I probably had four shots that were a yard from being close but it’s like the old Hakeem Olajuwon, they get rejected and run 50 feet away and you’re struggling to make bogey.”
Deflategate: Henrik Stenson’s toddler daughter Alice was photographed trying to let the air out of Spieth’s courtesy car tires Friday morning.
No doubt the big Swede put her up to it.
“Alice told me this morning, ‘Don’t worry about Spieth, Daddy, he will be late for his tee time,’” Stenson told Yahoo! Sports.
Evidently, Spieth can take a joke. He not only made it in plenty of time, he birdied two of the first three holes.
Bittersweet end: With nine holes to go, 66-year-old Tom Watson was inside the cut, needing only to hold it together for the inward nine. But three bogeys by the 14th hole were more than he could recover from, and he ended up with two strokes too many.
That didn’t stop an outpouring of love from the galleries, saluting the two-time champion as he played his final competitive round at Augusta.
Watson said he hadn’t given up. And when leader Spieth began going backwards, he brought a lot of players back in via the 10-shot rule.
“You never know, the way the wind is blowing what the cut might be,” Watson said. “I was plus-8. If I’d made a couple of putts … but I made a bunch yesterday, and I guess it came back to bite me today.”
No love for Lee: Watson was paired with Lee Westwood, and the Englishman said it was a privilege to play with him in his final Masters and share in the massive ovation at the 18th.
“I enjoyed that moment, probably not as much as he did, but I certainly enjoyed it,” Westwood said. “We chatted it up, yeah, the two days. I asked him going down 15 if he remembered the first time we ever played, 1996 in the Dunlop Phoenix in Japan, and he didn’t remember that,” Westwood joked.
“I can’t believe a big moment like playing with me for the first time had slipped his mind.”