Masters notebook
McGirt listens well
AUGUSTA, Ga. — William McGirt has taken full advantage of his first appearance in the Masters. He’s having a grand old time looking up on scoreboards all around and seeing his name among the leaders in a tournament he never thought he’d ever qualify to play.
That came last summer, when the North Carolina native, 37, won The Memorial in Muirfield, Ohio, Jack Nicklaus’s signature tournament on the PGA Tour played on a course Nicklaus designed. He even got a pep talk from The Golden Bear a few days before this 81st Masters began.
“He just told me to play smart and play within myself,” said McGirt who enters the final round at even par, six shots back, after a 2-over 74 on Saturday. “Then he says ‘if you win at my place, you can win here’ because there’s a lot of similarities in the two courses. There’s a lot of holes where you don’t have to hit it directly at the pin to get it close. He just kind of started talking and I just listened.”
McGirt apparently is a good listener, because he came into the weekend at two-under par 142 and only two shots off the four-under 36-hole lead. He was one of only 10 players to break par over the first two days and his Friday 69 matched the best round of the day. Not bad for a guy who knocked around the minor leagues of golf for a number of years early in his career before finally making it to the PGA Tour in 2011. He’s been there ever since, with The Memorial his only victory.
“It’s pretty cool to get to play the weekend in your first Masters,” said McGirt, also trying to become
the first Masters rookie to win the tournament since Fuzzy Zoeller in 1979. “To be in a position to make a run on the weekend makes it even more special. Honestly, I couldn’t have written a better script.”
Mid-Am winner makes cut
The champion of the prestigious Mid-Amateur tournament has received an exemption to play in the Masters since 1989. Until this year, not a single Mid-Am winner had ever made the cut.
Stewart Hagestad finally ended that trend this week when he finished his opening 36 holes in 3-over 147. He shot a 2-over 74 on Saturday and enters the final round at 5-over, 11 shots back.
He posted a 1-over 73 in difficult conditions Friday, including a birdie at the 18th hole when his 6-iron second shot from 179 yards almost rolled into the cup. He had an easy 12-inch putt for his three.
“My adrenaline was firing a little bit, because I knew where I stood and I obviously knew the history with Mid-Ams and the Masters,” he said. “That’s something that’s been on my mind the whole week. I really wanted to grind out a nice par at 18, and the fact that it ended up about a foot … I’m really happy it wasn’t much longer than that.”
Hagestad, 25, is a graduate of the University of Southern California and works as a financial analyst. He’s taking a break from his day job to pursue a spot on the U.S. Walker Cup team but has no intention of turning professional. “Absolutely not,” he said emphatically when asked about that possibility.
That is not the case for Australian Curtis Luck, 20, the only other amateur among five in the starting field to make it to the weekend. He posted even par 72 on Friday and made the 6-over 150 cut line exactly on that number.
Luck, who shot a third-round, 3-over 75, is the No. 1-ranked amateur
in the world and plans to turn professional at the Valero Texas Open in two weeks.
A native of Perth, Luck won the U.S. Amateur last summer as well as the Asia Pacific Amateur. Both tournaments provided the winner an exemption into the Masters field.
Willett missing
England’s Danny Willett ended a streak he’d likely prefer to forget when he missed the cut Friday, the first time the defending Masters champion did not play on the weekend here since 2004.
Willett posted a 7-over 151 over 36 holes and missed getting a Saturday tee time by a single shot. The 10-stroke rule was in effect, with anyone within 10
shots of 4-under 140 posted by four players making the cut for the final 36 holes. Willett blew a 4-foot par putt at the 18th hole for one last, fatal bogey.
“This is an amazing place to be, especially with the [good] weather that’s coming in,” Willett said afterward. “It really would be nice to make it into the weekend. We had that in our … arms, but we let it slip. It’s been a tricky 12 months, we haven’t played great golf. But by the same token, if you look at the career that we’ve had, we’ve really not had a slump in form in two years. We’ve had two fabulous years.”
Bubba Watson also ended his own run of making eight consecutive Masters cuts by finishing at nineover 153, with 13 bogeys over his two sloppy rounds. That included five in his first six holes on Friday. It marked the first time Watson, the 2012 and 2014 champion, had failed to play the last 36 holes.
Other big names not teeing it up Saturday included 2007 winner Zach Johnson (7-over); Henrik Stenson (8-over), the defending British Open champion; Alex Noren (8-over), No. 10 in the world rankings; and Patrick Reed (9-over), No. 13 in the world.
Mize’s anniversary
When Larry Mize, 58, rolled in a 5-foot putt to save his par at the 18th hole Friday, he clinched a spot in the weekend field, a lovely way for the Augusta native to celebrate the 30th anniversary of his memorable 1987 victory.
“Before my par putt on 18, I told myself, ‘You know what, just knock it in. Don’t make it more important than it is,’ ” said Mize, who is at 9 over after a third-round 79.
In 1987, Mize birdied the 18th hole on Sunday to get into a sudden death playoff with Seve Ballesteros and Greg Norman. When Mize chipped in for a birdie 60 yards from the green at the 11th hole, he won his home town tournament.