The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Never heard of Wiesberger? Look at leaderboard
The chapter on all-time Austrian heroes in the World History of Golf is pretty thin because ... OK, name one Austrian linkster. There you go.
Berndt Wiesberger is all about changing that this weekend. Rushing through the leaderboard with a 6-under 66 on Friday — his 31 on the front side was just a stroke shy of tying the tournament record — the 35-yearold from Oberwart was just three shots off the Masters lead at the midway point. He might have been leading the whole thing if he hadn’t putted into a pond Thursday, but that’s another story.
“A few too many mistakes and unforced errors (Thurs- day) but if I can keep my momentum going on the greens, I’m really looking forward to what’s ahead in the weekend,” he said.
Wiesberger (pronounced Wees-berger) has actually been hiding in plain sight at Augusta National since he played his first appear- ance in 2015, when he tied for 22nd, his best finish. He has made the cut in all five Masters he’s played but had never posted a number in the 60s until Friday. He has not played his previous Masters
as much as he survived them. Through his first 21 com- petition rounds, he was an aggregate 21 shots over par.
Not so on Friday, which he began by canning a 15-footer for birdie on No. 1, send- ing him off on a birdie-birdie-birdie start that quickly caught the field’s attention. At No. 9, his five-footer for birdie missed the left side of the hole, leaving him one shy of the front-nine Masters-re
cord of 30, set by Johnny Miller in 1975. But it was his first putt of the day, a quick roller on No. 1, that set up everything that came after.
“It was a bonus it went in and probably, in a sense, gave me the right momentum,” he said. “Feeling good on the greens, hitting my lines and pace.”
Spending the majority of his career on the European Tour, where he is a
seven-time champion over 12 years, he has never really found his footing on the PGA Tour. Dating back to 2012, he has played in 49 Tour events and finished in the top 10 only twice. That last occasion came in the 2020 RSM Classic at Sea Island, where he got into the field on a sponsor’s exemption and wound up tied for fourth.
But his name has popped up from time to time. He was in the final group (with Rory Mcilroy) at the 2014 PGA Championship at Valhalla but shot a 73 to finish tied for 15th. In the 2017 Maybank Championship, a Euro Tour stop in Malaysia, he once recorded nine straight birdies. After sitting out six months in 2018 due to a wrist injury that dropped him out of the top-300 in the world, he rebounded with a three-victory season in 2019 and rose to 21st in the World Rankings, his highest spot to date.
So his 66 can’t be dismissed as a mere lightning strike. If he’s struck a fluke shot thus far, it was his eagle attempt on No. 15 on Thurs- day, a downhill slider from the back side of the green. It rushed right through the break — “I just got a little bit too excited,” he said — and kept gaining speed until it rolled in the pond fronting the green. That bogey 6 now stands between him and the 36-hole lead.
“I’m going to go out (Saturday) and try to post the best score possible and enjoy myself out there just as I did (Friday),” Wiesberger said. “It was very calm out there and it felt really, really nice and that is, I guess, when I play my best golf. So ideally, we’ll get into that position