Augusta
National, eh? It charms you with its beauty but, boy, does it bite.
Just ask Bob MacIntyre, who was going along nicely on his Masters return
after a two-year absence before being made to look stupid by
three-putting from three feet on the par-4 seventh.
“It
kills you,” admitted the Oban man afterwards of what that had done to
him mentally, costing him a double-bogey 6 after being one under to that
point, in the first round of the event’s 89th edition.
Then there was the par-5 13th, possibly the most beautiful hole in golf,
but, not even if he played it 100 times would MacIntyre have believed
where he would be playing his second shot from on this occasion.
His drive wasn’t what he intended at all and, though actually getting a
bit lucky, he was closer to the 12th green than the one he was playing
to. “I tried to sneak it around the corner and I just got underneath it -
a cardinal sin,” he said of that episode.
In
the end, the 28-year-old had to settle for a three-over-par 75 - his
second-worst score here in nine rounds. It wasn’t what he’d been looking
for in his first major round of the year. “It’s not a disaster,” he
admitted, “but it's not good. I actually felt I've played nicely, but I
was just hitting it too far away from the hole.”
His
only birdie of the day came at the par-5 second, with other spillage in
addition to that double bogey coming in the shape of bogeys at the
12th, where he found the front bunker, and the 13th, having looked as
though he could get out of there with a par only to three putt.
“I came here the last two times I've played it and I think I've made a
hell of a lot of birdies, and today I've just played completely the
opposite and been defensive and made a couple of bogeys from being on
the safe side of the hole but miles away from it,” he declared. ”Just
disappointed with the day.”
Having returned here as a double PGA Tour winner and sitting inside the
world’s top 20, MacIntytre’s name was being mentioned before he teed off
in the company of American duo Billy Horschel and Nick Dunlap in the
11th match of the day.
“The
commentators have been talking about the lefty from Scotland,” declared
the buggy driver taking this correspondent on the journey from the
Press Building at the Georgia venue down to the drop off area close to
the first tee.
In
truth, the RBC Canadian Open and Genesis Scottish Open champion looked
very comfortable indeed over the opening few holes only to be punched in
the guts by coming up just short with his approach at the seventh and
walking off with a 6 after playing a nice bunker shot.
“Actually
reminded me of the momentum swing that I had when I was leading in
Denmark, when I think I was two or three ahead and then I make a triple
and my back is against the wall,” he said of letting a chance to win the
Made in Denmark event slip from his grasp earlier in his career. “I was
annoyed, but I didn't let it keep going. But it's like a shock to the
system. It brings all the energy out of you.”
On
a day when world No 1 and defending champion Scottie Scheffler started
ominously by signing for a four-under-par 68, MacIntyre conceded there
had been a “lot of good in there” and, importantly in terms of momentum
heading into the second circuit, he holed a six-footer for par at 17th
after racing the first one past then making a good two-putt down the
slope at the last.
“Yeah,
it's all right,” he said of the day’s work, which was watched by his
mum and dad Dougie and Carol, as well as his two sisters, Gillian and
Nicola. “Three-over par is not that rough. I've had bad scores to start
before. Just gets me over a touch where I want to be.
“I
had actually done the hard part in the first seven holes. My job from
four to seven was to try and limit the bogeys, and I actually did the
hard part. The tee shot on seven was the last piece of the jigsaw, and I
then hit a lovely wedge but just pulled it.
“You
think, ‘oh, I can be a bit aggressive with this putt, and I try and do
that and it misses, and now you're left with a four or five-footer
coming back. Then you try and dribble that one in and it moves as much
as you thought the first one was going to move. It's just the way this
golf course is.”
Spanish amateur Jose Luis Ballester pictured at Augusta National Golf Club
MacIntyre
may have been disappointed with his score, but he fared a lot better
than Dunlap. The man who won as an amateur on the PGA Tour last season
then repeated the feat as a professional a few months later signed for a
90, limping home in 47.
“I've
played with him a few times this year, and what a great player, what a
great guy,” said MacIntyre of the young American. “To be honest, as much
as he was struggling out there today, his attitude was solid. He didn't
get in the way. He didn't lay off anything that was going to affect his
two other playing partners because we've got a job to do. I feel for
him today, but he'll come back.”
Aaron
Rai, the 2020 Genesis Scottish Open champion, marked his Masters debut
with a two-under 70. “Yeah, definitely beyond expectations,” admitted
the Englishman of an effort that contained six birdies.
Bidding
to claim a third Green Jacket in four years, Scheffler was bogey-free,
holing a 62-footer for a birdie at the fourth then rolling in one from
42 feet for another 2 at the 16th.
“Anytime you can keep a card clean out here, it's a really good thing,”
he said of achieving the feat in the first competitive round on the
course since hundreds of trees were lost when the Augusta area suffered a
direct hit from Hurricane Helene last September.
If
there had been a few more trees around, it might have hid Spanish
amateur Jose Louis Ballester, one of Scheffler’s playing partners,
urinating into a tributary of historic Rae’s Creek as he played the 12th
hole and being applauded by some patrons as he did so.
“I
completely forgot that we had those restrooms to the left of the tee
box,” he admitted afterwards. “I'm like, I really need to pee. Didn't
really know where to go, and, since JT (the other player in the group)
had an issue on the green, I'm like, I'm just going to sneak here in the
river and probably people would not see me that much and then they
clapped for me. It was not embarrassing at all for me. If I had to do it
again, I would do it again.”
