First Day at the Masters

The first day at the 2018 Masters seems to have proven itself worthy of the hype.

The conditions seemed optimum, and both top players and some fresh names took advantage of them.

IBM powers the website at http://www.masters.com and mobile apps, and between the MyMasters and the “Featured Groups” features it’s proven easier than ever to follow the action remotely.

Thoughts on what I saw from round 1:

• The greens look monstrously fast. Just ask Sergio Garcia, who bombed a 320-yard drive on the par-5 15 only to have his 207-yard approach shot spin back into the water. Then he proceeded to have a Tin Cup moment, hitting four more wedge shots that also spun back into the drink. It was painful to watch, especially considering Garcia won the green jacket last year
• Jordan Spieth stirred up another record, birdie-ing five holes in a row on the back 9, 13-14-15-16-17.  It was quite a run, and when he didn’t birdie, his par and bogey saves were spectacular (particularly his chip shot at 18). It’s like Jordan can will the ball to, if not go into the hole, to stop right next to it. He led going into the second round at six-under.
• China’s Li Haotong, who is only 22 years and is from Hunan Province, shot a stellar three-under 69, which put him only 3 strokes behind Spieth after the first round.
• Tiger Woods had a mixed-bag round, but he’s certainly still in the hunt, finishing at one over for the first round. Woods got shafted when a line drive out of the woods on 11 hit a man’s chair, a ball that looked destined for the green. But as Sports Illustrated observed overnight with this headline, “Only a fool would write off Tiger Woods after first round at Augusta!” (Although if he doesn’t start making some birdies on those par 5s…)

We’re well into day two, and (SPOILER ALERT), currently the leaderboard is jumbled up with four co-leaders at three-under. So, nobody’s going way low thus far, and it’s proving to be a vicious fight to the weekend cutline!