Irish fall into Hootie's trap
In explaining why they moved the tee back to within touching distance of the practice putting green, the club chairman Hootie Johnson maintained it would "bring the left tree line closer to the fairway." It certainly worked where McGinley, especially, and Harrington were concerned as both fell straight into Hootie's trap.
While Harrington took his punishment by chipping out and settling for bogey, McGinley tried to punch his ball through a tiny gap in the woods only to hit a branch and after that there was no avoiding the double bogey six that would act as a millstone around his neck for the next four and a half hours.
Bogeys followed with depressing regularity at the 3rd, 4th, 9th, 10th and 11th until he stood seven over after eleven holes. The first birdie finally arrived at the long 15th where he hit a drive and three wood to the back edge and another followed thanks to a six iron to fifteen feet at the 17th. But he bunkered his approach to 18 to drop his eighth shot of the day and sign for a bitterly disappointing six over 78.
"It was a horrendous start, four over after four and seven over after eleven," he conceded. "I was fighting to break 80 all day and it's tough when everything is so difficult. I wouldn't call the course scary. I just didn't play well enough and my short game was very poor, appalling really. You can't play Augusta with a poor short game. I have no excuses, I can't blame the course and there was no sign of the hay fever that's been bothering me. This is the best I've felt all week.
"It wasn't a case of being bitten by Augusta. I got off on the wrong foot and my birdie chances are a lot more limited now than previously because the course is playing so much longer. But that's the same for everybody. It's a major championship, that's the test and I have no complaints about that. We were on the back of every tee and if the weather stays like this, it will dry out more and more and I don't think the winner will be in double figures, it will be low single figures if you ask me. At the 1st, I felt I had a two yard gap and I would have had a four iron third had I chipped it out. I thought it was worth the risk."
Meanwhile, Harrington's travails continued. He hit a perfect drive down the second but pushed his second, duffed his third into a bunker, bladed the recovery and eventually two putted for a double bogey seven. Another shot went at the 4th at which point the man who only the previous day claimed he was never happier with his swing was in danger of playing himself out of the Masters before the tournament had hardly begun. Not that he saw things in such a negative light and as ever battled as hard as he could to get back into the hunt. He took 40, four over par, to reach the turn but birdied the short 12th and was three over through the 14th.
British amateur champion Brian McElhinney from Donegal enjoyed the privilege of partnering two times champion Tom Watson and New Zealander Michael Campbell, the current holder of the US Open. While he found the length of the course and its inherent difficulty too much for him, he thoroughly enjoyed the experience and was entitled to feel reasonably satisfied with a round of 80 which was by no means the worst of the day, four better, for instance, than David Duval and level with the highly rated American Charles Howell 111. Out in 42 and six over, McElhinney dropped further shots at the monster par 4s at 10 and 11 and another at the short 12th. To his credit, though, he regained his composure and completed his last six in one under, five pars plus a lovely two at the 16th where he knocked a six iron tee shot to fifteen feet and sank the putt.
"I was really nervous standing on the first tee but felt good after making the fairway with my drive," said McElhinney. "I hit what I thought was a good four iron for my second but the greens are hard and the ball ran through the back and I didn't have much of a shot from there. I didn't know what to expect when I reached the 13th tee all of nine over but I played nicely from there home.
"Tom Watson was very nice to play with, he told me to enjoy it and be myself but that's more easily said than done out there. It was still good fun and all part of the learning curve. The chief thing is to try to get the pace of the greens as early as possible and also to hit your shots in the right places so as to have the best chance of going for the greens."
Darren Clarke had the boost of holing a hundred foot long birdie shot for an eagle three at the 2nd and parred every hole from there to the 12th where his tee shot plunged into Rae's Creek and cost him a double bogey five. The Ulsterman was even par through 17 holes.
US Ryder Cup captain Tom Lehman had a close shave in Augusta on Tuesday night when an intoxicated motorist fired a bullet into his Cadillac Escalade as he made his way towards Augusta Regional Airport to pick up his son.
The culprit was one Troy Willis Smith, 26, a native Augustan, and he was subsequently charged with two counts of aggravated assault, two counts of possession of a fire arm during the commission of a crime, reckless conduct and carrying a concealed weapon.
From all of that, you can reasonably deduct that Mr Smith won't trouble society for some time to come! "I turned around in a median at an interchange," the golfer explained.
"I was behind a slow moving model truck when an older model vehicle sped past. I heard a loud explosion and found that a bullet had struck the rear side door. There are no signs on the Cadillac that I am a Masters competitor and it was only afterwards that I discovered he had previously fired a shot into another car."
Not surprisingly, the wisecracks abounded in the media centre yesterday with Lehman's Ryder Cup counterpart Ian Woosnam being strongly advised to do his own dirty work from now on!
It also emerged that earlier in the week Woosie was asked about Lehman's plans to play as well as captain the US team at The K-Club should he qualify. "He needs shooting if he does that," commented the Welshman!
BREDA HARRINGTON took all the credit when her son, Padraig, holed his tee shot at the 9th hole during Wednesday's Par 3 competition! "I clubbed him well," she commented with a straight face. The ace pushed Padraig to two under par, two off the winner Ben Crane, who now turns his attention to laying the bogey that says you can't win the Par 3 and the Masters itself in the same year. Harrington won the short course event two years back and finished in a tie for 13th in the tournament proper.
Arron Oberholser and Tim Clark also holed in one but the record for most aces in the one year remains five - in 2002 when Stewart Cink and Toshi Izawi picked up two apiece and there was one for Jerry Pate.
CARL JACKSON is one of the two remaining Augusta National caddies working at the Masters this week.
When his boss, Ben Crenshaw, teed off at 8.22 yesterday morning, Jackson was extending a little-known Masters record. It is the 45th time he has caddied at the Masters, 30 of them with Crenshaw. He has missed only one year, in 2000, when he was recovering from illness. He helped Crenshaw to capture the green jacket in 1984 and again in '95, getting him into one of the most famous pictures in Masters history.
After Crenshaw sank the winning putt, he bent over and put his head on Jackson's chest and hugged him. Gentle Ben was spent from the emotion of the week. He had attended the funeral of his golf instructor and mentor Harvey Penick a few days before and dedicated the victory to him.
"People still love that picture today," said Jackson, "People know me from that."
PÁDRAIG HARRINGTON has been talking of how he hopes to see Tiger Woods provide his gravely ill father with a big boost by winning the Masters this week for a fifth time - if he himself can't do it first!
Harrington knows what Woods is going through, after playing at Augusta last year when his own father was close to death, also from cancer. Pádraig later withdrew from the Open at St Andrews when his dad died three days before the championship.
"Losing a parent is always a terrible blow, but the memory of what that win in the Barclays at Westchester, New York, meant to him was definitely a source of comfort at the time," said Harrington. "Tiger will be churned up over his dad's condition, but that is certainly no reason to think he is going to be too distracted this week. It could be the exact opposite. What I found is that it was almost a relief to be on the golf course, knowing that you had to concentrate.
"This is our job, what we do. If you were a bank manager you'd still have to do the nine to five, and that's the attitude we have to adopt too. It is the easy time. All the distractions, all the emotions, crowd in you far more when you are off the course.
"He's the consummate professional. He's stronger mentally than anyone else who has ever played the game, and that'll be a big help to him."
CONNECT WITH US TODAY
Be the first to know the latest news and updates
