Tough morning for Woods and Lowry at the Masters

ROUND ONE COMPLETED: Thirty players went home Thursday night with incompleted first rounds. They returned to a relative killing fields at Augusta National on Friday morning. Pic: AP Photo/George Walker IV

Thirty players went home Thursday night with incompleted first rounds. They returned to a relative killing fields at Augusta National on Friday morning.

Any idea that the course might have softened and the winds diminished overnight were refuted in a deluge of hope-dashing scores for many of the morning finishers when they resumed play at 7:50 am local time.

Tiger Woods lost two strokes and his red number in finishing the last five holes, making bogeys at 14 and 18 to shoot 73. Shane Lowry had only two holes left to finish and dropped a stroke at the last to shoot 73 himself.

They were the relative lucky ones. Open champion Brian Harman had been 2-under through 10 holes and went bogey-bogey at 11 and 12 before play was suspended with him sitting at even par. What seemed like a timely whistle turned out to be anything but, as Harman promptly made double on 13 to start the morning and then finished 6-6-6 to post a back-nine 47 and finished in 9-over 81.

Jordan Spieth left the course 2-over par through 11 holes Thursday and a quick birdie at 13 signaled a potential recovery in progress. But he played the last five holes in 6-over, including a hacker’s quad 9 at the par-5 15th when kept wedging back and forth over the green including one into the pond.

Tyrrell Hatton was 3-under and tied for fifth through 14 holes Thursday and promptly made a double on 15 after spinning his wedge into the pond. A bogey at 18 left him level.

Ludvig Åberg went to sleep on 2-under and also made double spinning it into the pond on 15 and finished the round 1-over 73.

Patrick Reed, the 2018 Masters winner, was 2-under through 11 holes Thursday, but he finished bogey-bogey-double bogey to shoot 74.

The only player near the lead to improve his standing in the morning was Max Homa. He was playing with Woods and walked off at 4-under after a birdie on 13 in the darkening day. He climbed into a share of second with Scottie Scheffler (66) a shot behind 18-hole leader Bryson DeChambeau (65) with birdies at 16 and 17 before a bogey on the last left him tied for third at 5-under 67 with fellow Ryder Cupper Nicolai Højgaard, who got off the course unscathed with three successive pars in his morning finish.

“This morning, it wasn't that easy getting out there that early, and the conditions completely changed with different wind direction,” said Højgaard, one of the only players who had time to briefly chat before turning around and heading out for his second round. “Yeah, happy with how I played the last three holes, and now I'm looking forward to get out there again.”