… so having stated that, of the 18 gamers on the market already, solely 5 of them are below par for his or her spherical up to now. Solely a kind of have carded multiple birdie. England’s Laurie Canter flew out of the blocks with birdies at 1 and a pair of, however he’s handed again a kind of pictures at 4. The 35-year-old debutant from Bathtub is presently +4 after a 77 yesterday that promised extra, till he carded late double bogeys at 16 and 17. Rory, you aren’t alone.
Right here we go, then, and the morning starters ought to have the very best of the situations in the present day. There have been rainstorms final evening, and the greens ought to be good and responsive in consequence. Sound the low-scores klaxon! However will we hear the precise climate klaxon later? There’s a 30 % change of a thunderstorm later within the afternoon. What’s sure is the temperature will rise because the day progresses, and so will the windspeeds. So sure, the blokes out early would be the happiest. The weekend is anticipated to be dry and more and more sunny and heat. Sunday ought to be an image.
Preamble
Yesterday was all about 44-year-old Justin Rose’s great 67, the primary chapter of what might turn into the best romantic story ever written by anybody from north-east Hampshire (offering we go away Jane Austen out of this). Hartley Wintney’s best couldn’t proper the nearly-man wrongs of 2007, 2015 and 2017, might he? Maybe. Fingers crossed. Let’s see. Three days nonetheless to go. I could have misplaced my coronary heart, however not my self-control.
Yesterday was additionally about Rory McIlroy. Someone shouted “hallelujah!” when Scottie Scheffler hit his opening drive. Different well-worn biblical exclamations might nicely have been barked by followers of McIlroy, with some feeling, as he melted down on the homeward stretch, carding careless, clumsy, pointless double bogeys at 15 and 17. Oh Rory. If we beloved you much less, we’d have the ability to discuss it extra.
Anyway, right here’s how the highest of the leaderboard takes care of an entertaining and dramatic opening day at Augusta Nationwide. No one on it’s out of rivalry, so greatest to strategy the duty in hand calmly. Bear in mind: indignant individuals are not all the time smart.
-7: Rose
-4: Conners, Scheffler, Åberg
-3: Hatton, DeChambeau
-2: Rai, English, Day, Bhatia
-1: M Kim, Thompson, Smith, {Couples}, Harman, Reed, Greyserman, MW Lee, Watson, McCarty, McCarthy, Berger, Fitzpatrick, Im, Hovland, Lowry
E: Younger, Z Johnson, Jaeger, Morikawa, Niemann, McNealy, Campbell, Hoge, Garcia, McIlroy, Theegala
In the present day’s tee instances
(USA except acknowledged, all instances BST)
12.40 Rafael Campos (Pur), Cameron Davis (Aus), Austin Eckroat
12.51 Angel Cabrera (Arg), Laurie Canter (Eng), Adam Schenk
13.02 Brian Campbell, Thriston Lawrence (Rsa), Jose Maria Olazabal (Spa)
13.13 Evan Beck, Matthieu Pavon (Fra), Bubba Watson
13.24 Christiaan Bezuidenhout (Rsa), Tom Hoge, Matt McCarty
13.35 Denny McCarthy, Charl Schwartzel (Rsa), Hiroshi Tai (Sgp)
13.52 Max Homa, Justin Rose (Eng), JJ Spaun
14.03 Justin Hastings (Cay), Dustin Johnson, Nick Taylor (Can)
14.14 Daniel Berger, Sergio Garcia (Spa), Lucas Glover
14.25 Patrick Cantlay, Matthew Fitzpatrick (Eng), Rasmus Hoejgaard (Den)
14.36 Russell Henley, Sung-Jae Im (Kor), Brooks Koepka
14.47 Viktor Hovland (Nor), Xander Schauffele, Adam Scott (Aus)
14.58 Ludvig Aaberg (Swe), Akshay Bhatia, Rory McIlroy (NIrl)
15.15 Bryson DeChambeau, Shane Lowry (Irl), Hideki Matsuyama (Jpn)
15.26 Wyndham Clark, Tommy Fleetwood (Eng), Jon Rahm (Spa)
15.37 Sam Burns, Sepp Straka (Aut), Sahith Theegala
15.48 Patton Kizzire, Davis Riley
15.59 Nicolai Hoejgaard (Den), Jhonattan Vegas (Ven), Chun-An Yu (Tai)
16.10 Michael Kim, Mike Weir (Can), Cameron Younger
16.21 Joe Highsmith, Zach Johnson, Chris Kirk
16.38 Nicolas Echavarria (Col), Davis Thompson, Danny Willett (Eng)
16.49 Noah Kent, Bernhard Langer (Ger), Will Zalatoris
17.00 J. T. Poston, Aaron Rai (Eng), Cameron Smith (Aus)
17.11 Fred {Couples}, Harris English, Taylor Pendrith (Can)
17.22 Corey Conners (Can), Brian Harman, Stephan Jaeger (Ger)
17.33 Byeong-Hun An (Kor), Max Greyserman, Patrick Reed
17.50 Nick Dunlap, Billy Horschel, Robert MacIntyre (Sco)
18.01 Min-Woo Lee (Aus), Collin Morikawa, Joaquin Niemann (Chi)
18.12 Keegan Bradley, Jason Day (Aus), Phil Mickelson
18.23 Jose Luis Ballester (Spa), Scottie Scheffler, Justin Thomas
18.34 Tyrrell Hatton (Eng), Joo-Hyung Kim (Kor), Jordan Spieth
18.45 Thomas Detry (Bel), Tony Finau, Maverick McNealy
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