A gale hits Augusta. Hurricane-force winds of up to 60 km/h buffet golfers. Every blow is a martyrdom. The players stand on top of the ball and contain the impact while waiting for a bit of calm, while caps, chair covers and sandwich wrappers fly across the field. No one is safe from very harsh conditions that turn the second day of the Masters into a survival exercise. Every man for himself. Only eight golfers manage to get under par in the round (the best of the day was the surprising 24-year-old Swede Ludvig Aberg, with -3) and only 14 are in the red in the general classification. Americans Max Homa, Bryson DeChambeau and Scottie Scheffler share the lead at -6. The current champion, Jon Rahm, saved the cut with a lot of suffering (+5), as did Jose María Olazabal when he already thought he was eliminated (+6), while there was no redemption for Sergio García (+7).
Pairs are a treasure in a day that takes around six hours of play per match due to the difficulty in thinking and connecting each shot. Homa scratches -1 on the day. DeChambeau adds a punch to his opening card. The Saudi League player showed off his cannonball from the tee departure, but in the green much of the advantage gained was left behind. The world number one, Scheffler, also succumbs at times to the power of Eolo. His first bogey In this Masters he arrives after 22 holes without stain, in the fifth stop of the second day, and charges with another on the scoreboard two steps later. New bogey on the par five of the 13th, and he cannot take advantage of the par five of the 15th either. He tied with Augusta at the end of this second day, which also saw the 24th consecutive cut surpassed by Tiger Woods at 48 years old. A heroism.
The champion was against the ropes. Jon Rahm was also engulfed by the wind. From the start he was left without hunting birdie on the par five of 2, the hole with the best score under par on his resume at Augusta (-20), and he carried a bogey on the par four of 3 after a strange circumstance: when kicking he lost the green and then had to resort to a approaches. another would arrive bogey at 6, at 11, and the debacle at 14. After a great tee shot, and saving an escape, the ball missed the hole in a putt short and rolled down the hill to get away from the target. The double bogey It then left him out of the game, but then that competitive streak of the current holder of the green jacket emerged. A birdie on the par five 15th and another with a putt holed out from more than 15 meters in the 16th minute and was returned to the fold. In the worst circumstances, the best Rahm.
“I’d rather have rain than a hurricane like this. They are the worst conditions I have ever had in Augusta. Mentally, the hard part was the field itself,” analyzed the big man from Barrika. It is the first time in his career that he begins the Masters with two rounds over par (73 and 76). The distractions of being the winner last year and the host at the Champions Dinner surely haven’t helped you focus fully on the game. Nor the fact of enrolling in the Saudi League, LIV Golf, with less competition and one less day per tournament than in the American circuit. From one year to the next, a Rahm with one gear less.
The Basque narrowly avoids the Spanish curse of the green jacket. Neither Seve in 1981 and 1984, nor Olazabal in 2000 nor Sergio García in 2018 made the cut the year after wearing the famous garment. Only Olazabal was saved in 1995, and now Rahm almost at the last moment.
Sergio García packs his bags after a devilish end to the round: bogeys in 15, 16 and 17 and double bogey in the 18th when he sent the ball into the woods with his tee shot. There were five more shots in the last four holes for a 79 on the day, his worst round since the 81 with which the green jacket defense started in 2018, and +7 in total. Since he won at Augusta in 2017 with the first and only major of his career, he has missed the cut at the Masters in five of his next six appearances. Fired up, the man from Castellón left without saying a word to the press.
Olazabal (+6) also thought he was saying goodbye, as he rowed and rowed with great honor until he drowned in the water on the 12th hole, in the heart of Amen Corner, with a triple bogey. “I have been coming here for more than 30 years and I have rarely played in these conditions. At least I enjoyed it on the field, I haven’t been so good at it for a long time. It’s a shame for not making the cut, but with your head held high,” the 58-year-old double champion in the green jacket said honestly at the end of a round of +1. Without knowing, of course, that this result would finally allow him to play on the weekend. There are ways and means of understanding the competition, and the Basque, the knight of golf, the Princess of Asturias award, always represents the best values of the sport even if the result was not what was necessary… Or so he believed.
Augusta Masters classification.
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