Masters leaderboard 2015: Tiger Woods opens with birdie but Jordan Spieth is running away

Tiger Woods is back to level at the Masters, opening his second round Friday with a birdie. Woods has notoriously struggled on the opening hole at Augusta National. He almost never hits the fairway and made a bogey there on Thursday, missing the fairway and then three-putting to promptly drop a shot.

That wasn’t the case in the second round, as Woods played it perfectly from tee to green. He piped his drive down the center, stuck his approach to seven feet, and steadily poured in the birdie (via Masters.com)

That opening birdie was huge because the second at Augusta is one of the best opportunities at birdie on the course. The back-to-back open would quickly have Tiger off and running and under-par just 15 minutes into his round. The hole started well enough, with Woods poking his drive right down the middle.

This was the hole where Louis Oosthuizen made that incredible albatross, so an eagle is feasible and a birdie is likely. But Woods put his second in a greenside bunker, blasted out to 23 feet and two-putted for a par. Getting the birdie at No. 1 gave him an opportunity to get off to a really hot start, but that stunted the momentum a bit.

Tiger had his third straight chance at a red number on No. 3, putting an approach to 11 feet. But he left his putt short of the hole and settled for another par. Woods spoke incredulously on Thursday afternoon about how slow he thought the greens were rolling, noting that his entire group was off all day and leaving them short. That may still be an issue for him at the top of the third round. It was at No. 3 green. Here’s the card through his first four holes (via Masters.com):

While Tiger just tries to get safely on the right side of the cut line, Jordan Spieth is up ahead a few holes and trying to race away from the entire field. Spieth is 2-under on the day, needing only 23 holes at Augusta to get to 10-under. That’s a ridiculously quick pace for double digits in the red at this venue. At the start of the day, it looked like the over/under for Spieth was a 2-under 70, but he got that early in the second round. If he can avoid the bogeys and blow-up holes on the back side, he should have a multi-shot lead at the midpoint.

Here’s the board early on Friday:

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