Danny Willett may look back on his likely unsuccessful title defense at this year’s Masters and wish he could have started each of his first (and only?) two rounds on the second hole.
Masters 2017: Danny Willett blows up on killer 1st hole
Defending champ Danny Willett’s follows 1st-round double-bogey with a quad-8 on treacherous first hole.
Photo by Rob Carr/Getty Images
Willett followed up Thursday’s double-bogey 6 on the dastardly starting hole with a quad-8 on Friday that probably knocked him out of the tournament.
Willett was hardly alone in struggling with a hole that, through 29 players early into Friday’s second round, had yielded its highest average score (5.06) in the last 70 years (Ernie Els’ 6-putt for a 9 to kick off his Masters in 2016 notwithstanding).
In addition to 18 bogeys carded by 10:20 a.m. ET on Friday, the hole coughed up six doubles and two dreaded “others” — a compilation that did not surprise 1976 Masters champions Raymond Floyd at all.
“I looked at the first pine and I said, ‘Uh oh,” Floyd said on Golf Channel Friday morning.
With players hitting directly into the stiff wind and the pin right over the front left bunker on the 445-yard par-4, Floyd correctly observed that it would be “a nightmare trying to get it up there close.”
Floyd noted how difficult it would be to putt from off the front edge to get it over the crown. A miss in the bunker would short-side a player, and anyone who hit it long would have to battle the downwind, which “magnifies the speed of the greens.”
No. 1 did not have everyone’s number. Sergio Garcia got his second round off to a strong start with a rare birdie at the first to move into solo third place at 2-under for the week — six shots behind 18-hole leader Charley Hoffman, who made par at the opening hole on Thursday and Friday.
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By Christian D'Andrea
