STORMS ARE sweeping across Augusta National: winds have felled trees and sluicing rain has soaked the course, deepening the hue of the grass and turning one of sport’s great, manicured theatres into an attritional battleground.
Yesterday’s thunderstorms meant the second round was completed on Saturday morning, and at the end of it all, Jon Rahm and Tiger Woods were left standing; Rahm flinty and resolute, Woods battered, exhausted, but still alive.
Rahm’s resolve was superb, playing his final holes this morning in one-under to cut the gap to Brooks Koepka to two shots. Woods, meanwhile, made the cut, equalling the record for the most consecutive weekend appearances (23) at the Masters. It was a close-run thing: he bogeyed the final hole to drift to plus-three, needing one of either Justin Thomas or Sungjae Im to bogey one of their final two holes to bring the cutline back to within range. His good friend Thomas obliged, going bogey-bogey to send Woods to the closing rounds while managing to miss the cut himself.
Shane Lowry and Seamus Power will be involved in the coming dogfight too. Both returned to this morning’s cold, damp conditions, with Power bogeying the last to move to plus-one for the tournament, while Lowry shot a level-par 72 to stay at four-under. He is eight shots off leader Koepka, perhaps just about close enough to profit from the unpredictable.
“You could have went out there this morning, made a couple of bogeys and feel like you were out of the tournament”, said Lowry. “So I still feel like I’m in the tournament.
“I’m pretty happy the way I’m playing I think if my putter warms up over the weekend I could be dangerous.”
If it does, it will be just about the only source of heat around Augusta National on Saturday. The conditions are taking over from the course as the main protagonist.
Play was suspended yesterday afternoon when the forecast thunderstorms moved in, by which point Koepka was safely in the clubhouse with a yawning lead after a flawless 67 to match his opening 65.
Minutes before play was halted, swirling winds felled three trees by the 17th hole: it was a near-miracle that nobody was hurt.
‘We were walking up 13 fairway and we heard the screams, it sounded like a grandstand to us, which was really strange”, said Seamus Power. “I’m just so happy that everyone was okay and unhurt.”
1987 champion Larry Mize, playing his final-ever round at the Masters, saw the trees fall from the 16th green and reacted by turning around and putting out for par. Another past champion playing his valedictory round was Sandy Lyle, given an afternoon start on Friday to soak up his farewell from the gallery. He had a special putter made and engraved for the occasion, and as he stood over his 12-foot putt on the 18th green, the hooters wailed. He wasn’t allowed to hole out, a decision playing partner Jason Kokrak dismissed as “chicken-shit.”
So Lyle returned at 8am this morning to say farewell to the Masters in front of a few hardy souls. He two-putted for bogey, perhaps to make the most of it.
Rahm returned too and kept the pressure on Koepka quite magnificently, hitting birdie on 12, 15, and 16. Bogeys on 16 and 18 might have marred his card but did not affect his mood.
This is the first time the Masters has had two players in double-digits under-par through 36 holes, and when it’s in the record books, that stat won’t reference the conditions through which Rahm battled.
Keopka’s advantage in avoiding the storms was enormous. The players who played on Thursday afternoon and then again on Friday morning – like Kopeka – shot a total of 18-over. The same figure for those playing early/late – like Rahm – totalled 88-over.
(That Rory McIlroy missed the cut and accounted for five of the plus-18 on the easy side of the draw…well, there are layers to his Masters agony this year.)
The wind and the rain wreaked havoc all morning: Tiger Woods attacked the pin on 15 and saw his ball hit the flag fluttering in the wind. The ball at least didn’t roll back into the water.
Augusta National want distance addressed and bought land from the golf club next door to lengthen the 13th hole by 35 yards, but now the weather has done all of the work for them. On Thursday, for instance, Lowry hit a nine iron from the fairway into the 18th green. This morning he hit a four-iron.
There hasn’t been a Monday finish at the Masters for 40 years, and the tournament is going all-out to avoid one in 2023. The third round will be played in threes rather than in pairs and with two-tee starts.
Lowry has been paired with Justin Rose and Russel Henley, while Power will play alongside Mackenzie Hughes and Freddie Couples, whose rounds of 71 and 74 have made him the oldest man ever to make the cut at the Masters.
The reward for Woods’ tenacity may be torture. If play is finished today, he will walk 36 holes around Augusta’s slippery slopes in cold temperatures unlikely to peak any higher than 10°C. He has been given the latest possible start, teeing off on the 10th with Sungjae Im and Thomas Pieters.
Rahm and Koepka, meanwhile, will now play in the same conditions, in the final group with amateur Sam Bennett, whose remarkable week now meets its greatest challenge.
Sunday’s forecast has improved, so the challenge now is to survive Saturday’s slog.
“Someone’s going to go out and shoot 67″, said Lowry. That would be a great score. If you managed to break 70 this afternoon in these conditions it will be a pretty good score.”
