Sergio Garcia ties ugly Masters record with 13 shots on single hole

He finished the day tied for 29th, seven shots back of leader Jordan Spieth.

“It didn’t fade”, Woods said to laughter a few hours later.

“I feel like I’m kind of one round down out of six, so I’m not getting ahead of myself. I looked forward to this week for a really long time, and to see the possibility of that slipping away; you know, I was really ecstatic to be walking to the first tee”. “They’re really into it”.

Amen Corner showed the trouble it can cause with Woods bogeying both 11 and 12 before birdies at 14 and 16 put him in the mix.

With sloping fairways and speedy greens, Augusta National demands touch, and Spieth is already imagining the texture of the hem of his next green jacket.

He followed, however, with back-to-back bogeys.

The No. 1 player in the world has not won the Masters since 2002 – it was Woods, of course – a streak that Dustin Johnson would love to end. His second shot squirted right and into the gallery he just repositioned.

After his first competitive 18 holes at the Augusta National for 1,089 days, he said: “It feels great to be back; it’s been a while”. After being sidelined for a little more than a year, Hogan returned at age 37 and won the last six of his nine majors, including two Masters.

“Seventy-three is fine”, Woods said. “And I fought hard to get it back and I’m back in this championship”.

That’s been Rory’s problem each year, he tends to average two double-bogeys per round and that’s something he’s got to clean up if he wants that Green Jacket, because he certainly makes enough birdies. He wasn’t alone. He was among 30 players who made bogey there; four players walked off the green forced to write a 6 on their scorecard. Despite another mighty blow with his driver, he couldn’t birdie the eighth, the second par-5 on the front nine.

“I was just extremely happy that nothing was seriously wrong with my foot”, he said. And I made that putt. But his fourth shot left him a tap-in. At the end of the week, I think it’s going to be pretty crowded. “Sometimes that happens, and most of the time it doesn’t”. And that, along with Garcia’s earnest attempts to describe the horrifying calamity that befell him Thursday, makes him even more likeable than when he won the green jacket a year ago.

Jordan Spieth of the U.S. hits off the 12th tee during first round play of the 2018 Masters golf tournament at the Augusta National Golf Club in Augusta, Georgia, U.S., April 5, 2018.

He was then a bit tentative with a six-foot birdie putt following a superb tee shot to a back pin position at the sixth.

Finau’s first Masters was in danger of being over before it even started when the 28-year-old journeyman suffered what appeared to be a gruesome ankle injury while celebrating a hole-in-one during Wednesday’s Par Three contest.

He was joined by Masters newcomer Li Haotong of China, former British Open champion Henrik Stenson of Sweden, Spain’s Rafael Cabrera Bello, Canadian Adam Hadwin and Americans Patrick Reed and Charley Hoffman.

Two birdies over the final five holes helped his mood, too. It was only the sixth eagle on the 18th hole at the Masters, and the first since Chris DiMarco in 2006.

That got him to even par 72, making him the low amateur and putting him in solid contention to make the cut and play the weekend.