US Masters / Bill Elliott / 10 April 2009 / Leave a Comment

Acclaimed golf journalist Bill Elliott sums up a tumultuous first day at Augusta where scoring was easy again and the noise of the crowd told you all you needed to know.

The noise is back along with the heat. Sunshine everywhere this week at the Masters, girls in mini-skirts, beer on everyone's list and in the foreground a small blitz of birdies and eagles from players suddenly released from the trials and tribulations of recent years.

The weather is the big thing here. That and the decision by The Blazers to promote the gentlest of pin placements of many of the holes here. This place will now start to get tougher, believe me. Will this affect guys like Chad Campbell, Hunter Mahan or, say, John Merrick? You bet your sweet life it will.

What we can also say after this first day is that this Masters is shaping up to offer again the explosions of noise and the tingles of genuine excitement come Sunday. The men who own this place and who jealously guard its corporate brand (worth, conservatively, half a billion dollars a year) have woken up, sniffed the coffee and tried to restore the old rock'n'roll rhythm that used to entrance the sporting world.

Funny thing is that Tiger Woods has yet to make the most of what is being rolled out in front of his startled gaze. By the time he realised that Augusta was there for the taking yesterday he was yomping through the back nine. By then Chad Campbell was already nine under par and threatening to break the course record.

Of course Campbell sweetly bottled it over the last couple of holes as he woke up and realised where he was heading while Woods pulled in three birdies in succession before messing up even easier putts for birdie at 16 and 17 and then slashing his approach to the last green under some elderly shoe up on the hillside.

On the one hand, Tiger demonstrated that extraordinary determination of his but on the other his game displayed some serious rustiness. This, of course, is hardly surprising given all that has happened to him over the last ten months but how he now deals with it all will determine the outcome of this Masters. Only a fool, and even then only a drunk and blind one, would not have him still in there as favourite.

Unless you are Irish, in which case Padraig Harrington's three under par start will have had you grinning inanely into a glass of something resolute and probably black. This was exactly what Harrington wanted. He craves solidity rather than extreme stuff, prefers to slip along quietly and then pounce at these things. Viewed like this he is now in a wonderful position.

As is Jim Furyk. The nicest of men, Furyk does not have the game to tame Augusta, At least on paper he doesn't. But he is technically sound and strategically aware enough to not only survive but to prosper. What he now needs is a westerly wind. If he gets that then he knows that the longer hitters' advantage will be nullified over a back nine that suddenly is explosive again.

The weather men say he just may get his wish. Yet while Furyk remains my pick as the man at the top this morning who is most likely to stay there, Woods remains the man to beat. One thought: the worst score he could have shot yesterday was 70 and 70 remains his equal best-ever opening round at a Masters. When this was pointed out to him he replied: "Yeah, and funnily enough, that's how I've won it four times here." Know what he means?

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