AUGUSTA, Ga. — Defending champion Scottie Scheffler answered any doubts about his readiness to win one other inexperienced jacket by posting a bogey-free, 4-under 68 and sits tied for second after the opening spherical of the 89th Masters at Augusta Nationwide Golf Membership on Thursday.
Scheffler was joined by Corey Conners and Ludvig Åberg at 4-under. He had three birdies on the primary 9 holes, together with a 62-foot putt on the par-3 fourth. He added a 42-foot birdie on the par-3 sixteenth.
Justin Rose leads after Day 1 following a 7-under 65 that included eight birdies and only one bogey for the Brit.
Scheffler is just the fourth defending Masters winner to open the subsequent yr’s match with a bogey-free spherical up to now 30 years.
With sunshine and little wind, the morning wave of gamers loved pristine scoring situations, apart from the Augusta Nationwide greens, which have been quick and agency even after greater than an inch of rain fell right here Monday.
“I had a sense the golf course was going to get fairly agency,” Scheffler mentioned. “The areas to hit your irons out listed below are fairly small, they usually get even smaller when the greens are agency, so there’s undoubtedly some problem to the golf course as we speak, and I am certain that’ll proceed because the week goes on.”
The world No. 1 had a comparatively stress-free spherical within the opening 18 holes of his try to affix Jack Nicklaus (1963, 1965 and 1966) as the one golfers to win the Masters 3 times in a four-year span. Scheffler can grow to be solely the fourth golfer to win a inexperienced jacket in back-to-back years, becoming a member of Nicklaus, Nick Faldo (1989-90) and Tiger Woods (2001-02).
Scheffler now has 4 straight opening rounds within the 60s on the Masters, the second-longest streak within the match’s illustrious historical past, trailing solely Nicklaus, who completed the feat 5 straight occasions from 1972 to ’76, in keeping with ESPN Analysis.
On the par-4 seventh, Scheffler wanted a pleasant up and down out of a greenside bunker to avoid wasting par. Then on the subsequent gap, the par-5 eighth, he smacked a 319-yard drive into the second reduce down the left aspect. His method with a fairway wooden went proper of the inexperienced and landed in a deep divot.
“Simply a type of offers — typically you get good and dangerous breaks,” Scheffler mentioned. “Fortuitously, there was nonetheless a approach I might play the shot. However, yeah, I used to be simply in a divot about that large. Fairly deep.”
Someway, Scheffler chipped to 14 ft and made the putt for a birdie to get to three below.
“It was fairly difficult,” he mentioned. “I hit a very superior shot to get it to about 15 ft. I needed to put it behind my stance, stand near it, make certain I received ball first, and I hit this type of low skipper. [I] was lucky to have the ability to get some spin on it as a result of it was sitting so deep in that grass. I used to be stunned it did not hit the entrance of the divot when it got here out. That is how deep it was.”
On the par-4 seventeenth, he made one other deft pitch out of a greenside bunker and an 8-footer to avoid wasting par once more.
“I felt fairly good,” Scheffler mentioned. “Anytime you possibly can preserve a card clear out right here, it is a actually good factor. I struggled for what felt like two pars as we speak. I needed to make two actually good up-and-downs. However apart from that, the golf course was in entrance of me a lot of the day, saved the ball in play, did loads of actually good issues on the market.”
The dangerous information for the remainder of the sector is that Scheffler says he feels as ready for a match as he has all season. He missed the primary month after chopping his hand in a cooking accident on Christmas, which restricted his skill to observe.
He hit 11 of 18 greens, so there’s room to enhance over the ultimate 54 holes.
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