- The Masters, Round One
Westy shoots Tiger's score, but Rory shows his fire
Alex Dimond April 6, 2012
Masters 2012: First round report
Masters 2012: First round gallery
Masters 2012: 'Brutal' day - Woods
Masters 2012: Westwood 'comfortable'
Masters 2012: What they said
Masters 2012: Plays - Donald's DQ drama
With the benefit of hindsight, perhaps we should have guessed Thursday was always going to be Lee Westwood's day.
The conditions, after all, seemed almost tailor-made for him. Couple the gallons of rainfall that had rendered Augusta National softer than it has been for a number of years with an unusual opening round setup, and organisers (in partnership with the gods) had presented a challenge suited best to straight drivers with impeccable control over their irons.
Call in the specialist - those have always been Lee Westwood's biggest strengths.
As the two favourites - not just for the tournament, but also now of golf in general - struggled in the opening exchanges, Westwood plotted his way around with a steady ease that eventually - in a productive four-hole stretch prior to the turn - yielded an enviable number of birdies.
As Tiger Woods found ever more imaginative ways to recover from persistent snap hooks off the tee that left him a long way back and out of position on so many holes, Westwood found the short stuff with his driver time and time again.
As a tentative Rory McIlroy attempted to recover after failing to find the fairway or green off the first and running up a double-bogey as a result, Westwood was casually hitting 16 of 18 greens during a round of remarkable consistency.
While others came off the course complaining about the placement of both the tees and the pins, Westwood was happy to express satisfaction in his game.
"I played very solidly and didn't make many bad shots … it was a pretty pain-free round," he said. "Every hole looked bigger than it has for a while today. I need to pick shots up on the par fives but I could have birdied every hole coming in.
"I have played in enough of these now to know what is going on and 67 has given me a great start."
Not everyone could say the same. Woods, fighting his errant driving, was the first of the big names into the clubhouse with a level-par round of 72. It could have been worse and, with no one else running away from the pack, did not really need to be that much better.
The 14-time major champion can still win from there - but he can't win if he keeps hitting approach shots from over there. With his putting less than spectacular, the same questions persist with a pre-tournament favourite who seemed to earn that status more on reputation and respect than recent results (assuming, as one really should, that a win at the exceedingly familiar Arnold Palmer Invitational is not enough to declare him 'back').
His moaning about the course setup, when it was clearly to all that it was his driving that cost him dearest, suggested he senses that he does not have the instinctive command over this layout that he once did.
"It's brutal. It's really, really tough," Woods said, when asked about the conditions and setup. "I did not think they would play it [the course] that far back. They played it pretty deep today and, on top of that, some of these pins we haven't seen for a while. Hitting long irons into some of these flags is a tough deal."
Perhaps a fair point - although this is a major championship, not a monthly medal - but the conditions remained the same for everyone. It should perhaps not be a surprise that, with almost no exceptions, it was either consistent ball strikers (Louis Oosthuizen, Miguel Angel Jimenez, Peter Hanson) or great drivers (Bubba Watson, Jim Furyk, Francisco Molinari) who prospered on the opening day.
None of them were complaining.
At the other end of the leaderboard, those of limited length (Luke Donald) and inconsistent driving (Phil Mickelson) found that conditions did not make it easy for them to put any sort of score on the board. They were pointing fingers, but at their own failings rather than those of others (although Lefty did lay into the layout earlier in the week).
McIlroy, however, remains an interesting proposition. It's hard to say he played well - if Westwood was near 9/10, his former friend barely registers beyond a six or seven - yet he remains a key part of this tournament.
At the end of the day Westwood had the Tiger-esque score, but the way McIlroy plotted his recovery was positively Woods-ian in its execution.
On a difficult day for a number of reasons (confronted with the now-infamous 10th tee-shot once again, McIlroy flailed his shot well right and afterwards noted "I wasn't aiming left, that's for sure"), the 22-year-old positioned himself behind the eight-ball after the opening hole thanks to two timid shots, and then proceeded to drag himself out of that precarious position over the next 17.
Two birdies in his final two holes - on a day where both were causing the field untold difficultly - gave his round the air of a certain performance at the same venue in 1997, when a 21-year-old Tiger Woods went out in 40 before coming back in 30 to pave the way for an eventual evisceration of the field.
McIlroy was playing badly, and then he pulled a rabbit out of the hat. A round of 71 leaves him just four shots behind Westwood, but you sure feel like the Northern Irishman believes there is a lower score to be made out there over these next three days than anyone else does.
"I'm a lot more pleased coming off the golf course than if I had finished par and to come off under-par is pleasing," he noted. "My perseverance and patience paid off and it was nice to finish as I did, but I'm surprised someone didn't go lower than five [under] today."
I'm surprised someone didn't go lower than five today.
Back in the day, that was Tiger-speak for 'You had you chance to build a lead, guys, but now I'm going to take you all apart.' Congressional, and the first 54 holes at this event 12 months ago, made it abundantly clear that McIlroy, to mix metaphors horribly, has that same gear in his locker. But it's not one fitted on every golfer as standard.
Thursday was Lee Westwood's day; of that there is no doubt. But what if this was as bad as it is going to get for McIlroy? After finding trouble and confronting some old demons (until they return on Sunday, at least), his final result was almost as impressive as Westwood's.
McIlroy made the most of a bad day; you get the sense that Westwood did wonderfully but nonetheless left a couple of shots out there in conditions that suited him down to the ground. He's sitting pretty for now, but there are still 54 holes to play. After such a majestic display of ball-striking, it can only dip from here.
That's far from the case for McIlroy, however - he's got plenty of room for improvement. That's a good omen for him - for everyone else, not so much.
I'm surprised someone didn't go lower than five today.
That's not an observation. It's a warning.