If anything, the fashion sense of players has changed over time. For certain, you’d want to be a young, fit man to get away with wearing the flowery shirt exhibited by Viktor Hovland in the opening round of this 87th edition of the Masters; but, in fairness to the 25-year-old Norwegian, he proved to be far more than a clotheshorse.
And, in opening with a round of seven-under-par 65, Hovland navigated his way to the top of the leaderboard. But he wasn’t alone. For Jon Rahm, too, also signed for that same score. Except, in the Spaniard’s case, it came after a dreadful double-bogey six start on the first round which served like kicking him into a reaction that saw him claim an eagle and seven birdies through the remainder of his subsequently perfect walk through the towering pines. Brooks Koepka also shared the clubhouse lead with a 65.
Hovland might have had the azaleas as a design pattern, Rahm could smell them.
On a beautifully sunny day, at odds with the forecast for the rest of the tournament that promises scattered thunderstorms at some point but also with the virtual guarantee of a constant downpour through Saturday’s scheduled third round, players in the main took advantage of the conditions.
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None more so than Hovland – tasked with a first ever round playing alongside Tiger Woods – and Rahm, who set out their bids for a green jacket with an impressive display of shot-making and putting prowess.
While Woods laboured to a 74, Hovland didn’t put a foot wrong in a round which featured an eagle – where he stared down an iron approach to 15 feet and coolly walked in the putt – and seven birdies.
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Hovland was actually informed of his draw with Woods by Shane Lowry on the practice range on Tuesday when the tee-times emerged. “My heart kind of went a little bit further up in the throat, my heart rate started going up. After that, I calmed myself down and thought, ‘this is going to be very exciting’. You’ve got to embrace it, you can’t be scared or anything like that. If you want to win this tournament, you can’t be scared about playing with Tiger. You’ve got to overcome things like that.”
Rather than any signs of trepidation, Hovland – his flowery shirt showcasing his self-belief – went about his business brilliantly in fashioning a round fitting to the occasion.
But he also showed maturity: “If you get a little too cocky and you want to push a few spots that you probably shouldn’t, it will punish you very quickly. So you know a good score is out there, but you can’t really force it. You’ve just got to let it happen, and if you have some makeable putts, you’ve got to make them, and then you can get into a rhythm.”
That Rahm ensured he had some company atop the clubhouse leaderboard came as little surprise, for the Spaniard’s form around Augusta National has, over the years, been one of a player very comfortable in such surroundings.
In six previous Masters’ appearances, Rahm had numbered four top-10s with a worse finish of tied-27th. After starting with a double-bogey, he responded magnificently with back-to-back birdies on the second and third to erase the damage and then kept his foot to the metal in motoring along to join Hovland on 65.
Rahm’s four-putt on the first hole for the double bogey brought to mind a memory of his boyhood hero Seve Ballesteros. “I remembered Seve’s quote here at the Masters, where he said’ I miss, I miss, I miss, I make’. If you are going to make a double bogey, you might as well do it on the first hole of the tournament and get on with it,” said Rahm of putting that bad start behind him and getting on with the task of playing his way into contention.
