The two friends obliged on an opening round of this 90th Masters in near ideal conditions: Rory McIlroy, the defender, and Shane Lowry, one of the pretenders to his throne, walked the pristine fairways – with the occasional diversion into the towering Cathedral Pines and their bed of needles – with some aplomb in navigating their respective routes to the business part of the leaderboard.
Experience and know-how are key attributes around Augusta National, so too patience; and that virtue of staying in the moment was in evidence as McIlroy signed for a first round of 67, five-under-par, while Lowry pencilled his signature on the scorecard to a 70, two-under.
McIlroy’s stubbornly compiled 67 put him into a share of the clubhouse lead with Sam Burns, presenting a strong start in his bid to become just the fourth player to successfully defend the green jacket, last achieved by Tiger Woods in 2002.
The Northern Irishman and world number two produced a round of six birdies and a lone bogey – on the short par 4 third, where he three-putted – head to the score recorder’s with a spring on his face and to roars of approval from those gathered along his way from the 18th.
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The start had been nervy, shaky, with numerous visits to the trees. Of that nerves, though, McIlroy observed: “It’s the Masters. If I felt absolutely nothing on that 1st tee, that’s not a good sign. So it was nice to feel my hand shaking a little bit when the tee went into the ground and struggle to put the ball on top of the tee. So I knew I was feeling it. That’s a good thing. That’s why we want to be here. We want to be able to try to play our best golf when we’re feeling like that.
“That feeling went away. It’s not as if you feel like that the whole way around, but it was still nice to feel that on the first tee.”
Golf is not a game of perfect, we all know. Lowry knows it only too well, a head-wrecking four-putt for a double bogey on the Par 3 fourth hole providing a speedbump only to late be offset by a hole-out eagle on the Par 5 13th. The gods taketh away and the gods giveth back, as it were.
The 13th is one of the most iconic holes on the course, where Rae’s Creek leaks in front of the green as McIlroy knows only too well from his final round a year ago when a poor approach saw him find the water in part of the drama.
And, on this opening day, both Lowry and McIlroy had their moments.
In Lowry’s case, it was a hole played beyond perfection: a driver, a lay-up and, then, from 68 yards a hole-out eagle three. Lowry’s lob-wedge twirled in his hands after executing the approach shot, after which the ball took a couple of bounces and disappeared into the hole. He raised both hands to the skies, clapped palms with caddie Darren Reynolds and high-fived Jason Day, one of his playing partners.
“To be honest, it’s been a number that I’m not overly comfortable with or I haven’t been, and I did work on it a lot over the last two weeks. It was nice to pull it off. I knew when it was in the air, it was really good, but I knew it was going to go close, but it was nice to see it go in. It kind of gave me a little jump for the rest of the round,” said Lowry.
That was Lowry’s 13th, on the hole known as Azalea.
The defending champion’s play was different, didn’t provide an eagle, but was as good in its own way.
McIlroy’s 13th was if anything even more dramatic, even if his reward was a birdie. But what a birdie. His drive tailed right into the trees and, from the pine needles, he punched out and then hit his approach to 10 feet and rolled in the birdie putt for what would spark a run of three successive birdies.
On the 14th, McIlroy’s drive was pushed right and, again from the trees, he managed to find the green with his approach. Birdie, moving to four-under.
And onwards McIlroy went, the three weeks break – and that recovery from a lower back muscle injury – along with all of his pre-tournament requirements seemingly irrelevant once back with clubs in hand.
On the 15th, McIlroy’s tee-shot was pulled down the left and again trees blocked any route to the green. He had no choice but to lay up, but managed to get up and down to complete his hat-trick of birdies. He concluded with three straight pars, a fine start to the defence of his title.
Of making good decisions in playing from tough positions, McIlroy claimed: “I said this when I came in on Tuesday, I think winning a Masters makes it easier to win your second one. I do. It’s hard to say because there’s still shots out there that you feel a little bit tight with, and you just have to stand up and commit to making a good swing and not worry about really where it goes.
“But I think it’s easier for me to make those swings and not worry about where it goes when I know that I can go to the Champions Locker Room and put my green jacket on and have a Coke Zero at the end of the day.”
Lowry’s birdie-birdie start got him off to a flying start, only for the indiscretion on the fourth – where a 15-foot downhill birdie putt was left short and he ultimately used his putter four times in running up a double-bogey five – to put a brake on his run. But he kept patient, claiming back-to-back birdies on the eighth and ninth to turn in 35 and come back in the same number for a 70.
Again, patience was important to Lowry managing to avoid letting the round get away from him after that double-bogey on four: “I spoke to this with Neil [Manchip] and Darren over the last few days. You can hit good shots around here and make bogeys, and you just have to roll with it. My thing was is, like, I felt like I didn’t miss a shot in the first four holes, and obviously I had that mishap on the fourth green.
“You can get a bit disheartened or dejected by that, but I felt like I’m in a good frame of mind to kind of just move on and move on from everything. I’ve been around here enough to know that that could happen at certain stages,” admitted Lowry.
His actions spoke louder than words, though. Lowry remained very much in the game. But still chasing McIlroy.
