Rain cuts Augusta National practice ahead of US Masters

The best laid schemes of mice and men, and all that. There are some things you can't control. Yesterday was one of them, as, on the first official day of practice for this 78th edition of the Masters tournament, a weather system contrived to produce incessant rainfall which allowed a mere two hours of practice for the players and only that short window of opportunity for spectators to feel the hallowed turf of Augusta National underfoot.

Safety concerns
Due to safety concerns for those spectators, the course was closed after just two hours of practice and players who had driven through the gates and down Magnolia Lane in anticipation of furthering preparations for the season's first Major were, for the most part, confined to the locker room and the players' dining room before retreating to their own refuges in houses rented for the week.

The spectators were ushered out with the promise of refunds and first-option on tickets for next year’s opening practice day.

The last time gates did not open due to bad weather during a scheduled day’s practice was in 2003, although the forecast for the rest of the week – and especially during the tournament itself – is mostly favourable.

If this was a damp squib of a start to Masters week, with those players who had competed in the Houston Open failing to hit the ground running in their preparations, not everyone was complaining.

Indeed, a sizeable number of those who had stayed away from Houston had availed of opportunities to play with members over the weekend and, with yesterday’s practice suspended, will surely feel they have claimed a head start.

One of those numbered among the 24 first-time competitors in this Masters was among them.

Patrick Reed, a three-time winner on the US Tour inside the past eight months, has mapped out his itinerary to Augusta with such a meticulous intent he even stayed away from his home town tournament in San Antonio so he could be best prepared for a maiden appearance in the Masters.

Breakthrough
Reed – whose breakthrough win on tour came in last August's Wyndham Championship and has further blossomed with victories in the Humana Challenge and the WGC-Cadillac championship – hasn't been afraid to talk himself up.

After that WGC win, a tournament just a rung down on the ladder from the Majors, Reed observed he considered himself a “top five” player in the world.

He hasn’t backed down.

“You have to feel and believe in yourself to be successful. That’s all it is. I believe in myself,” remarked the 23-year-old, that verbal confidence matched by an ability to close the deal under pressure.

A native of Texas, Reed is very much at home in Augusta.

He attended the University of Georgia and later Augusta State and played the course a number of times as a student.

On Saturday and Sunday, he got in practice rounds. “I’m comfortable out here, I like playing a little draw, so it sets up really well . . . it seems right now I am in a comfortable place and I just have to get used to the speed of the greens because, when it comes down to it, it is going to be who putts the best and who positions the golf ball (who wins).”

Another of those players who stayed away from Houston and who has benefited from early practice rounds is Australian Jason Day, who has developed quite a reputation for his play here.

Day, who placed second and third in three appearances in the Masters, hasn’t played for six weeks due to a thumb injury but received a cortisone injection last week – “straight on top of the knuckle” – which has left his preparations pain-free.

“There’s no pain. I’m taping it just as a precaution . . . you need your hands to grip the golf club, and every time it hurt when I swung the golf club, I would kind of flinch at impact and you just can’t compete against the best players in the world doing that.

"So to get the cortisone injection into it, to be able to swing pain-free now, is great," said Day, who has played two practice rounds and professed "the hand's coming up nicely".

Primer
Rory McIlroy, who shot a final round 65 to secure a tied-seventh finish in his primer at Houston, hadn't planned on playing a practice round yesterday.

McIlroy, who spent two days practising here last Monday and Tuesday before moving on to Houston, claimed it was “just about maintenance and making sure everything is good. I know the course, I know the challenges it is going to present.”