Nobody but surprise leader Charley Hoffman got much traction on Thursday at Augusta National, least of all world No. 1 Dustin Johnson, who was wearing only socks on his feet when a potentially grand Masters week slipped right out from under him.
Dustin's downfall actually came one day earlier, when the world's No. 1 player went racing out of his Augusta rental house to move a car in a rainstorm and never made it past a short set of steps at the garage door. That's where he fell hard, on his left elbow and on his lower back.
No birdies and bogeys, therefore, to report on the pre-tournament favorite’s 2017 Masters. Just a WD for DJ, who warmed up on the range Thursday but decided just moments before the afternoon’s final tee time that he couldn’t go.
“I’m playing probably the best golf of my career,” said Johnson, who has won his last three PGA Tour starts, “and I look forward to this tournament every year. To have a freak accident happen, it’s tough.”
Accidents of every description Thursday were visited on an anxious field now shrunk to 93.
A quadruple-bogey 9 at No. 15 for Jordan Spieth, who waited until much later to blow up last year.
A yo-yo round for Masters first-timer Thomas Pieters that dipped to five under early and snapped all the way back to even-par 72.
And how about the squirrely 2-foot putt that Justin Rose lipped out to start his day at No. 1? Turns out he was one of the lucky ones, finishing up six shots off the lead of Hoffman, who wore a Waste Management logo on his shirt and cleaned up like nobody else with a stunning 65.
All were guessing on which club to hit and how to hit it under the capricious influence of 30-40 mph gusts. If not for greens softened by a couple of days of hard rain earlier in the week, nobody might have broken par. As it was, only 11 did, each counting themselves blessed and each marking themselves as possible contenders on the weekend.
Surely Lee Westwood, twice a Masters runnerup, belongs in that group with his gritty 70. Same goes for Rose and Phil Mickelson at 71, but Fred Couples, who two-putted from 90 feet a couple of times to earn the same score, is not so sure.
“I don’t want it to be like this for four days, if I’m here four days,” said Couples, a former Masters champion who is in the red numbers but somehow worried about making the cut.
To be that rattled is outrageous for stars like these, yet there were Jason Day and Brandt Snedeker Thursday, standing on the tee at No. 12 and wishing they could wait a week, maybe longer, for the wind to die down.
“I think it took maybe five minutes for Brandt to hit that shot, which is understandable,” Day said. “I didn’t think he was going to pull the trigger. He turned around and said, ‘Does anyone else want to hit this shot?’ “
Hoffman was the obvious choice, if there had actually been one.
He birdied No. 12, a hornet’s nest disguised as heaven, and birdied four more holes coming home, all in a row, from 14 to 17. Next to the world’s top player never even hitting a ball, Hoffman’s easy lope around Augusta National rates as a close second in Thursday’s news of the weird.
His 65 was just two shots off the Masters’ first-round record shared by Greg Norman and Nick Price, two former world No. 1’s who were at the peak of their powers at the time.
Charley is different, right down to the spelling of his first name. He’s been all over the place this season, with six missed cuts and a couple of top-four finishes, and he should have been all over the place at Augusta National on Thursday, just like everyone else was on a devilish day when the average score was just a pinch under 75.
“I’ve learned you can’t be tentative on these greens,” said Hoffman, who opened the 2015 Masters with a 67 and wound up tied for ninth. “You have to hit them solid and not be afraid of going 3 feet past.”
Would Johnson have been as bold or as successful in this tournament if a Wednesday rainout hadn’t sent him home early to that rental home and that stocking-foot skate?
He certainly thought so, and if his back is feeling fine again by Sunday, DJ will be sitting and watching in his Palm Beach Gardens home with his greatest wave of frustration since losing the 2010 PGA Championship on a funky rules violation that had to be explained to him in the scorer’s tent.
“I mean, obviously, I want to play, more than anything,” Dustin said after walking away from an opportunity to win his first green jacket.
Add it to the list of Masters mysteries. Nicklaus and Tiger Woods have won here, for instance, after shooting first-round 74’s. A far greater number of first-round leaders, from superstar Greg Norman to guys you’ve never heard of, have painted spectacular 60-somethings on top of the Thursday scoreboard and failed to win the Masters.
Hoffman will begin to find out where he belongs in today’s second round. Flying still higher or gone with the wind.
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