AUGUSTA - When he got the invitation to play this year in his first Masters, Abraham Ancer immediately framed it and hung it in his living room. Now it’s like a member of the family.
When finally he got to play Augusta National for the first time nine days ago in a warm-up for the Masters, he didn’t want to leave short of an eviction notice. “I played 27 holes. I wanted to keep on playing. I just ran out of time,” he said.
There was a wide and wonderful assortment of names sharing the lead when daylight ran out on the incomplete second round of the Masters Friday.
Of the four tied at 9 under, Ancer and Australian Cameron Smith are the 36-hole wonders that just crop at these big events, pleasant surprises, the warm-up acts that outperforms the headliners.
The other two, Dustin Johnson and Justin Thomas, are built for the long haul of major championships and have the grotesquely large trophies and South Florida waterfront homes to prove it.
But none among this diverse collection seems any more in awe of the place and the moment than Ancer. No one represents the joy of playing the Masters – and in now, surprisingly, leading it – like he does. He is like a bright smile breaking through a blue facemask.
“I’m in heaven, man,” he says. Heaven being defined in this case as a second round that began with a bogey and played out 6 under from there.
Witness the power of positive thinking: “I kept telling myself that sometimes the best rounds start with a bogey,” Ancer said. “That golf course, you have to be extremely patient, and I’ve been able to do that these two rounds.”
Is this heaven?
No, it’s Augusta.
But behold some of these other near-heavenly moments of Friday at the Masters.
Here age was forgotten and aching knees overcome. Bernhard Langer, 63, shot 68-73 and will become the oldest ever to make a Masters cut. The projected cut line – when the second round is completed Saturday morning – is even par.
Here 50-year-old Phil Mickelson was four off the lead and angry at his putter but offering the kind of quote you only get in men’s supplement ads. “I’m driving like a stallion,” he proclaimed.
Here did Johnson, required to finish his rain-delayed first round before moving on to his second, have to play the tricky par-3 12th hole not once, but twice in one day. And he birdied it both times. For the record he still used the Hogan Bridge to cross Rae’s Creek rather than taking the shortcut of floating across the water.
Beginning his second round on the back nine Friday, Johnson managed the great rarity of birdieing his way through Amen Corner (Nos. 11-12-13). He was the first and only player to get to double-digit under par before stumbling into consecutive bogeys on his next two holes.
Here in this November Masters, the course is yielding and the scores are low. In fact, when the rain-delayed first round was wrapped up Friday morning, there were a couple scoring records to rewrite. And have the Wite-Out ready, because it’s benign out there.
The 53 under-par scores during Round One were the most of any Masters round, same with the 24 that were in the 60s. About the only way these guys could have more fun out there is if the membership had added an inflatable bouncy house for them by the practice tee.
“I think (the course) can firm up a little bit, but it’s going to be tough for it to get firm,” Johnson said. “I think it’s going to be soft enough to where you’re going to have to attack the golf course and play aggressive and keep swinging like I am.”
For Thomas, he is beginning to really appreciate the heavenly qualities of this place. This is his fourth Masters, and each finish has been a little progressively better – T-39, T-22, T-17, T-12 – as he has grown more comfortable.
“I think it’s taken me a little bit to get over, maybe, the fear of Augusta National,” he said. His second round was a study in resilience. Starting on the back nine, he bogeyed two of his first four holes but bounced back with a string of four birdies before that nine was done. He took a very ugly 6 on the par 4 first hole, but then had another bounce-back bird on the par-5 2nd.
“It was an odd start to be 2 over after four. Kind of botched 13 pretty bad, but hung in there and understood as soft as the course is, I can make a lot of birdies and get it back,” Thomas said.
Heaven is not for everyone, though. Augusta National turned spiteful again on Bryson DeChambeau and his plans to batter it into submission. His slightly errant tee shot plugged into the first cut along the par 4 3rd hole and it was if the course swallowed it. Archeologists may find the ball in a century or two, but DeChambeau couldn’t. The lost ball led to a triple bogey there. And at 1 over through 12 holes, he teeters on the brink of a weekend banishment.
Tiger Woods went silent Friday, finding an uneasy stasis in two birdies with two bogeys through 10 holes before darkness fell. He remained at 4 under, drifting five shots off the lead. But then he’s certainly had more than his share of Masters heaven.
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