AUGUSTA – If there is any doubt that golf is the most unhinged of sports – we’re talking like Batman villain crazy sometimes – consider the case of your Masters leader Justin Rose.
He’s had a lifetime of wild swings – emotional and otherwise – at this place. Hard to believe, but no one has had more first-round Masters leads or co-leads than he. His fourth this year tied six-time Masters champion Jack Nicklaus.
And no one has had less to show for it. A couple runner-up finishes, and for that you get not so much as a green cummerbund.
Once more Friday, there was madness in his game. Rose stuck all 10 toes over the cliff’s edge and peered into the abyss. But just in time, he pulled back, salvaged a modest even-par 72 and prolonged his lead for another day.
Thus far, Rose has brought two distinct personalities to the course for this Masters. He has gone out and played the first seven holes in a combined 5 over. And the last 11 in a composite 12 under. Better not engage in this Jekyll-Hyde game too much longer, though.
At 7 under now, his four-shot first-round lead from Thursday has been slashed to one silly stroke. And there is a convoy of dangerous contenders running up his tailpipe.
There were liberties to be taken on an overcast, largely calm Friday, where the field stroke average was a full two shots less Friday (72.19) than it was Thursday (74.52)
Cozying up to Rose at 6 under were one-time Georgia Bulldog Brian Harman with twin rounds of 69 and 24-year-old Masters rookie Will Zalatoris. Both would have petitioned to keep playing Friday, even past dark. Harman closed with birdies on Nos. 17 and 18, while Zalatoris birdied his last three holes to round out his 68.
One more back at 5 under were 2015 Masters winner Jordan Spieth who shot a restorative 68 Friday and Australian Marc Leishman (67).
And just about everybody else checked in at three shots back of Rose. Or so it seemed. In all six players were at 4-under 140, led by the world’s No. 2 Justin Thomas, who spun a neat little 67 Friday and whose only blemish a bogey on the final hole.
“There’s a lot of firepower there,” Rose noted.
His approach here after playing poorly for the better part of a year and not at all for the last month has involved a great deal of self-therapy. A lot of talking to himself, and a whole lot of cranial rebooting.
Friday, these were not the scenes of someone who should be leading entering a Masters weekend:
Rose’s first shot of the day dove into pines down the right side of No. 1, leaving him no choice but to chip out sideways to the fairway and scramble from there for bogey.
And on the par-3 sixth, he performed the ugliest dance step in golf. Hit a putt up a ridge, but not hard enough, slide four steps sideways and watch as the ball rolls back down to your feet. That left him with a tough two-putt from 60 feet for another bogey.
Standing 2 over through his first seven holes Thursday, Rose told himself it was not time to press the panic button. And then had an out-of-body experience, going 9 under through the final 11 holes.
But Friday, he said, “I was joking, the finger was heading towards the panic button a little bit.” His lead evaporated, but he steadied himself with a run of five straight pars before coming to his own rescue with three birdies in the closing six holes.
That space beneath Rose’s cap became a very busy place. Golf will do this to a person: “I had a little talk with myself on 8 and said you’re still leading the Masters,” he said. “I just changed my mindset a little bit and started to play match play against the golf course. I scratched a line on my scorecard and told myself I was three down and could I go ahead and beat the golf course from that point on. I had a putt on 18 to win my match 1-up (an 18-footer), but unfortunately it just slipped by. But an honorable draw.”
Whatever works. Whatever gets you through the mental maze of the Masters.
How to make sense of a game that so wildly fluctuates from day to day: On Thursday Austrian Bernd Wiesberger putted off the green and into the water on the par-5 15th. Friday, he made a very calm six-footer for birdie on the same cruel green.
Or from hole to hole: Korea’s Si Woo Kim was cruising along quite nicely, coming off at birdie on 13 to go 4 under for the day. But then he lipped out a five-foot par putt on No. 14 and the red mist descended upon him. He slammed the putter head to the turf. The club was pronounced dead at the scene and Kim finished out putting with a 3-wood. Effectively so, parring out the last four holes.
Or from year to year: Dustin Johnson won the November Masters with record score of 20 under. He missed the cut Friday, doomed by three bogeys on his final four holes that left him 5 over.
“Six three-putts in two rounds, you just can’t do that,” Johnson said before leaving. “Didn’t drive it great but drove it good enough. The three-putts killed me. You take all the three-putts away, I’m 1-under. That was kind of the difference.” Alas, there is no appeal process here, no higher authority that can overturn the three-putt.
And a moment of silence, please, for one of those who finished tied for second behind Johnson just five months ago. Sungjae Im shot 77-80. You could have spotted him nine strokes and he still would have missed the cut.
In such a frantic landscape Rose tries to find comfort now.
“Sleeping on the lead last night makes it much easier tonight and then much easier tomorrow, and hopefully by Sunday you’re starting to get comfortable with it,” he said.
Good luck with that, knowing all the madness a Masters weekend must surely hold.
About the Author
