Augusta - Day One

A weekend at Augusta. All the hype, all the reverence, all the anticipation. I and a whole bunch of people watch every magic moment, all of us wishing we could be there to bask in the loveliness that marks this magic place. The only problem is that the coverage is so restricted. Tiger teed off four and a half hours before the live coverage, so I had to follow his round at PGAtour.com, which just isn’t the same. But he still had four holes to play when the ESPN coverage began—par, par, bogey, bogey, for a 72. Not exactly what I was hoping to see. Tomorrow he has a late tee time so I and the world will be able to watch it unfold. Not that I’m not interested in what others are doing. I am, just not as much. This course is so beautiful but so devious, so punishing, sort of the dominatrix of golf courses. For example, poor Henrik Stensen was comfortably five under when he stepped on the 18th tee. Fifteen minutes later he was only one under. Hooked drive deep into the boonies left, punch out through bushes but still short of the fairway, rotten lie in the pine straw, chunk an iron way short of the green, wedge over the green, chip just short of the green, putt downhill and past the cup, miss the putt coming back—a snowman. Yup, diabolical. Just a little mistake can get compounded into something awful. Lee Westwood was leading after Day One at five under with 28 others from four to one under par. The three notables? Rory one under, Tiger even, and Phil two over. Tomorrow should be interesting.