Augusta can’t with Tiger

Tiger Woods will play the Masters weekend for the 23rd consecutive time. Not even in her lowest hours, at least physically, can Augusta beat Tigre, who this Saturday, in the resumption of a second round suspended on Friday due to bad weather, narrowly managed to make the cut with a +1 card for +3. He tied the statistics with the South African Gary Player and the American Fred Couples, who threw a +2 for +1 and set it at 24, the oldest in history at 63 years and 187 days. Tiger would have them counting the 1995 one, but he played that edition as an amateur.

It has been painful again to see Woods ride the seesaw that is Augusta between winces of pain. No day has he beaten the field, with rounds of 74 and 73 shots, and only the carnage of results that caused the rain on Saturday morning raised the bar to +3 that gave him a place in the last two rounds.. The Californian has not achieved any birdie outside of par 5s except the one he birdied at 16 on the first day. He’s more or less kept him afloat by his knowledge of the field and the fact that he’s an excellent kicker. “I love this course and I love playing this tournament. I’ve missed a few because of my injuries, but I’ve always wanted to play here. I have another chance to play at the weekend, which is what I wanted. Two more rounds”, said a face-stricken Tiger, with an exhausted face.

It stings especially for him because, of everything Tiger has achieved in a legendary career, what stands out the most are those five green jackets. He has nine other top-10s at the Masters, six in a row from 2006 to 2011, seven including his 2005 victory. No one has come remotely close to his share of authority at this major throughout the 21st century.. She missed the cut in 1996, her first professional appearance, and she hasn’t missed a single weekend in Georgia since. Not even between 2009 and 2017, the years of infidelities, excesses and operating rooms, did a cut fail. It will depend on her body that she approaches 37 Nicklaus. With what he has shown again before the cameras this week, they seem far away.

The one who did defeat Augusta was a Sergio García whose problems are not in mobility. They are things of the head, as he himself has admitted, perhaps bothered by the PGA–LIV rivalry who has marked this Masters. The one from Borriol, who already left the field crooked on Friday with a +3 for +5 in 14 holes and added three more bogeys for a birdie in the last four to close at +5 for +7. “I don’t know if I will play the previous ones of the US Open and The Open. We will see”, a García confessed to Movistar who believes that “all the importance it deserves” is not given to the trees fallen by the wind on the second day.

Rahm closes the gap in the rain

In the rain Jon Rahm moved again like a fish in water. The first stop on Friday it suited the Basquewho fastened two birdies before the definitive suspension, and this Saturday he improved the card in conditions that filled many cards with blots. The cold and humidity are not a problem for León de Barrika, who had the luxury of subtracting with a dart at 12, the heart of Amen Corner, before a hectic end of the round.

He scratched a shot at the par 5 of the 15, bringing his total balance on long holes to -7 after the first two days. At 16, a difficult flag this time, hidden at the end of the green, he tripped for the first bogey of the week, but corrected at 17, putting it in from the collar, about twenty feet. A bitter bogey in the 18th left him at -3 to -10, two strokes behind a Koepka who, from his vantage point, with his second round completed on Friday before the delay, saw how the best golfer so far this year came up to him. season. With Bennett, an amateur, as the next best with -8, everything points to a duel in the rain between two great champions that could reach Monday, since the forecast is that it will be difficult to complete the third round this Saturday.