``We're playing today (Friday) right at what we expected, four hours and 40 minutes,'' said Will Nicholson, chairman of Augusta National Golf Club's competition committee.

The competition chairman is responsible for ``everything involved in the playing of the game,'' Nicholson said. That includes everything from determining pin placements to oversight of practice facilities to on-course rulings.

In comparison to other major championships, the pace of play at the Masters is not out of line. Rounds at the U.S. Open routinely take more than five hours to complete.

Nicholson said a couple of incidents Thursday caused play to be a little bit longer than tournament officials would have wanted. One involved a fan getting hit by a player's ball, and the other was Tiger Woods' triple bogey on the eighth hole. Woods, who shot a 72 despite the one-hole lapse, had to get a decision from a rules official.

Nicholson, who was appointed chairman of the committee in 1991 by former club chairman Jack Stephens, said the switch to threesomes has been under discussion for a number of years.

Club Chairman Hootie Johnson, who succeeded Stephens last year, announced the decision to use threesomes in the first two rounds earlier this week.

With changes in qualifying for the Masters, Nicholson said the club knew there would be more participants this year. Last year, the tournament experienced weather problems that, with a larger field, could have caused more headaches.

Nicholson, a banker from Denver, has been involved with running major championships for a quarter of a century. He was on the executive committee of the United States Golf Association during 1974-82, serving as president in 1980-81. He has been an Augusta National member since 1981.

One of the more important aspects of the competition committee is to set pin placements. Most of the traditional pin placements at the Masters are out of necessity.

``If you take the greens we have, there are only a certain amount of places you can set the cup for a major championship,'' Nicholson said.

Possible pin placements are discussed in advance, then a plan of action is devised during tournament week.

New pin placements this year include a couple on the revamped 11th green and a back-left placement on No. 9. The latter caused several balls to wind up in the gallery Thursday, Nicholson said.

Although significant changes were made to four holes and a cut of rough was added, Nicholson said the Augusta National is a ``work in progress.''

``They've all been talked about for several years,'' he said.

For example, raising the 11th green was done to alleviate flood problems. The green was rebuilt in 1990 after being washed away in a flood.

Nicholson said the club gets a lot of input on the changes, including from consulting course architect Tom Fazio.

During Wednesday's address by the new club chairman, Johnson was asked if founders Bobby Jones and Clifford Roberts would approve of the course changes.

``Most certainly,'' Johnson replied.

As a friend of Nicholson's once told him, change is a tradition at the Masters.

``The beauty of this golf course when it was first designed was that you had to get the ball to a particular spot,'' Nicholson said. ``We trust that we are on the leading edge of championship golf and that our reputation continues to be what it is.''