Billy Casper left the clubhouse at Augusta National Golf Club early Thursday afternoon with six balls in his pocket.

"I figured I better go back and get a seventh," he said.

Good thing. The only thing worse than hitting five balls into a water hazard and carding 14 on a par-3 would be to borrow balls.

Casper, 73, dunked most of his stash into the pond at No. 16 in the first round of the Masters Tournament. The 1970 champion, playing the event for the first time since receiving a letter from club chairman Hootie Johnson urging him to stop participating in 2002, needed six balls to clear the water at the 170-yard, par-3 hole.

The 14 would have been the highest single-hole score recorded in the event had Casper signed and turned in his playing card. He declined to do so, though, after firing a 34-over 106 - another would-be record.

"There are no 14s on my card, just fives and sixes," said Casper, who plans to put the card in a scrapbook for his grandchildren.

He received plenty of sympathy and support after the debacle at No. 16, and his score was not posted later in the round. Charles Coody, who played with Casper along with Tommy Aaron, gave Casper a big hug on the 17th tee.

"If I had been through something like what he'd just gone through, I hope somebody would give me a hug too," Coody said.

Casper's caddie, Brian Taylor, would have hugged him too if he didn't think Casper wanted to strangle him. Taylor, who works with Casper's son, had never looped before Thursday and feared he had upset him.

Taylor said he gave Casper the wrong yardage on both the tee and the drop area.

"It's my fault. Blame it on me," Taylor said with a laugh.