First hole takes toll in Masters opening round

A sunny day with mild temperatures greeted golfers as the 76th Masters Tournament opened Thursday. But the welcoming conditions didn’t translate into an easy first hole at Augusta National Golf Club.

The 445-yard par-4 first put up a difficult challenge in the first round, keeping to a trend that has emerged since the hole was lengthened twice in the past 10 years.

The hole known as Tea Olive forced 18 pars, 12 bogeys, one double bogey and one triple bogey before surrendering its first birdie more than two hours into first-round play.

It ended the day as the most difficult hole on the course, yielding an average score of 4.379 with just three birdies, 60 pars and 32 scores of bogey or worse.

Several golfers, including reigning Masters champion Charl Schwartzel and Stewart Cink, playing in his 15th Masters, pointed to the hole’s back left pin placement as its most difficult test.

“They can put the pin in some really, really hard places, even if (the greens) are soft,” Cink said. “You don’t really start your game plan on this course until you get to the first green and start figuring it out.”

Aside from the pin, the first hole presents golfers with other challenges. An elevated green falls off quickly to the left, which is where Thursday’s pin was located, seven yards from the back left fringe.

The tee box, bounded by the clubhouse to the right and the ninth and 18th greens to the left, is always surrounded by large numbers of patrons. It was moved back 20 yards in 2006 and pine trees were added to the right side of the fairway, adding teeth to the hole’s slight dogleg right.

Schwartzel, who managed three pars and a birdie on the hole last year, walked away with par Thursday and said another factor on the first hole is the number of eyes surrounding it.

“I think what’s making it difficult is obviously a bit of first-tee nerves,” he said. “To be fair, it’s a fairly wide area to hit your tee shot into and then if you’ve done your preparation your second shot you should just hit into the middle of the green, irrelevant of where the flag is. So it should not be that difficult, but starting the first day you’re nervous.”

Peter Hanson, Jason Dufner and amateur Hideki Matsuyama each started their rounds with birdies. Hanson said his birdie came about almost accidentally after he hit an approach shot with mud on the ball.

“I was actually trying to get it a little bit short right like everybody is trying to do and it had a bit of mud on the ball and turned out just perfect,” he said. “It came out long left.”

The approach landed four feet from the hole and started a round that blossomed into 4-under 68, one stroke off the lead.

Twenty-six other golfers posted double-bogeys, including Angel Cabrera and Rory McIlroy. Robert Garrigus fared the worst with a triple-bogey 7.