AUGUSTA, Ga.—The 2018 Masters is still very much anyone’s game, but what’s certain is that the entire field is going to have to contend with what’s become a familiar name.

Jordan Speith, who’s been out of the headlines for the first 10 weeks of the PGA’s 2018 season, is back in them now after shooting an opening-round six-under 66 to lead the Masters by two over Masters rookie Tony Finau and veteran Matt Kuchar.

The world’s No. 4-ranked player hasn’t won a tournament this year but just recently feels he’d cured his putting woes of late and has quietly fashioned three straight Top 20 finishes coming into Augusta, a place he said his team and him work to “peak” for every spring. The recipe is a good one: Now in his fifth Masters, he has finished second, first (in 2015), second, and 11th.

He has also led after nine of his 17 career rounds here. Perspective: Tiger Woods played his 79th Masters round Thursday; he’s led after nine of them, including the four in which he won the tournament.

This place to Speith is like a sandbox, and he’s a four-year-old with all his favorite toys.

He made his charge Thursday by earning something for his first time in a major: five straight birdies, the final one on the 17th, his first time in those 19 career rounds to birdie the par-4 hole.

But, he said, “If you asked me what my three highlights were today, it was two bogeys and an eagle.”

A bogey save with a good putt on 7 gave him confidence on 8, he said, which he eagled. Then on 18, after the five-birdie run and after taking the lead, his tee shot nearly hit a woman in South Carolina. He had to chop it into the fairway, missed the green left with a fairway into the gallery, but then saved bogey with a magnificent chip to what mortal golfers would call gimmie range.

“I couldn’t have hit it closer from there,” he said, “if I’d hit a bucket of balls.”
Dustin Johnson (73) had basically the same shot a few minutes later and could get it to only 12 feet. The point is, it was an awfully good shot and made the difference between a momentum-building bogey-save and a double.

A pack of 19 players are under par, including Kuchar, Patrick Reed, Charley Hoffman, Roy McElroy, Phil Mickelson, Rickie Fowler…an impressive list, is the point. Two guys who aren’t in there are Woods and defending champ Sergio Garcia.

Considering Woods’ course knowledge and talent, he is far from out of it at 73. But Garcia was out of it somewhere around his eighth or ninth shot on the par-5 15th, where he scored a 13. If he pars the hole, he’s at 1-over for the day; as it is, he’s at nine over and, at 81, can’t make up enough ground to make the cut, much less defend his title, won in dramatic fashion last year.

The two guys closest to Speith are Kuchar, the low amateur of the 1998 Masters and a Top 10 finisher here nine times, and Finau, who dislocated his ankle while celebrating a hole-in-one in Wednesday’s Par 3 Contest. He literally popped his ankle back into socket and soldiered on, not cleared to play until after MRI results were good Thursday morning. He celebrated by shooting a 68. If he’s smart, he’ll dislocate his elbow before Friday’s round and pop it back in so he can shoot a 65.

Finau’s final putt, by the way, was a double-breaker on 18 for a par save. He’s a joy to watch; he looks uncoordinated but is a wonderful all-around athlete, and his swing is short but quick and powerful. The blissful ignorance of youth and strength and all that sort of thing.

Keep an eye too on McElroy, who had three big par saves to finish at 69. He still doesn’t look comfortable at Augusta National, but his A-game is better than anyone else’s on today’s tour.

And as always at Augusta, keep an eye on the weather. “I’m convinced that Augusta National has a machine that just sucks all the moisture out of the turf,” said Speith, joking but commenting on the reality that, when it’s dry and as it was Thursday, it’s that much harder to bat 66 out there. The wind can always hurt scores, but moisture can slow everything down and make the course more defenseless. Both wind and rain are forecast for Saturday morning. The tournament lasts through Sunday.

So while the conditions were perfect Thursday, they weren’t necessarily perfect for the players. Professional golf is weird that way.

Some Masters notes, one for each hole (including each hole’s name) on the first nine; tomorrow we’ll do the second nine.

1. Tea Olive—Since this one has the word “tea” in it, we’ll start by talking about the big bathrooms out on the course. The ones by the fairway of No. 2 (appropriate!) and No. 5 green are a bit off the beaten path and usually the least crowded. But even the most popular ones—at the main entrance and Amen Corner and by 17 green—are models of Bathrooming Done The Right Way. A lot of people in cotton green jackets, a lot of them with latex gloves on, help people get through there. “Open here!” someone will joyfully shout. “Got one here!” And on like that. And then they’ll quickly clean everything with a spray bottle and a towel and it’s time for someone else to step to the plate. Someone is always leaning, encouraging (is that the right word?), wiping the counter, telling you they hope you have a good day. Sometimes I’ll walk through one just to appreciate the logistics and excellence of what is happening in there. I ran into a couple from back home and the first thing the wife said, smiling as if it were Christmas morning—which your first day at Augusta National is—was “The BATHROOMS! The bathrooms alone were worth the trip. And the concession stands. 30,000 people a day are going through any of those bathrooms and they’re cleaner than mine at home.” And she’s clean as a whistle, but she’s probably right. The Bathroom Situation is one of the most underrated parts of the Masters—until you need one. And then you realize that you are in the Big Leagues, and these people are going to coach you through it and almost make you look forward to the next time you have to go.

2. Pink Dogwood—Volunteers shuttle members of the press from the new press building to No. 1 all day long, about a 90-second drive. Every one I’ve talked to say this is their favorite week of the year. One guy owns a construction company, gets the day lined out early on his cell phone, then ditches that and heads for the course. Three retired teachers have shuttled me. Today a guy from Indiana told me it was his first week ever at Augusta; he’s been trying to get on as a volunteer and finally made it; he said he would keep coming back as long as they asked him.

3. Flowering Peach—A security guy approached me Tuesday on 13 and asked me if I needed anything because I guess I looked suspicious; (I had on a coat and tie for a change). I told him no and thanked him for working and for the next five minutes he talked about how this was his first Masters and it was better than he’d imagined and another four minutes of that. Good for that guy, which I think is why the patrons are so polite and golf-behaved here. They are basically like he is, except they’re patrons. They are self-policing. Everything’s so pretty and the Tournament so well run that everyone is chill.

4. Flowering Crab Apple—Defending champion Sergio Garcia hit a small bucket into the water on 15 and matched the score for the highest one-hole total in Masters history, a 13. There have been a pair of 13s at the par-5 13th. Garcia put a long iron in the water on the par 5 and then dumped four straight wedges just above the pin, on the slope and in front; all rolled slowly back, gained speed and splashed. He needed just one swipe at his 10-foot putt. (His friends: “A 13?! How’d you make a 13?” Sergio: “I made a tricky 10-footer.”) The last time he played the 15th in competition, he eagled it, then beat Justin Rose in a playoff. Thursday’s 81 was the highest ever first round score by a defending champ.

5. Magnolia—The school board always makes Masters Week spring break here so students can work and teachers can volunteer. College-aged students and teens are waiting tables, working in the merchandise building, picking up trash, working in the concession stands; they’re everywhere. So if you’re a young person here you know that for one week each spring, you can make some money.

6. Juniper—Playing in his first Masters, 22-year-old Haotong Li of China, who is the only person in the 2018 Masters named Haotong, shot 69 with six birdies and three bogeys. He said the key was to “stay patient, behave myself.” Patrick Reed, 27 and in his fourth Masters, matched Li’s 69 and said he was able to “stay patient; don’t do like you’ve done before when you stormed in and starting going after everything. I was too aggressive last year (when he missed the cut). I let myself ease around today.” Kids these days…

7. Pampas—Amateur Doug Ghim, 21 and runner-up to the current U.S. Amateur Champion, shot even par 72 in an interesting way: three bogies, one double-bogey and, in the span of the final six holes, one birdie (15) and two eagles (13 and 18). The eagle on the finishing hole, the par-4, 465-yard slight dogleg right, was just the sixth in Masters history; the most recent was Chris DiMarco in 2006. You know you’ve had an interesting round when the first question to you, as it was to Ghim, after the round is, “Tell us about your eagle,” and you get to say, as Ghim did, “Which one?”

8. Yellow Jasmine—Henrik Stenson was behind Garcia, waiting to tee off, as the Spaniard struggled on the 15th. Moments later he stood over his second shot with a 5-iron, going for the green. “Seeing that did not really fill me up with confidence to hit 5-iron to that green when he’s dumping wedges in the water,” Stenson said. He birdied the hole. He’s three shots out with a Thursday 69.

9. Carolina Cherry—It’s a “greens hit in regulation” course, but experience matters too. And putting. Garcia hit 12 greens in regulation Thursday and posted an 81, a number skewed by the 13 at 15, one of the six greens he didn’t hit; he finishes one-over without that, if he pars the hole. Canadian Adam Hadwin hit 16 of 18 greens in regulation; he’s just three shots back. The leader by two, Speith, hit only 11 greens in regulation. Multiply that by four rounds and you get 44 greens hit in regulation, which won’t win the Masters. But on a given day, while greens in regulation is huge over the course of four rounds, the ability to recover, to putt, and to create, in the moment, hits the tape at the same time.
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