For a time, Pádraig Harrington had that strut of old, a confident farmer’s walk and a grin breaking across his 50-year-old face as if he’d stepped back in time at Augusta on the opening day of the Masters.
Nowhere was his facial expression more like his old self than when audaciously holing out from nearly 70 feet on the par-3 sixth hole for the unlikeliest of par saves, an act that perhaps intimated it could be his day.
Alas, it wouldn’t prove to be.
As dogged as the Dubliner proved in an impressive front nine of 35 strokes, turning in one under par after claiming three birdies and two bogeys on that stretch, the homeward journey proved to be a rather more arduous affair as he dropped three shots to ultimately sign for a two-over 74.
Harrington, for sure, had his moments. Although among those with an early start, his name rode the top of the leaderboard for a considerable stretch of time with back-to-back birdies on the third and fourth getting him off to a flying start, only to slip up with bogeys on the fifth and seventh and then getting back under par with a birdie on the eighth.
However, things started to unravel with a bogey on the 12th, where he hit his tee shot into a back bunker. Then, on the par-5 13th, he was caught out by the wind in playing a utility approach that found its way into Rae’s Creek. He showcased his short-game skills, nearly holing the pitch after taking a penalty drop, to tap in for a par save.
But back-to-back bogeys on the 16th (a three-putt) and 17th led him drifting over par.
A score that got away on him, to be sure. “Besides the score, the rest of it was good in terms of I felt very comfortable,” said Harrington. “Probably more comfortable than a lot of times in the first round of a Major . . . the course is very nice as always with Augusta.
“You hit good shots, and you think, ‘oh, that’s pretty easy’, and you hit a bad shot and get out of position, and you are going, ‘oh, my God, how could they put the pin there?’ If you are in position, it’s nice. Especially with today with a little bit of give in the greens. It really is. You can feel like you can fire at the pins, make birdies from anywhere, and then you get yourself out of position, and you go, ‘well, this is difficult’.”
In Shane Lowry’s case, an opening round of 73, one over par, was something of a roller-coaster ride. The golfing gods giveth and they taketh away, with the Offalyman’s round featuring a chip-in eagle on the 13th and then suffering a watery fate on the 15th where his third shot rolled back off the green into the water and he ran up a double-bogey seven.
Lowry had also watched incredulously as his tee shot on the tough par-3 fourth hole hit the flagstick and cruelly ricocheted back to the edge of the green. It could have been a hole in one. It could have been a tap-in birdie. “It slam dunked in the hole and didn’t leave one mark, so it hit the metal and bounced back out.” Instead, it was a par. It summed up his day, an eventful round of an eagle, one birdie, a double-bogey and two bogeys.
“I’m a bit disappointed to be honest,” admitted Lowry, who’d generally driven the ball well. “I missed the fairway on the first and other than that I was pretty much down the middle. I put myself in position to have a good score and my approach play was pretty awful to be honest. But it is what it is. I got myself back into the round around Amen Corner and threw it away on 15. I’m disappointed by I will pick myself up.”
Lowry – who missed four greens with wedge approaches, and another two with an 8-iron and a 9-iron – headed to the range post-round to work on that area of his game. “I was in position A-one apart from the first but my approach play let me down . . . one over is not the worst score, the wind is swirling. But I’m going down 15 one under and you’re past all the hard stuff, 15 was just a bit of a disaster. It was the wrong club and a bad shot.”
