by Craig Small
Sorry I’ve been away so long but I had an incredibly busy week last week. This week I am on vacation and will be jumping back into the golf tournament with both feet. I’m half-way through the opening round and wanted to give you a quick update. I decided to play at Magnolia and have been pleased with the choice.
Pairing 1: Bobby Locke and Craig Wood
Locke played a real up and down round featuring 6 birdies and 4 bogeys. His putting wasn’t quite up to his usual standards resulting in a couple of bogeys that could have easily been pars. Craig Wood really impressed me with his distance off the tees with 300 yard drives becoming routine. On the par-5 2nd he led off with a blistering 355-yard tee-shot which eventually led to one of his 3 birdies for the day. His only blemish came at 9 when a wayward tee shot led to an unplayable lie and a bogey. He parred every hole on the back 9 while Locke bounced his way between birdies and bogeys.
Shot of the round: Locke holed a 25-yard pitch from the fairway on 5 for a birdie.
Locke: -2 (70)
Wood: -2 (70)
Pairing 2: Gene Sarazen and Young Tom Morris
There was a ton of action in this group and scoring on almost every hole. Sarazen started the front 9 brilliantly with birdies on 5 of the first 7 holes. His putter let him down on 8 and 9 resulting in 2 bogeys. He fought back with birdies at 11 and 14 but his tee shot at 16 landed in the water and the resulting triple-bogey killed any hope of going low. Young Tom Morris had a similar round to Bobby Locke with birdies and bogeys everywhere. On one stretch, from 11 to 16, he made birdie, bogey, birdie, birdie, bogey, birdie. This was a really exciting pairing and the round was a lot of fun to play.
Shot of the round: After going in the water at 13 and somehow saving par, Sarazen came back strong at 14 by sinking a 26-foot birdie putt.
Sarazen: -2 (70)
Young Morris: -3 (69)
Pairing 3: Nick Faldo and Phil Mickelson
Both players played wonderful rounds that were stained by one bad hole. Faldo played the front 9 in 3-under but gave most of it back with a double-bogey on 11. Mickelson also played the front 9 in 3-under and birdies at 13 and 14 had him at 5-under going to 15. The crowd was buzzing as Phil went for the par-5 green in 2 but his second shot went astray and found the water resulting in a bogey. This was the first time I have played with Mickelson and I was very impressed with realism APBA got out of his card. He played a great round but I couldn’t help but wonder what kind of round he could have had if he could have kept his tee-shots in the fairway. His iron play was astounding.
Shot of the round: Mickelson drained a 36-footer for birdie on 7.
Faldo: -2 (70)
Mickelson: -4 (68)
Pairing 4: Johnny Miller and Old Tom Morris
This was the least enjoyable round so far with neither player really setting the world on fire. There were lots of poor shots (unlucky rolls of the dice) and missed putts. After all was said and done both players did manage to pull it together and finish under par.
Shot of the round: None, really. I was impressed with Miller’s ability to recover from an unplayable lie with his ball resting against a tree and still parring 17 to save his round.
Miller: -1 (71)
Old Morris -1 (71)
I’ve had a great time using the master ratings on the player cards for the first time. It really helps to bring out the personalities of the players. I particularly like the momentum ratings. It helps a player to get hot and put together a string of birdies. Mickelson and Locke have really strong momentum ratings and it’s a blast to watch them get it going.
Some of the greatest of all time are still to come. Woods, Venturi, Vardon, Casper, Hagen, Nicklaus, Nelson, and Hogan all have yet to tee off. I’m excited to see Nicklaus tackle Augusta National. I should have another recap in a day or two.
Stay tuned!