The Masters: Takeaways from the first round at Augusta National

Reed all about a strange connection

Matt Cooper

There are many reasons why we shouldn’t be too surprised by the fast start of Patrick Reed which saw him card a 69 to sit high up the first-round leaderboard.

There’s the fact that he’s a past champion (in 2018). The fact that he’s recorded finishes of T12 or better in five of his last six starts at Augusta National. The fact that he was a fast finishing third last year – and the fact that straight afterwards he was furious at the ice cold temperature of his putter throughout the week.

In fact, there was something almost poetic about his words 12 months ago. "The putter. The putter killed me. Killed me this week," he cried. "Really lost my opportunity to win a Green Jacket because of the putter."

What made it hurt all the more was that Reed wasn’t missing putts that his long game had forced him to make. Instead, he’d done everything he should have done from tee-to-green and the flat stick let him down. "I know where to put the ball on these greens," he said. "I know where to leave myself."

As hurtful as that experience was, it seemed plausible that it might prime him for a fast start and so it proved.

But there was another reason to suspect he’d enjoy this Thursday.

Think of it as the Majlis-Masters Connection, a title that gives it a sort of Len Deighton vibe.

It’s a theory – or maybe just a coincidence – that first popped into popular consciousness when Danny Willett and then Sergio Garcia won the Dubai Desert Classic and the Masters in the same year.

But dig a little deeper and winners in Dubai on the Majlis Course at the Emirates GC have long had a happy knack of showing up on the first-round leaderboard at Augusta.

Back in 2011 Alvaro Quiros (who regularly struggled in the majors) opened with a 65 to tie the 18-hole lead. In 2018 Haotong Li carded a 69 to sit tied fourth at the end of round one. A year later Bryson DeChambeau (who at that point had a terrible record at Augusta) thrashed a 66 to share the early lead.

There are other performances to note. Last year Tyrrell Hatton carded his first ever sub-70 first round at Augusta after winning in Dubai. In 2021 Paul Casey won in Dubai – two months after tying the first round lead in the November Masters of 2020. And Viktor Hovland signed for a 65 and another share of the early lead 15 months after his 2022 Dubai win.

It’s a giddy business and doesn’t make a great deal of sense. One course has bermuda on the greens, the other has bentgrass. One is in the desert, the other was built on a nursery. One is in the Middle East, the other in Middle America.

When asked about any connection Garcia said: "They both have 18 holes. Other than that..."

But Rory McIlroy has often noted that they both put driver in hand and the two courses also feature back nines that demand to be attacked. Perhaps most pertinent are the words of Ernie Els, two decades ago, when he said of Majlis: "It’s definitely a drawer’s golf course. It’s what my eye found back in the day, I could move it easily right-to-left and obviously Augusta is very similar."

This might be true. Quite why so many Majlis winners thrive early in the following Masters remains as murky a mystery as those faced by the protagonists in Deighton’s novels.

But it might be one to add to the notebook.

Stars shine but none brighter than the course

Ben Coley

In Monday's preview of the Masters I wrote that Augusta National is the greatest golf course that has so far been created, and Thursday's first round could not have done any more to underline that point.

Ultimately, the measure of a great course is that it helps great golfers to show us what they can do. It separates by multi-dimensional skill, demanding shots of the highest calibre from driver through to putter while exposing any frailties hiding beneath the surface.

And as Scottie Scheffler breezed through the opening few holes of his first competitive round in a month, as defending champion Rory McIlroy curled home a lengthy putt to tie the lead, as former champion Patrick Reed coaxed home a closing par and would-be major champion Ludvig Aberg birdied three of the opening six, it was difficult to escape the conclusion that Augusta was the star above them all.

In fact at this time, just after 8pm in the UK, there were 21 players under-par and not one of them was new to this. More than half of them were major champions already, five of them in the Masters. Fifteen had played Ryder Cup golf, another handful the Presidents Cup instead. The prospect of a surprise winner? All but gone before the first round had been completed.

Look at how it was achieved, too. Sam Burns might be just about the best putter on the PGA Tour but the rest of his game was even better in a five-under 67. In many ways Burns has become disappointing in the three years that have passed since he last won a tournament, but this is golf, and therefore it somehow makes sense that at the same time he's finally become a frequent feature on major leaderboards.

McIlroy is seeking to defend this title at the first time of asking which only one man in history, Sir Nick Faldo, has done before. His strength is his driver but it was his approach play and putting that got his defence off to a dream start. He is now 16-under for his last four rounds at the course and hasn't been better placed after round one since 2011.

At the bottom of the leaderboard, Aldrich Potgieter's biggest weakness was exposed on the very first hole in a miserable 84 which saw him lose by 10 shots to Jose Maria Olazabal, almost 40 years older and far more than 40 yards shorter off the tee. His compatriot Casey Jarvis, red-hot on the DP World Tour, made a double and a triple in a chastening first try around here.

And the brilliant Bryson DeChambeau again hinted that he will not win this tournament unless he can become a more rounded golfer, his single-length clubs surely harming both his approach play and his work around the greens. Both failed him just as they did when he faded out of the picture in the final group on the final day a year ago.

Perhaps it's notable that the last two winners of US Opens at Pinehurst had weak short-games and while DeChambeau is far closer to cracking Augusta than Martin Kaymer ever was, the final step may depend on a complete overhaul which isn't going to happen.

This was of course just one round of golf, but what it threw up was no coincidence. Great golfers with all aspects of their games firing fared best and the two greatest we now have, Scheffler and McIlroy, looked menacing under tough conditions. Augusta in the sun made some very good golfers look a long way short of two great ones.

There are many individual things to admire about this place but, just as the same ingredients can make two very different meals, it's how they come together that matters. When Augusta has a firmness to its fairways and greens, we see something truly extraordinary – and this is just the beginning. It will get firmer, it will get tougher, and on Sunday night a world-class player from near the head of the betting will win the Masters.

You take your money, you pay with your choice

Ben Coley

I thought Jon Rahm was the biggest danger to Scheffler this week but he was beaten after a front-nine 40. Read that again. Forty strokes to the turn from the 2023 champion, who so far this year on LIV Golf – where they now play four rounds, remember, and the depth of field has improved – has finished no worse than fifth and ended 19 of 20 rounds inside the top five.

Rahm has now played 31 LIV Golf events and, along with one withdrawal, has 29 top-10s and an 11th place. You read that correctly. Finishing in the top 10 on that circuit is essentially a given for one of the biggest talents this sport has. Rahm can do it on any continent at any course, it really does not appear to make one bit of difference. Floodlights? No problem. Music? Just fine.

This is Rahm's 15th non-LIV appearance since stunning everyone when making the switch and it seems clear he'll be stuck on eight top-10s, a good but not spectacular return given that half of them came in DP World Tour events. (On which, some would argue LIV is a significantly stronger tour, yet Rahm's results suggest there may not be much in it: 2-7-6-MC-13-9)

LIV Golf is not the only reason for Rahm's relative malaise (relative is key; he remains DataGolf's second-ranked player and with some merit) and the final six months of his PGA Tour membership, those which followed his imperious Masters win, were below the standards he'd produced when winning four times from January to April. Winning this special tournament seems to have precipitated a downturn and he's not alone in that. In fact, McIlroy's form has been patchy since.

But LIV Golf is undoubtedly a factor and what's aggravating about it, from the perspective of those wishing to see Rahm remain relevant in the four tournaments that matter most and perhaps Rahm himself, is that it limits the remedial action he can take. When McIlroy was searching for the missing piece of the jigsaw he returned the Texas Open to his schedule. Rahm will play where and when his LIV Golf contract demands, without exception.

And it's that LIV schedule which continues to undermine what its star players are trying to do. McIlroy's preparation looked questionable as he this time skipped Texas, but it was his choice to make. He had joked that Rahm probably didn't want to go to South Africa, a comment taken out of context by the usual suspects, yet the point McIlroy was making was simple: if your focus is Augusta, you might not choose to take part in a bombs-away slug-fest in the muds of Steyn City almost 10,000 miles away.

Rahm wasn't at liberty to choose and quite why LIV Golf has gone from playing in Florida days before the Masters to South Africa weeks before the Masters... well, it's not a sporting decision, is it? The success of that event came at a price and it's Rahm and his rival DeChambeau who are paying it. Both must surely be glad of the fact that there's at least an event in the USA prior to the next major on the calendar, but after that it's back to preparing for a US Open in Spain and, staggeringly, an Open Championship in New Orleans.

We don't know what would've happened had Rahm remained on the PGA Tour, but we do know he'd have had much more of a say in how he prepares for major championships. It seems likely that when he returns to Augusta next year he'll have played across Asia, Africa and Australia first, but not in the United States. Only he and DeChambeau can prove that it isn't a hindrance. On Thursday, it certainly looked like one.

More Masters content

• The Masters: Player-by-player guide
• Stats and in-play betting guide
• Augusta National: Hole-by-hole