Augusta Nationwide giveth however it additionally taketh away. Simply ask Jordan Spieth, the 2015 champion, whose fame as a Masters specialist took a number of enormous blows on Friday when he recorded a 9 on the fifteenth on his option to an 79.
This isn’t the primary time that Spieth – who has recorded 4 top-five finishes on the season’s first main since changing into its second youngest winner 9 years in the past – has come a cropper on the par-five, which is often thought of a birdie gap. In 2017, he additionally took a quadruple-bogey on the 550-yarder and this reprise has seen him make a little bit of Masters historical past.Â
Justin Ray, the arch statistician from the Twenty First Group, reported that he’s the one participant within the final 20 years to submit a number of scores of 9 or worse on a gap at Augusta. The graphic charting of his nonagonal woe is a few journey.
His drive was barely tugged, however nothing disastrous and he hit his second to put up distance. Spieth flew the inexperienced, however along with his short-game, no dramas. Besides his chipped fourth rolled previous the outlet and saved going… and going… and going… all the way in which into the lake in entrance of the inexperienced. After taking a penalty drop he once more flew the inexperienced along with his sixth and slightly understandably he left his chip brief on this event, earlier than two-putting.Â
It might have been worse. Seven years in the past, one other former winner in Sergio Garcia took a 13 on the fifteenth, having visited the water 5 instances. The Spaniard truly holed a 12-footer to make sure that he solely had the ignominy of recording the joint-worse rating on any gap within the Masters aside from the worst.
Spieth didn’t look within the temper to take any comfort, nonetheless, and likewise bogeyed the seventeenth however made a spectacular par – courtesy of an audacious chip – on the 18th to interrupt 80.
Nonetheless, solely 5 gamers within the 89-man shot greater within the first spherical, together with reigning Open champion Brian Harmon with an 82. And Spieth was watching his second missed Augusta lower in three years.
