Despite the correction, the score was the worst ever the 445-yard opener known as “Tea Olive”.
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Before Els’ gaffe, the previous highest score on the opening hole was an 8 by four players: Olin Browne (1998), Scott Simpson (1998), Billy Casper (2001) and Jeev Milkha Singh (2007).
Phil Mickelson bottomed out somewhere during his second nine at the Masters on Friday, but he still had a shot to make the cut with a long birdie putt on the 18th green.
That’s when the drama began. “To come in and make some of those mistakes and the doubles and stuff that I made today is very disappointing”. The sixth of his seven putts was an exasperated one-handed stab from perhaps six inches, which lipped out.
He eventually ended the calamity with another one-hander, which this time was impossible not to put in the hole.
His total on the opening hole was originally scored as a 10 by running scorekeepers, but Augusta National announced after Els completed his round that the score had been “incorrectly recorded” and should have been a nine.
His playing partner, world No. 1 Jason Day, said: “It’s the first time ever I’ve seen anything like that”.
The veteran South African took three legitimate attempts with the putter on the first at Augusta this morning and then had a further meltdown as he carelessly took a few more swipes at the ball. “But it’s painful for players to go through that …You just don’t want to see any player go through something like that, because it can be sometimes career ending for guys like that if they really are fighting it that much”.
Then, in Amen Corner, Els struck one of his best shots of the day into the swirling wind over Rae’s Creek, the ball stopping 3 feet from the flag.
Tom Watson won the Masters in 1978 and 1981 and had 15 top-10 finishes.
“It’s hard to putt when you’ve got snakes in your head”, Els said.
“And then I just kind of lost count after”.
A three-time major victor, Els, 46, is competing on a five-year exemption after winning the 2012 British Open.
The focus was the first hole, when Els not only needed six putts, but six putts from inside three feet.
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Well, he didn’t six-putt from six feet, but he still missed a bunny putt for bogey. “A lot of people have stopped playing the game getting that feeling”. The best he can hope for is to go under par and try bloody the nose of a course that has left him reeling. “I can’t explain it”, Els said. “You look at the way he played in 2014 and 2015 and look at what he’s done this year; it’s a golf course he’s comfortable on and he’s going to be tough to beat this week”.
