Respect and adoration. As Tiger Woods walked up the slope towards the 18th green having navigated his way around the undulating course, those gathered there stood as one to offer a standing ovation. The applause was not so much for his score – 71 – but rather for how the five-time Masters champion, the 15-time Major champion, had marked his latest comeback from crippling injuries with a display that offered glimpses of yore.
As Australian Cameron Smith started and finished with double-bogeys yet still managed to sign for a four-under-par 68 in a round which also featured eight birdies, to claim the clubhouse lead, it was nevertheless Woods who stole the show.
His participation at all in this latest edition of the Masters had been in doubt right up to this week; but, remarkably, all of 508 days since he’d last swung a club with a scorecard in hand, in the final round of the 2020 Masters, he took his body – with its plates and screws and rods – to a favoured place and brought with it a determination of mind that enabled him to again compete.
One birdie in particular brought back the roars of old. On the 16th, where he’d once audaciously chipped-in in the 2005 Masters, Woods rolled in a 15-footer for birdie that had the patrons on their feet and prompted the decibel levels – after two years of limited attendance – to resonate throughout the grounds.
“I’m proud of basically my whole team,” said Woods of how he had worked to get fit and able to play, following the car crash in February last year which nearly cost him the loss of his right leg. “People have no idea how hard we worked each and every day. I have alluded to this before, we have never taken a day off.
“So once I got out of bed after those three months there were no days off. Granted, there were easier days than others. My leg didn’t work that well that day, we did upper body. But we did something every single day and that led me to this, to this opportunity to be able to play in the Masters and, lo and behold, here we are and as of right now only three back. We have got a long way to go, this is a marathon and a lot of things can happen . . . it is nice to get off to a positive start.”
Although play was delayed by 30 minutes due to overnight thunderstorms which had doused some two inches of rainfall onto the course, the day itself proved to be dry, with swirling winds working through the cathedral pines to cause players at times to second- and often third-guess club selection and shot execution.
Smith, appearing for the first time since lifting The Players last month, had a remarkable round. It started with that double-bogey and finished with another after a wild drive into the trees down the right, but in between there was a display of extraordinary shotmaking in manufacturing eight birdies in a 12-hole stretch from the fifth to the 16th.
“It was just really solid. I got a couple of bad tee shots on one and 18 and just a couple of wedges into the green that we didn’t quite judge the wind right. Before you know it, you are making six. This place will bite you in the bum pretty quick if you are not [firing] on all cylinders. The stuff in the middle was really good though,” said Smith, a runner-up in 2020.
Just as it appeared Smith would separate himself from the field, the man with the fashionable mullet hairstyle allowed a loose shot to slip its way in. A six on the 18th brought him back, ultimately signing for a 68 that gave him the clubhouse lead, a shot clear of world number one Scottie Scheffler, former champion Danny Willett and Chile’s Joaquin Niemann.
Scheffler, with three wins in his last five appearances, said: “I feel like my game is in a good spot right now. Obviously I have had some good finishes and I am hoping to keep that rolling this week.”
Willett, winner in 2016, said: “The body’s good. And this place lends itself to the certain golf shots that we’ve been trying to work on and trying to hit. It doesn’t mean you’re going to hit them obviously, but it’s always nice when the kinds of things you’ve been working for and what you’ve been working at kind of pay off.”
“It doesn’t mean they’re going to pay off the next three days, but it’s always nice to get a good start around this place.”
Séamus Power, on his Masters debut, finsihed on two-over, while Rory McIlroy – with a birdie on the second and a bogey on the sixth – turned in level-par 36 through nine holes. He was on one-under up until the 14th hole but late bogeys there and at 16 saw him slip over par for his opening effort.
On a day of difficult scoring conditions, with some tricky pin placements combining with the swirling wind, many struggled. Among them were Justin Thomas, Bryson DeChamebeau and Louis Oosthuizen, who all signed for 76s and thrown into an immediate battle simply to survive the midway cut.
