AUGUSTA, Ga. — The 60 players who survived one of the most wind-blown, grueling days at the Masters were greeted by an Augusta National that appeared to be far more agreeable on Saturday.
“This weekend is going to be nice,” predicted Phil Mickelson, a three-time champion playing in his 31st Masters, after making the cut on Friday. “Hopefully there will be some opportunities to make a run.”
Turns out looks can be deceiving.
It was still hard to score Saturday even without the wind gusting to 45 mph (72 kph), especially as the greens firmed up — and sped up — and some tricky hole locations left Tiger Woods and a whole lot of others scratching their heads.
By the time Scottie Scheffler, who shared the second-round lead with Bryson DeChambeau and Max Homa at 6 under, pitched in for a birdie on the opening hole to move into the solo lead, Woods was in the middle of a first-nine meltdown.
He began the day 1 over and was even for his round when he arrived at the par-3 sixth. He missed a 5-footer for par there, had a two-putt double-bogey at No. 7, then found the trees left of the easy par-5 eighth and wound up with another double.
Woods shot 72 on Friday, when the average score was 75.09, the highest for the second round in the Masters since 2007, and he made the cut for a record 24th consecutive time. But despite the urging of fans, who continue to follow him every step of the way, the 48-year-old’s chances of a record-tying sixth green jacket disappeared Saturday by the time he made the turn.
If Saturday is typically known as moving day, Woods was moving the wrong direction.
Fourteen players started the third round under par, four of them with experience winning a major — Scheffler and DeChambeau, Collin Morikawa and Cameron Smith. Morikawa birdied his first two holes to quickly reach 5 under Saturday.
One thing was fairly certain when play began: The walk among azaleas and dogwoods was sure to be more enjoyable than playing in 40 mph gusts that blew bunker sand into players’ faces and onto the greens and scattered magnolia leaves all over the course.
“We got the sand shower to end our day. So it was kind of the golf course saying, ‘Get the hell out of here,’” Homa said at the end of his round on Friday.
On Saturday, it felt more like, “Welcome back.”
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