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Five Things We Learned: Saturday at the Masters
Saturday at Augusta National was a hybrid of sorts. It saw the conclusion of round two, followed by the affirmation of the cut line (three-over par made the weekend.) Guys like Justin Thomas and Rory McIlroy won’t be around, nor will five of the six amateurs. After the morning’s restart of Friday, round three began and lasted for all of six holes for the leaders. The rains came and play was halted around three in the afternoon. The plan for Sunday is a two-tee start, off the first and second nines, in threesomes. By Sunday evening, we should have a champion, and he will certainly be someone who can play over hilly, wet grounds, in overcast, cool weather. We learned a few nuggets during Saturday’s abbreviated play, and we’d like to share them with you here.
The first roar of the round courtesy of Cameron Young. #themasters pic.twitter.com/zP6CrgUfDR
— The Masters (@TheMasters) April 8, 2023
1. Tiger Woods finds a way
Whether it was a nearly-30 feet birdie putt at the 15th, or a fortunate bogey from a fellow competitor, Tiger Woods found a way to stick around for the weekend.
Tiger Woods moves inside the projected cut line. #themasters pic.twitter.com/FH6tZxwQl8
— The Masters (@TheMasters) April 8, 2023
2. If he wins the tournament, Brooks Koepka might recall six holes on Saturday
Those first six holes, when he played one-under golf on Saturday, before play was called, to be precise; those are the ones that I reference. His advantage over Jon Rahm doubled, from two to four. No other in the field was within seven shots of his number. We all remember the Koepka of the mid 2010s, but his inability to endear himself as a human being, made forgetting him that much easier. He had a golden opportunity to win the 2021 PGA Championship, but let it slip away. Now that he is healthy, this one will not avoid his attention nor his grasp. Major number five comes from away for Brooks.
A new day lies ahead, full of potential and uncertainty. It's Saturday at the Masters. #themasters pic.twitter.com/glmGHVkoIk
— The Masters (@TheMasters) April 8, 2023
3. The mudders
Some pundit, early in the week, alerted the golf world to Matt Fitzpatrick’s renown as a mudder. The 2022 US Open champion is currently three-under par for his third round, but chances are quite good that he won’t be able to use his mudding skills much longer. With Saturday’s play suspended, Fitzpatrick will need to be a marathoner on Sunday, playing 25 holes or more to have a shot at a second professional major title. The course will be wet, but not as wet as other courses, given the deluge. After all, it’s Augusta National.
Fitz isn’t the only mudder out there. Patrick Cantlay is also three-deep on day three. Both will certainly figure in the resolution on Sunday, but only a massive Koepka retreat will give them great hope. Asking for nine or more birdies over the next seven hours of play is quite a bit.
Weekend golf in Augusta!! ? pic.twitter.com/lfyIwIOjw7
— Matt Fitzpatrick (@MattFitz94) April 8, 2023
4. This guy has me impressed
I didn’t think that he could get it done at Augusta National. Morikawa has two major championships to his name, but is getting anxious. He hasn’t won a big one (nor any other event) since the Open Championship of 2021, at Royal St. Georges. Right now, he’s plus one on the day and minus-five, in a tie for fourth with Cantlay and Fitzpatrick. Is he a long shot? Sure, but he was one, entering the week. If anyone knows how to pull something out of nothing, it’s this Cal Bear.
Collin Morikawa moves into solo third with a birdie at No. 4. #themasters pic.twitter.com/0CcwYWzybq
— The Masters (@TheMasters) April 8, 2023
5. Some completely off-the-rails notions from this writer
The rain seeped into my brain, and what came out were these thoughts and suppositions ~
*Tiger Woods really didn’t want to play another 36 holes, so he talked Joe LaCava into allowing him to bogey the 36th hole. Unfortunately for Tiger, he needed double bogey to miss the cut …
*Cameron Young is learning to contend at Augusta, before he learns to win. It’s like a super-long, lag putt. You want to get it close to the hole, and if it happens to fall, it’s a plus. We know that Young can play the majors very well. Augusta is a different sort of major, and caddie Paul Tesori knows it …
*Gordon Sargent is exhibit A for why you don’t listen to folks who forecast the next big thing. The only one of those to truly deliver is Tiger Woods. What does that make the winning percentage for all the fails? Sargent will return to Vanderbilt and win loads of events. When it is time, he will win as a pro …
*Adam Scott is so much better as a golfer than an actor. I admired his work on Parks and Recreattion, but I hated him as the bad guy in The Secret Life of Walter Mitty …
A Golden Bell highlight for the Australian past champion. #themasters pic.twitter.com/cuAIQg6RpD
— The Masters (@TheMasters) April 8, 2023
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Tour Rundown: Surprise USWO winner | Sepp surges
I know it’s not the tour, and I know it’s a shell of its 1912 US Open self, but a 59 in a legitimate tournament is a thing. The Erie County (NY) Amateur was played at the course where I learned the game, and a collegiate named Ryan Edholm posted 59 on Sunday, to win by eight shots. I was glued to the feed, and jumped up when I saw them finalize the score.
To the tours! The USGA celebrated its Women’s Open championship at storied Pebble Beach Golf Links this week, and the USA was treated to prime-time golf viewing for a second consecutive, national championship. Neither the competitors nor the golf course disappointed, and it is a pleasure to provide an extended look at the tournament. The PGA Tour visited TPC Deere Run in Illinois, while the DP World Tour found a home in Denmark. Let’s have a look at how each event concluded, with this week’s Tour Rundown.
USGA/LPGA: Corpuz arrives from nowhere to claim United States Open title
If you hurry up and check Allisen Corpuz’s wiki page, you’ll see the one professional win on her record is the Hawaii Women’s State Open. Venerable an event as it is, it’s not an LPGA-calibre title, nor even a Symetra Tour win. Even more important, she won that event when she was all of 16 years of age, so she wasn’t even a pro! After schooling at Southern Cal and a stint on the 2021 USA Curtis Cup side, Corpuz turned pro, and earned two top-three finishes in her first two years on tour.
Forgive us for a moment if we talk about that other wain who won her first tour event in her first tour start. Yup, Rose Zhang was at Pebble Beach, but she only finished one-over par and only tied for 9th position. What did Corpuz do? She won the whole thing, lock, stock and barrel. Corpuz began the week 69-70 to not only make the cut, but earn herself a final-pair spot with Bailey Tardy on Saturday. While Tardy struggled to a 75, AC held it together and posted a fine 71. Her reward was a second-consecutive day in the final duo, this time with the on-fire Nasa Hataoka. Hataoka delivered a 66, the only score below 70 on the day. That’s one hot round.
Hataoka had been here before. She finished runner-up in two other major championships, and was eager to shelve the mantel of almost and replace it with certain. Sunday was not her day, however, and she struggled to five bogeys and a birdie, a 76, and a tie for fourth with the aforementioned Bailey Tardy. Tardy came back from her 75 with a 73, earning a top-five major placement.
Back to Corpuz. The lass from Honolulu made six birdies on the day. She began with stroke-savers on holes one and three, then made bogeys at four and nine, along with another birdie at seven. She turned in one-under 35, and began to put distance between herself and the field. Then came Charley Hull, and things began to change.
Hull found the same flint that Hataoka encountered on day three. The English pro made birdie at four of her first five holes, and turned in 32. Three birdies against one bogey on the inward half gave her a 66, the low round of the day. Her reward was a tie for second spot with another Sunday Queen, Jiyai Shin of Korea. Shin signed for 68 and reached the same, 6-under par total as Hull. No one, on this day, would track Allisen down.
Corpuz put the doubters to bed with three birdies over the first seven holes on the vaunted, back nine at Pebble Beach. A meaningless bogey at 17 meant that her margin of victory was reduced to three strokes. After safely walking the final fairway, Corpuz was an LPGA tour winner, a major champion and, in all likelihood, a member of Team USA in Spain’s 2023 Solheim Cup matches.
What pressure?
Allisen Corpuz is putting on a historic performance at Pebble Beach
Watch now on NBC! pic.twitter.com/6fzRYGPVYa
— LPGA (@LPGA) July 9, 2023
PGA Tour: Straka survives double bogey at last for second tour title
Josef Straka (no intel on how he earned the nickname “Sepp”) had golf social media ablaze this afternoon. He turned for home in 28 shots, and still had more in the tank. His front-nine eagle and five birdies were followed by four consecutive chirps from 11 to 14. Folks were talking 60, 59, 58. All that the boy from Austria had to do, was dock the boat. Well, he didn’t, finding water on 18 and a double bogey. He finished four days in Silvia at 21-under par, and didn’t think for a moment, that it would hold up.
Until it did. Neither Brendan Todd nor Alex Smalley could close with anything spicey, and Ludvig Aberg started too far back for his 63 to give him a shot. Todd and Smalley tied for second at 19-under par, with the precocious Aberg another stroke back, tied for 4th with Adam Schenk. It was Straka in the end, whose final-round 62 held up. Now, it’s off to Scotland for many, as preparations begin for the Open Championship at Royal Liverpool.
This man can not miss.@SeppStraka needs to shoot 1-under in his final four holes for a round below 60 @JDClassic. pic.twitter.com/5mYhLtu84e
— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) July 9, 2023
DP World Tour: Second Chance for Højgaard in home country
Rasmus Højgaard did nothing right down the stretch of the Made in HimmerLand stop on the DPWT. He finished well ahead of the leaders, and began to applaud his home-country fans for their presence. Then, Nacho Elvira and Richie Ramsey forgot how to finish the tournament, and just like that, Højgaard found himself in a playoff with Elvira for the title. We’ll get to the playoff (all six holes of it) in a moment. How did we get there?
Højgaard had himself a weekend, to the tune of 65-64. For a time, he thought that his 129 over the final two days would earn him a top-three finish, until tires started falling off. Elvira played his final six holes in plus-one, with three bogeys against two birdies. Robert MacIntyre stood three-under on the day, when his tee shot on 14 nearly went OOB. Six shots later, he posted a triple bogey on his card, added another bogey, and missed overtime by two shots. For Richie Ramsay, the knife cut the deepest. He had quietly worked his way to the top spot, only to see all his day’s efforts undone with a watery double at the 72nd hole. He finished solo third.
So it was left to the astonished Højgaard and the Spanish Elvira, to settle matters on the 18th hole … and the 18th hole … and the 18th hole again. Six times they returned to the final teeing ground, and five times, each man made par. On the sixth go-round, Elvira cracked and Rasmus claimed his fourth DPWT title. Three have come in playoffs — Luke Donald, you paying attention?
Shots of the week from Made in HimmerLand ?#MIH23 | @DP_World pic.twitter.com/deVZZStyEI
— DP World Tour (@DPWorldTour) July 9, 2023
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Morning 9: Co-leaders at USWO | Blixt fires 62 | DQ at Pebble
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Morning 9: Wie West’s last hurrah | Garcia fails to qualify for Open | Block clarifies Rory comments
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