Max Homa played the most beautifully boring round of golf amid raging wind and endless calamity Friday in the Masters, giving him a share of the lead with Scottie Scheffler and Bryson DeChambeau going into a weekend for the survivors.
Homa made 15 pars — they all felt so much better than that — for a 1-under 71.
Scheffler finally made his first bogey of the Masters and then a few more, but he was rock solid down the stretch for a 72, his highest score of the year. DeChambeau played the 13th hole from the 14th fairway — at one point hoisting a wooden directional sign over his shoulder as he plotted his move — and finished with a 73.
Corey Conners of Listowel, Ont., was the low Canadian, tied for 24th spot after a tough day saw him shoot a 4-over 76. Adam Hadwin of Abbotsford, B.C., was one over.
Mike Weir of Brights Grove, Ont., and Nick Taylor, also of Abbotsford, missed the cut.
For some 12 hours, the wind roared through the pines, scattered magnolia leaves across pristine Augusta National, and blew sand out of the white bunkers and into the faces of the players as they tried to handle a beast of a course.
“Mostly what I was trying to do out there was make a bunch of pars and stay in the golf tournament,” Scheffler said, a testament to just how difficult it was.
The 60 players who made the cut at 6-over 150 are expected to get a slight reprieve, though still plenty of wind. And that weekend will include Tiger Woods.
Woods set a Masters record by making the cut for the 24th consecutive time. He had to play 23 holes — five in the morning to finish the weather-delayed first round, and then a second round in which he kept the ball in play and posted an even-par 72.
He was only seven shots behind and still very much in the tournament.
“I’m here. I have a chance to win the golf tournament,” Woods said. “I got my two rounds in.”
That’s really what it was all about — finishing, surviving.
“That was about as happy as you could be to be off of a golf course,” Homa said. “That was so hard. We got the sand shower to end our day. So it was kind of the golf course saying, `Get the hell out of here.”‘
The average score was 75.09. Only eight players broke par, the same number of players who shot 80 or higher. Ludvig Aberg had the low round at 69.
Homa heard some of the loudest cheers, even if they weren’t for him. He spent two days with Woods, and caught the full experience of largest galleries, all of them rising to their feet when Woods approached tee boxes, or the 15th green that he managed to reach in two.
“The memories will just be a lot of the Tiger stuff,” Homa said. “I hope to build my own come this weekend, but I fortunately think I’ve done a good enough job of playing it one shot at a time that I can’t really remember a ton of the round at the moment. I played really well, and I tried to play as boring as possible.
“I think just the view of this beautiful golf course with the sea of fans, it will be seared in my brain for a while.”
WATCH | Corey Connors headlines Canadian cohort at the Masters
Corey Conners of Listowel, Ont., shoots 2-under 70 in the first round of the Masters which was suspended due to darkness. Conners is tied for ninth place and trails leader Bryson DeChambeau of the United States by five strokes. The other Canadians competing at this year’s Masters are Mike Weir (tied for 54th), Adam Hadwin (tied for 69th) and Nick Taylor (tied for 82nd).
Justin Thomas will have far worse memories. He was even par for the tournament on the par-5 15th hole, very much in the tournament. He hit iron to lay up and it raced along the turf and into the pond. That was the start of a double bogey-double bogey-bogey-double bogey finish. He shot 79 and missed the cut by one shot.
Defending champion Jon Rahm and Rory McIlroy looked as though they might join him, but that was before the cut line began to move.
Rahm made a late charge for a 76, leaving him 11 shots out of the lead. McIlroy, missing only the Masters for the career Grand Slam, didn’t make a birdie for only the third time in his 56 trips around Augusta National. He shot 77 and was 10 shots back.
