By
Teddy Allen
AUGUSTA,
Ga. -- If you’ve got a ticket to get into Augusta National or a television that
works, odds are you’re in for a fairly exciting Saturday. Things are getting awfully
dicey here at the 2013 Masters.
The
leaderboard is a logjam of big names. Equate it to college football and what
you’ve got within five strokes of the lead is a bunch of BCS teams – minus bowl
crashers Marc Leishman and Masters rookie David Lynn.
It
ended up being Jason Day, the 2011 Masters runner-up, who used three birdies on
the back Friday to finally take a solo lead no one could quite get a handle on.
Day’s 68 was the day’s best round and put him at 6-under. He leads by one
stroke lead over Leishman, the co-leader after round one, and fan favorite Fred
Couples, who shot 34 on the back, finished with a 71 and actually led the
tournament for about an hour during the afternoon.
Couples
might have grabbed the lead and held it, but he was finished shooting his 71 by
2:30 when all the fun started. And Leishman might have kept the lead had he not
shot a 73, seven shots worse than what he shot Thursday.
Sergio
Garcia, Thursday’s other co-leader, was no threat as he went off early and
struggled to a 76. Dustin Johnson, who started with a 67 Thursday, had the lead
for a few fleeting moments Friday before manufacturing a blueprint for losing a
lead: he finished bogey, double-bogey, par, bogey, double-bogey. He’s 5 strokes
back and, you would think, staggering somewhere.
Jim
Furyk could have held a share of the lead had he not dumped a shot in the water
on 15 and doubled. Instead, he’s tied with Angel Cabrera and Brent Snedeker at
4-under.
The
names at 3-under are each notable: Adam Scott, Jason Dufner, Lee Westwood, Justin
Rose, K.J. Choi and a guy chasing his fifth Masters green jacket, Tiger Woods.
For
a good while Friday, it seemed Tiger would make a run. Especially after three
birdies in four holes on the front.
But
on the back, he was too busy saving things to gain stuff. His sand saves at 12
and 16 and a par save after flying the green at 14 were vintage, big-game
Tiger. His biggest save might have been his bogey at 15: After his approach hit
the stick and went back into the water, he hit a wedge to five feet and made
the putt for a 6.
But
then, an oops moment: for the first time in his Masters career, he three-putted
the 18th green. Tiger was the only player in the field not to have
made a bogey Friday until his tough luck on 15 and his hiccup on 18. A 38 on
the back sort of let the air out of the 33 on the front.
But
then again, the course hit a lot of people fairly hard. After surrendering 45
rounds of par or better Thursday, Augusta National gave up just 32 rounds of
par or better Friday. Besides Garcia and Johnson, some notable casualties were Ernie
Els (74), Zach Johnson (76), Rickie Fowler (76), Trevor Immelman (75) and Phil
Mickelson, who said after his opening round 71 that he was showing the course “too
much respect” by not firing at the pins on greens that were playing slower than
usual.
A
bit of rain Friday morning, a little afternoon wind and some bold pin
placements changed things from a scoring standpoint Friday. If Round One went
to the players, Round Two belonged to the course. And simply, some people, like
Mickelson, just didn’t hit the ball well.
One
benefit of the higher scores and bumpy play by the leaders down the stretch is
that young Tianlang Guan and defending champ Bubba Watson made the cut on the
number. Guan, who won’t be 15 until October and is the youngest Masters
participant ever, was assessed a one-stroke penalty by the tournament committee
at the 17th hole for slow play. The eighth-grader shot a 3-over 75
and is 4 over for the tournament.
LSU
alum and Masters rookie John Peterson also made the cut on the number. Former
LSU All-American David Toms, who played with Peterson in Wednesday’s Par Three
tournament, shot a 70-74 for an even-par 142 and is six strokes off the lead.
On
the other end of the age spectrum from Guan is Couples, who at 53 is trying to
become the oldest Masters champ. More than a dozen players in this year’s
Masters field weren’t even born when Couples played in his first Masters, in
1983. The tournament winner in 1992, Couples led after last year’s second round
before finishing in a tie for 12th.
The
Augusta weekend weather forecast is for temperatures in the high 70s to low 80s
with no chance of rain. And as usual at Augusta on Masters weekend, the
forecast for who will win the tournament is anybody’s guess.
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