From Augusta National: Rahm Roars Back, Tiger Struggles And Brooks Is Back

Andrew Redington. Getty Images.

AUGUSTA — This was the day. With doom and gloom promised this weekend—temperatures in the high 40s/low 50s, wind and rain, generally unpleasant weather—Augusta National surely offered surely its gentlest test of the week on a steamy Thursday. All that humidity kept the greens relatively soft and there was hardly a breeze. It's a recipe for birdies and eagles and more birdies. 

They came early and often, and this leaderboard is comically. Viktor Hovland and Jon Rahm share the lead at seven-under 67, and if you failed to break par today you're almost certainly not going to win the tournament. It's as simple as that. Here are a few notes, nuggets and takeaways from Augusta National. 

Jon Rahm will never, ever get rid of his fire

The round started normally enough—a slight push off the first tee flirted a little too much with the fairway bunker down the right but settled in the fairway. A mid-iron to the center of the green and Rahm was off and running…into disaster. He hammered the first putt eight feet past, a major faux pas on greens as slippery as these. He insists he made a good stroke for par but it missed high and trickled out to five feet. He insists he made a good stroke for bogey but it missed again, and Augusta had punched Rahm squarely in the face: a double-bogey 6 to begin his Masters. 

"If you're going to make a double or four-putt or anything, it might as well be the first hole, 71 holes to make it up."

He'd play the next 17 in nine under par to post a seven-under 65, tied for the lead with Viktor Hovland and Brooks Koepka. 

It's not that Rahm immediately let that blunder go. That's not who he is. He's said multliple times that, no matter what any know-it-all broadcaster might say, he doesn't need to do comport himself any differently on the golf course. The fire and emotion he plays golf with is part of who he is as a player, and he's the rare breed who might play better when he's ticked. 

"(The fire) helped me carry those trees on the left on 2," Rahm said of his 347-yard missile that carried the trees guarding the left side. "I definitely swung hard on that one. If that ball didn't turn, that was going to cover the bunker for sure."

A mid iron from there found the right side of the green set up a simple two-putt birdie. There were six more where that came from, plus an eagle on 8. Rahm, who has hit his irons better than he ever has this year, missed just one green all day, a key at Augusta National, and all the sudden his last three results—a T39 at Bay Hill, a WD at the Players and a 1-2 record at the match play— look more like a blip in the road than a genuine downturn. This Rahm resembles the guy who won three times this year, including two designated events, before the end of February. Two perfect swings at the last had the Spaniard in excellent spirits as he walked off the course, not knowing when he might tee off next. 

"I've played really well this year, right? Maybe not the last few tournaments, but I'm feeling confident, obviously. Hopefully I can keep it going. I know it's the first day and there's a long way to go."

Brooks sure appears to be back

Let's get philosophical for a second. What, exactly does winning a LIV Golf event mean? The golf world isn't yet sure how to process a victory on the rival circuit. Nor are the bookmakers—Koepka's odds improved after he won Sunday in Orlando, but he still wasn't among the top 15 favorites. That's a guy with four major championships and three runner-ups, including one here at Augusta. 

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The man himself knew what his win meant: that he was healthy, driving the ball on a string and absolutely ready to mount another charge at a big trophy. 

"Once you feel good, everything changes…I don't think I've rediscovered anything. I just think I'm healthy, so I can move the way I want to. Like I said earlier, you just kind of—if your body won't allow you to do the things you want to do, it's frustrating and all of a sudden you create a lot of bad habits and then try to work out of the unhealthiness, takes a while, and then all of a sudden you have to get out of those bad habits. When you break three, it's kind of nice.

Koepka laced hard cut after hard cut off the tee—his driver was his greatest weapon in majors during that magical 2017-19 stretch—and missed just two fairways. One came at the first, a push into the bunker, and the other a pull on 13 that found the hazard. He'd make bogey on the newly-lengthened hole, making his 65 even more eye-catching. He walked with purpose all day, not a hint of any discomfort, and birdied three of the final four to make a very clear statement: I'm still here. 

More of the same from Tiger Woods

He tried to warn us. Tuesday marked the first time I've ever seen Tiger Woods answer the can you win question with anything other than a very simple yes. He has all the shots, he said. It's just that walking thing. It's the same thing he said here last year, and at Southern Hills, and St. Andrews, and Riviera. As he put it: "It is what it is."

Woods hit the ball fine on Thursday, but general unsharpness with his short clubs doomed his chances of posting something to keep himself in the tournament. He three-putted 5 and 7 for bogeys and needed 32 putts overall, and the wedges weren't much better. A flip on 3 rode up the face and finished short of the green, the kind of boneheaded mistake he'd never make in his prime. His three birdies were offset by five sloppy bogeys, and his two-over 74 means Friday will be a cut-line sweat.

The issue seems to be a simple lack of competitive reps. Woods has played just four official rounds this year and none since mid-February. When he made his comeback to win the 2019 Masters, it came on the back-end of a long and steady build up: contending in a PGA Tour event, then contending in a major, then winning a PGA Tour event and then, finally, glory at Augusta. He played 18 events in 2018 and five before the Masters in 2019. It's impossible to replicate under-the-gun pressure at home—Woods knows this, and he wishes he could play more. But this injury is not like the others. He is in constant pain, by his own admission.

"I felt like I drove it good," Woods said. "I just didn't do the job I need to do to get the ball close. Today was the opportune time to get the ball—get the round under par, and I didn't do that today. Most of the guys are going low today. This was the day to do it. 

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"Hopefully tomorrow I'll be a little bit better, a little bit sharper, and kind of inch my way through it. This is going to be an interesting finish to the tournament with the weather coming in."

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