At first glance, Augusta National played right into the capable hands of some of the world’s best golfers during Thursday’s opening round of the 80th Masters Tournament.
There’s defending champion Jordan Spieth right atop the leaderboard — he certainly qualifies. Justin Rose is just a couple of strokes back — he does, too. Same goes for Rory McIlroy and Paul Casey and Sergio Garcia, each of whom enjoyed an impressive start to the year’s first major championship.
Rickie Fowler had a cringe-worthy four bogeys, two doubles and a triple to shoot 80.
Patrick Reed limped to a disappointing 76.
Adam Scott matched that number, thanks to a back-nine 38.
Bubba Watson was 1 shot better overall, but closed with an inward 41.
Iowa’s Zach Johnson had an up and down first round at the 2016 Masters. Johnson made 4 birdies and 4 bogeys to finish the opening round at even par six shots behind the leader Jordan Spieth.