Scroll down for Day 2 stuff … I’m gonna keep these in order in one Blog for those who may miss a day or two or four.

Day One 

The very first shot we saw as they came on the air this afternoon was defending Champion Zach Johnson’s approach into the 13^th hole from behind with the azaleas surrounding the green and water in front … the sheer beauty and familiarity we all have with this course gets my adrenaline pumping right away! No matter what the storylines turn out to be, I’m never disappointed watching The Masters, never. Day One saw 18 rounds under par under sunny skies and calm winds … a complete opposite from the wet Thursady we saw last year when the average round was above 76. Today’s lead is jointly held by Justin Rose and Trevor Immelman at 4 under par with 71 year-old Gary Player bringing up the rear at 11 over.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  

Zach’s opening round of 2 under was pretty phenomenal in my books as he came into this week with only 1 top 10 to his credit and no one giving him a chance-in-you-know-what to make any noise. Who knows? A repeat may be in the cards for only the third time in modern history (Faldo and Woods).

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Tiger was 2 over par by the time the golf hits the airwaves after a sloppy bogey on 14 which followed him being robbed on the par 5 13^th when his second shot that “was a sweet sweeping 4 iron” as he put it afterwards, landed pin-high and bounded over the green into one of the most difficult chipping positions on a course chalk-block full of ‘em. 4 shots later and he’s walking away with a bogey when he should have had a great chance at eagle, merely a potential 3-shot swing.

So what does he do on the Par 5 15^th as soon as the rest of the world gets to watch? Calmly chip it in for eagle and get back to even par, that’s what. I believe it was his 10^th consecutive round at Augusta that he failed to break 70, but he’s only 4 shots off the lead and has only led after the first round in 3 of his 13 Majors wins so he is still in great position to get the Grand Slam discussions going full bore come Sunday night.

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The powers-that-be that run the Masters by their own screw-the-rest-of-yas rules have long been considered to be the snobbiest of snobs, but they deserve major props for letting kids in for free with a paying adult. This is something that all tournaments should follow the Green Jackets lead on making the stars of the game more accessible for kids to help grow the game. Tickets are famously difficult to get for The Masters and as a result it is one of the oldest galleries you’ll ever find at any venue on tour … letting the kids in is one of the best stories of the week, imo.

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A little Poolie update … sorta … if you somehow managed to pick the trifecta of Justin Rose(-4), Ian Poulter(-2 with a hole-in-one on #16)  and Lee Westwood(-3) in your 20 man roster you’re off to a pretty good start. If you guessed that I happen to do it, well, you’d have made a very lucky guess!

On the not-so-good-side for me, I decided to leave Stephen Ames off of my list at the very end and he then shot a very respectable 2 under. After eliminating the transplanted Canadian it was then a choice between Brandt Snedeker and John Senden who would get the final spot on my team. Of course I chose Senden who is near the back of the pack at 8 over while Snedeker was on the leader board all day shooting 3 under, 1 behind the leaders.

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Rose, Poulter and Immelman all live near each other in Florida and are good friends. So good in fact that they traveled to Augusta a couple of weeks ago for two days of practice rounds and now they all find themselves on the first page of the leader board after day one. Remarkably, this is the third straight year that Rose has been in the lead after the first day … horses for courses I guess.

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Mickelson made a miraculous chip in for birdie on the 1^st hole from way over the back of the green that would have gone a good 50 feet past the hole and off the other side of the green if it missed, got some good and bad breaks along the way and managed to hold on for a 1 under 70. The even number every-other-year streak of wins in 2004 and 2006 is still alive for 2008 … here’s hoping it’s a Phil and Tiger showdown on Sunday!

Day Two

There’s no question that those with the Late/Early draw for tee times on Thursday and Friday got the best of it as wind and harder greens made the afternoon at Augusta today way tougher than what the morning guys faced.

Trevor Immelman and Brandt Snedeker made the most of the favourable draw building upon their solid Thursday rounds with 68’s on Friday that left them atop the leaderboard at 8 and 7 under respectively.

Phil Mickleson kept himself within striking distance with a 68 of his own that leaves him at 5 under and easily the biggest name near the top as we head to the weekend. Phil is 3 shots back and tied with Steve Flesch, who had the lowest round of the day at 67, and the self-proclaimed #2, Ian Poulter.

If you don’t know the story, a couple of weeks ago Poulter was quoted by the British Press saying that he thinks it is realistic that he could eventually challenge Tiger for #1 in the world. Now Tiger, taking it all in stride the way he would swat at a fly that was pestering him, just calls him “#2” whenever the two of them are together.

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As for Tiger, a birdie at the first (his first in 34 holes at Augusta – his longest birdie drought as a Pro at The Masters) was followed by an indifferent round that was capped off with a miraculous par save on the 18^th from the 10^th fairway. He ended up maintaining that 1 under score after going as high as 1 over a couple of times during the round, and his first under-par round in his last 6 at Augusta leaves him 7 shots off the lead heading into Saturday.

7 shots is an awful lot to overcome but recent history has shown the leaders to come back to the pack on the weekend in this tournament and when Tiger won in ’05 he was 6 shots back of the lead after Friday’s round and ended up 3 ahead heading into Sunday.

Further help for Tiger, and others looking up, may be on the way as by the time the leaders tee-off tomorrow the weather is supposed to take a turn for the worse with a storm expected that will leave an ever-strengthening wind in its wake as well as causing temperatures to drop. Sunday is also forecast to be windy and even colder with temperatures in the low to mid 60’s versus the 80’s that they played in the first two days.

When the going gets tough … Grand Slam hopes aren’t dead yet!

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Gary Player, playing in his record 51^st straight Masters shot a more than respectable 78 today at the age of 72. Before heading out to his round this morning he said to himself that if he couldn’t break 80 today he wouldn’t return next year to make it 52 in a row. After the round he said he was glad to be coming back next year but that he was gonna have to increase his workout regime so that he could try and reach more of the par 4’s in two! I’ve never been a huge fan of Player, especially after he said last year that a lot of players were using performance enhancing drugs, but ya gotta give him props for showing the young ‘ens how it’s done.

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Freddy Couples streak of 23 cuts in a row at The Masters came to a screeching halt today when he missed a 10 footer for birdie on 18. Couples was looking to lay claim to the record all in his own, but will have to be satisfied in just sharing it with Player.

An interesting tidbit was shared by Jim Nantz today. Couples and Nantz (the big cheese among CBS Announcers), as many golf fans know, are best of friends since rooming together at college. Nantz told how he would always introduce Couples to others as a “future Masters Winner” and Couples would interrupt and say that Nantz would be there helping him put on the Green Jacket in the Butler Cabin as an announcer with CBS. I thought that was pretty cool, to say nothing of their respective swami-like capabilities all those years ago.

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Justin Rose’s hopes of becoming the first European to win at Augusta since 1999 took a fatal blow on the par 5 - 15^th today. Standing on the tee at 2 under (2 over for the day) he hit a great drive down the middle that left him close enough to easily go for the green in two, but he inexplicably pulled a Jerry Pate and decided to lay up instead. His lay up shot went about 30 yards too far and left him on a severe down slope with, as always, a very tight Augusta lie.

He promptly pulled a you-and-me and chunked the sand wedge into the pond in front of the green. He followed that with his 5^th shot that sailed the green and came very close to going into the water beside the 16^th tee. From there he had an almost impossible shot just to keep the ball on the green and was lucky to do just that when it stopped at the edge, teetering oh-so-close to going in the same pond again. 2 putts later and he had a dreaded snowman on the card and any aspirations of putting on a Green Jacket on Sunday evening were all but gone.

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 A great showing by the Canucks so far as both Stephen Ames and Mike Weir are in contention at 4 and 3 under respectively … guess I shoulda picked ‘em in the pool!

As almost always seem to be the case, we didn’t see much of the Canadians on the broadcast, but one shot by Weir really stood out for me. After a horrible drive (that we of course never saw) left him a mile back from the 17^th green in the left-hand rough with all but an impossible blind shot that had to be bent around some trees, he hit a hybrid that not only made the green, but ended up about 12 feet from the hole for birdie. He missed the putt, but his never-say-die-always-grind-it-out mettle was definitely on display with that great shot.

Ames has always had a tendency in recent years to play well on tough courses and we know the former Masters winner Weir has done it here before so the potential of a Canadian flag waiving on Sunday is still a possibility.

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I already told you that I screwed up my pool in going with zero Canadian content, but at this point it looks like it doesn’t matter. I haven’t looked at all the teams in detail, but after a quick scan it looks like Mark Reichman has a leg up on the rest of us as he has few who missed the cut and just so happens to be the only one with Snedeker on his roster. It appears no one had any faith in Mr Immelman as he was picked by … exactly nobody!

Almost everyone took some big hits today as the cut was set at 3 over (I managed to nail that right on the number at least!) and some very big names won’t be playing the weekend. Among them are Els, Stricker, Couples, Garcia, Howell, Donald, Baddeley, Kelly, Clark, Sabbatini and Calcavecchia.

It aint over ‘till it’s over, but good luck in the US Open Pool in June for most of us!

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