Corey Conners has stared down Augusta National with some success, including a couple of top 10 finishes coming into this year’s Masters, but he knows it always has something different to vex those who challenge it.
“It never plays easy. It’s a very tricky golf course. With the wind up, you’ve got to battle hard and try and keep it as simple as possible. That’s pretty much it,” said Conners.
“Fortunately, the wind was blowing pretty consistently. Some holes maybe played easier with the wind. Some holes were certainly more difficult, but I’ve got some good experiences around here, so I wouldn’t say anything really surprised me out there,” he said.
Conners finished Thursday’s blustery first round with a two under 70 in which he had just one bogey. He’s tied for seventh, three shots behind Sungjae Im, who leads by one over Cameron Smith.
Mackenzie Hughes shot a 73 and is tied for 31st. Mike Weir finished the day with a 74 and is tied for 43rd.
“It was a solid round. I felt like I did everything quite well. It was very tricky out there with the wind blowing, but I felt like I controlled my ball well and kept myself out of difficult spots,” said Conners.
“I was able to scramble well when I needed to and took advantage of a few of the birdie opportunities that I had. Overall, quite a solid day. Definitely happy with the round,” he said.
Hughes had to dig himself out of consecutive bogeys on the fifth and sixth holes and he did just that with consecutive birdies on 12 and 13 that put him back to even par before a bogey on the 15th left him at one over on the day.
“It’s a decent score. I actually played, I’d say, better than the score indicated,” said Hughes.
“I felt like I hit a lot of great shots and it was a pretty solid round, lots of good stuff. I’d say like even the bogeys I made on the front nine, I hit really good shots on six. I hit a shot that landed like two and a half steps from the flag, but just left and rolled all the way to the front, and I three-putted, so little things like that, but the game felt pretty good today,” he said.
“It was a fun day. Yeah, just tough. I felt like I did a good job of staying patient through my front nine there. I made a couple bogeys, but kind of fought through the middle part of the round and got a couple on 12 and 13. Overall, it was a nice day,” he said.
Whether Friday is a nice day remains to be seen from a weather perspective. The second round will be played under mainly sunny skies with a high of 66 F, but a southwest wind of 16 mph is expected, with gusts to 24 mph.
“I see this course changing a lot over the next few days. This wind is supposed to be sustained for the next 48 hours basically, I think all the way through Friday into Saturday a little bit too, so this course is going to take on some teeth and if it blows like this and it’s firm. It’s an animal,” said Hughes.
Weir’s early tee time was delayed due to weather, but he went through changing conditions before a windy finale.
“It changed a ton,” said Weir of the conditions.
“With the heavy mist, the ball was going nowhere. It was just playing so long the first five or six holes. Then, when it started to open up a bit, the seven iron was going 150 yards early in the morning, and then it was going 175 yards. It was a big, big difference once the sun came out and that misty, heavy air got out of here,” he said.
Weir opened with a double bogey, but birdied the third hole to make the turn at one over before a pair of bogeys and a birdie on the second nine.
“Yeah, I missed some opportunities. With the wedges in my hand, it felt like I hit some really nice shots into two, eight, 11, and 15 and just didn’t convert those,” said Weir.
“I thought they were really going to be close to the hole, maybe tap-ins and that’s Augusta National. You get a little hard bounce, and next thing you know it’s a 10-foot downhill slider and with a difficult putt,” he said.
“I felt good with my game and it was unfortunate on the first hole to do that, but the rest of the day I played fine,” he added.
Tiger Woods finished with a 71 and is tied for 10th.
The leaderboard is here.
