US Masters blog: The Mocker Merchant

A funny old day, really – that’s the only way I cam sum it up. With the fairways aligned with decent crowds, the sun shining again and the ambience more than healthy, Saturday at Augusta has been somewhat low key.

Now I know what you’re going to say. How can you complain? You don’t know how lucky you are? And you’d be right. Thing is, it seemed that wherever I went today, I put the wood on whoever I was watching.

It all started on the seventh hole. Eager to follow the path of Sergio Garcia after yesterday’s heroics, the silky Spaniard greeted me with a naff approach into a steep greenside trap. Inevitably, he couldn’t get up and down to save par and, inevitably, the shoulders began to sag…

Sensing his mood, I opted to swap fairways and cut across to the 10th to see another of my pre-tournament picks, Phil Mickelson. Lefty bogeyed the 10th, then the 11th.

Switching my focus back to Garcia, he slapped it in the drink on 11 and bogeyed, then bunkered on the 12th (good up-and-down to save par) before making a hash of a birdie opportunity on 13 to take only a par.

Even when I ran across to the 14th to check on Stephen Ames and Nick Watney, both made avearge approaches. Moving down to 16 to catch up with Mickelson again after he birdied the 15th (I wasn’t there), a weak chip and a lip out resulted in another bogey.

All was rounded off with possibly the worst tee shot the 18th has witnessed all week, with Mickelson shoving it short and right into the trees. That I didn’t witnesse what must have been a great piece of recovery play to save his par was because I had taken my place on the clubhouse lawn by now, with a cool beer in hand.

At least someone is showing some consistency.

From Augusta

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