Round One Recap: Westwood leads by one

It seems that the Green Jackets do care about players going too far under par on their great course because on the first day of the 2012 Tournament they tucked the pins away in places normally reserved for Sunday.

Perhaps they were worried that the recent damp weather has left their course open to target golf, but as a result of the pins, scores were higher than usual. And the rain delays, predicted to arrive late in the afternoon, never materialised.

One man who should have had a very low score was birthday boy, Sweden’s Henrik Stenson. His last two opening rounds in the Masters have been 80 and 83, but he came to the final hole looking like he was going to shoot a 66. Unfortunately, he then lost his head completely on the 18th, finishing with a quadruple bogey 8.

Stenson, who is 36 today, finished on  -1 71, and was one of a bunch of Europeans to shoot under par and dominate the leaderboard.

Lee Westwood holds a one shot lead over the field, and enjoyed seven birdies in his 67. Playing in his 13th Masters, and with Ant and Dec caddying for him in the Par-3 Tournament, he is hoping this will be his breakthrough Masters.

“It’s nice to get off to a good start,” he said afterwards. “Before I went out, Billy [my caddie] sent me a text. He had walked around the golf course and told me the pins were tough, using slightly more flowery language than that! So, I knew I had to be patient. I had a mud ball oln the 10th which caused me to make a bogey, but other than that I played really solidly.”

Westwood has been doing a lot of fitness work recently, which he thinks will be invaluable come the end of the week. Asked the inevitable ‘major championship’ question, he replied: “If I get to the end of my career and I have no major championships I will obviously be disappointed. And if I get to the end and there are five or six I will be delighted.” He has made an excellent start to achieving his first.

The 4/1 favourite at the beginning of the day, Tiger Woods, shot a level par 72, despite driving the ball terribly. His tee shots at the 1st, 2nd, 15th, 17th and 18th went straight left, causing him to take two penalty drops, and he headed out for a long session on the practice ground to put things right, after he finished.

Rory McIlroy, the 5/1 second favourite, finished strongly, with birdies at the final two holes, to post a 1-under-par 71.

Leaderboard:
67 Lee Westwood
68 Louis Oosthuizen, Peter Hanson
69 Paul Lawrie, Miguel Angel Jimenez, Francesco Molinari, Ben Crane, Jason Dufner, Bubba Watson
70 Zach Johnson, Vijay Singh, Jim Furyk, Scott Stallings
71 Ross Fisher, Steve Stricker, Padraig Harrington, Stewart Cink, Aaron Baddeley, Hideki Matsuyama, Matt Kuchar, Henrik Stenson, Keegan Bradley, Nick Watney, Kevin Chappell, Patrick Cantlay (a), Kevin Na, Angel Cabrera, Rory McIlroy
72 Martin Kaymer, Bill Haas, Justin Rose, Charl Schwartzel, Tiger Woods, Ian Poulter, Jonathan Byrd, Bernhard Langer, Charles Howell III, Mike Weir, Brandt Snedeker, Webb Simpson, Rory Sabbatini, Fred Couples, Sergio Garcia, Hunter Mahan

Selected others:
73 Thomas Bjorn, Darren Clarke
74 Robert Karlsson, Ricky Fowler, Geoff Ogilvy, Phil Mickelson
75 Jose Maria Olazabal, adam Scott, Lucas Glover, Kyle Stanley, Luke DonaldEdoardo Molinari, Graeme McDowelL
76 Martin Laird, Fredrik Jacobson, Paul Casey