Golf: Koepka goes on the run, but the rain wins at the Masters

Heavy rains and winter temperatures on the Saturday of the Masters, which, at 15.15 local time, suspends the game and postpones the end of the third round to Sunday. Brooks Koepka continues to be the number one story of this tournament as he continues his march to the lead. Jon Rahm’s comeback was expected, starting two strokes back. Both immediately earned a shot on hole two (par 5), but the American player was able to keep the course and the advantage with balls still flagged, recoveries (like from the bunker on hole 3, par 3), nice putts from afar (on 5).

BENNET

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The Spanish player, on the other hand, began to lose ground immediately afterwards: bad shots arrived (from the tee to 4) and the three putts (to 5) and when the siren sounds, the gap has risen to four shots. Sam Bennett, amateur of great hopes, loses two shots but remains third in the standings. Patrick Cantlay starts in fourth place, four birdies and a bogey after 13 holes, to climb back into the group of quarterfinals with Matt Fitzpatrick (three birdies with a stop at 12), Collin Morikawa and Viktor Hovland. For Koepka it is a return to the good game (he who between 2017 and 2019 was the strongest in the world, capable of winning four majors in 23 months) and to normal life after various knee injuries that cut him off until the last January. “I was having trouble even getting out of bed, but now I’m fine,” he said on the eve of the race. “It’s frustrating to see your body not allowing you to do the things you want, you create bad habits and then you have to fix them too.”

WOODS

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Tiger Woods knows something about it, slipping back in the standings in the rain, but he amazes every over the limit and continues to fuel an incredible golf fairy tale. Still record with 23 consecutive cuts. It was only in the 1996 Masters that he still failed as an amateur and now he is adding this feat to his curriculum on a par with Gary Player and Fred Couples (who, at 63, also becomes the oldest in history to play at the weekend) . Tiger has used us to hold our breath. For his super shots that often touch the hole, for the injuries and accidents that have affected his career in the last ten years, for the uncertainty of his presence until the last second. A life of top secret, almost nothing is ever known about his condition until he informs the world. Never has a decision been more awaited and longed for than last year in Augusta, when the possibility of playing was weighed up to the last minute. At issue is not the game, but the right leg, destroyed and almost amputated just a year earlier in a car accident. No races in the previous five hundred days. Then he played (and well too), passed the cut, limped for 72 holes and, incredibly, it was the putt that scuttled his last two rounds: 34 on Sunday for a 47th place at the end with a score of 301 strokes (71 -74-78-78). More suspense this time. On the edge of the cut, Tiger looked out as he closed the second round with two final bogeys, after a birdie on the 15th that had bode well. But the gift came from his friend Justin Thomas, two missed shots in the final, one to raise the cut and one to leave the scene prematurely. Fans around the world thank you.

RELATIONS

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Meanwhile, between one break and another, while the Augusta National atmosphere maintains its calm rhythms and good manners involving all those who participate in the April ritual, the opportunity to have players signed by the league on the field Saudi LIV Golf is as rare as it is intriguing. Augusta National, as President Fred Ridley announced last December, “although displeased and annoyed by developments in the current situation, as per tradition, is fielding the best players in the world, remaining faithful to the usual qualification criteria. The focus remains on the race”. But it’s also about relationships. Generally chilled among those who find themselves walking on the pitch together again, sometimes icy like between Rory McIlroy and Patrick Reed or indifferent in the case of Francesco Molinari who says “I don’t get into the merits of other people’s decisions”. Meanwhile, however, the noose is tightening around the necks of those who have decided to take the new road paved with Saudi dollars. Not a problem for those who have found the end of their career solution, but it is for the many who are still at the peak of their golf. The Easter gift for the DP World Tour arrived on Thursday with the judgment in favor of the arbitration underway since last year, which confirms the possibility of imposing sanctions on anyone who wants to venture into his races. So today being a LIV member means not playing on the PGA Tour, not playing on the DP World Tour, no Ryder Cup, a few longtime sponsors lost along the way, disappearing from the TV screens (almost non-existent TV coverage) and, last but not least, not having access to ranking points (not assigned to the few exhibition races of the LIV calendar). So those who remained in the competition in Augusta (18 started and twelve remained in the competition) are desperately looking for points, because it could be their last Masters. Apart from Cameron Smith (winner of the last Open Championship) who lost only four positions (before entering LIV second, sixth today), the most sensational is Phil Mickelson (71-425). And then Thomas Pieters (35-44), Joaquin Niemann (19-25), Patrick Reed (38-70), Brooks Koepka (19-118). The Australian champion Greg Norman will be smiling, from the control room of the new course wanted by the Saudis. Two of his boys, Koepka and Mickelson, are currently in the top 10. Meanwhile, Augusta National confirms the prize pool, as it does on Saturdays: 18 million dollars in all, 3,240,000 to the winner, 45,360 to the last of the 50 qualified.