The 2010 Master started out as a pretty good day. The wind was gusting a little bit, up to 20mph. The players dodged some pretty bad weather. There were some storm, including some tremendous thunder storms, racing towards Augusta, but somehow the worst that happened was some light rain. The winds gusted up to 30 mph in the afternoon. Despite all of that, some great golf was shot.
Thirty-one players shot under par, and if you count even par players, that number went up to 44, which was just under 50% of the field. That's some really great golfing when you consider those pretty gusty winds out there. Usually the winds at Augusta make it more difficult to play because they swirl around in all those pine trees, which make club selection extremely difficult. There were some great scores shot in that amount of wind,
I guess the biggest story of the day is that the leader, the first time in the history of the Masters, is a gentleman over 50 years old, Freddie Couples. As we all know Freddie has been playing extremely well this year, tearing up the Champions Tour with three victories already. I read somewhere his scoring average is somewhere around 67 all his rounds this year. So he's continued his playing well, right here in Augusta. Hopefully he can keep it going through the end of the week.
The second big story right behind Freddie is that 60 year old Tom Watson is tied for second place. So I guess Tom is carrying over on right where he left off last year, playing so well in the British Open. If he'd made that last putt on the 18th green on the last day, he wins the tournament outright. But he missed it and, unfortunately, he lost the play off to Stewart Cink. That's still a phenomenal feat, as many people say that if he had won the British Open at his age it would have been one of the most popular athletic achievements in all of sports.
So we have two older gentlemen playing really well. Right behind them is Phil Mickelson who's soon to be 40, and he shot a very good round. He's right there in the hunt at five under at 67.
Right behind him, playing well from last week, Anthony Kim, along with Nick Watney, two young Americans and Rick Rickey Barns, another your American. And right there with them is Tiger Woods.
The eyes of the tournament and the eyes of the world are all on Tiger Woods. People were betting and laying odds that everything from he wouldn't make the cut to he would win. I guess most of the folks thought he would make the cut but wouldn't be seriously in contention. Well, he seriously in contention right now and if can keep it going he will seriously be in contention by the end of the week.
That would make for one heck of a tournament to have Fred Couples and Tom Watson still playing well, Mickelson battling out with Tiger and anybody else who hangs in there to be in contention. So it looks like we have three more days of a good Masters to be watching.
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