MADRID, 8 Apr. (SportsFinding) –
Spanish golfers Sergio García and Jon Rahm maintain the option of fighting for the Augusta Masters, the first ‘major’ of the season, after a first day of par and plus two, from which the South Korean Sungjae Im (-5) emerged as the leader. and Tiger Woods added one more performance to remember his legend.
The fight for the Green Jacket is not that of José María Olazabal, the other Spaniard in contention, but the champion of the tournament in 1994 and 1999, will have a complicated goal of making the cut after a debut of five over par. In the morning it rained and in the afternoon it was quite windy, with receptive greens that will dry out.
Rahm, who recently lost the number one in the world, could not recover his best version at the premiere in Augusta. With four ‘Top 10’ in his five participations, the one from Barrika trusts that irruption that he can still get, with the positive that, being a bad Thursday, he finished in a very recoverable +2 with what remains.
The US Open champion tried to take shots at the Georgia course to no avail, suffering more in the second nine. Meanwhile, a Sergio García who was not at his best moment of the game either achieved that pair that leaves him in the ‘Top 20’ to begin with, with a lap that had a bit of everything, especially at the beginning, with three ‘bogeys’ and three ‘birdies’ in the first nine holes.
The battle is commanded by Sungjae Im, spectacular at the start and then to react to two bogeys, with an eagle in the 13th and another birdie in the 15th. His card of 67 shots left him at the top of the table , one shot better than Australian Cameron Smith, one of the favourites, and two better than Danny Willett, Joaquin Niemann, world number one Scottie Scheffler, and Dustin Johnson.
At one under par he finished his comeback 508 days after Tiger Woods. The champion of 15 ‘Grand Slams’, in his first tournament after his serious car accident a year and a half ago and after his fifth back operation at the end of 2020, showed for the umpteenth time that he is made of another paste. The Californian made a single mistake on the 8th hole, where he had a birdie and in the end he missed a shot.
‘El Tigre’, who could lose his right leg or simply not walk again, confirmed his intuition after testing himself in the practices at Augusta, who returns to try to be the best again. The five-time champion, the last in 2019, gritted his teeth in the heavy rain of the field in the morning and for the moment left the reasonable doubt of whether he would make the cut almost resolved.