One Round In The Record Books @ Augusta: 2011 Masters Update

Since I’m thousands of miles from a certain Georgia city (and trust me, if I were in that town, I’d still be thousands of miles away from the action!) I’m not going to unshell any secret peanuts of knowledge that fill the belly of prediction. If that’s a metaphor and if you understood it, groovy.

What I do know is, folks on the bandwagon of the next Sergio Garcia, known as Rory McIlroy, have declared him the latest recipient of a green blazer; his detractors point to a similar Friday last July in Fife, where Rors pitched a weather-assisted 80 to fall like Icarus. Will he remain aloft like Daedalus? Who knows. Alongside the ulsterman is Spain’s version of Dustin Johnson. Alvaro Quiros is measured in kilometers, not meters. He bombs the chorizo out of the ball, let me say. He is longer than the Picos de Europa. He is also laughing at the fact that he went from a low of75 to a low of 65 at Augusta in one day. Of the two first-day leaders, I give Quiros better odds to day of holding up.

I have a suspicion that the story after day two will be Ricky Barnes. He has this canny knack for figuring out tough courses. His swing used to be way goofy; now it’s just mildly goofy. Because he is so banged up with swollen disks, he might not overdo the warm-up and cool-down and continue to contend. Augusts 2011 might be the coronation of this wounded bear.

Luke Donald’s 3-hole, 4-under stretch might be the talk of the town come Sunday night. As Tiger did in 1997 with his first-day, 40-30 turnaround, Luke turned +3 into even par by nightfall. He is a swell chap and could puncture the curse of the par-three contest winner.