Thirteen months after the car crash, the day after his spectacular return to competition, Tiger Woods experienced a second-round southoot at the Augusta Masters, scoring nine shots temporarily behind narrow breakaway author Scottie Scheffler. The winner of the 15 Majors, seeking his sixth title in Georgia, equaled Jack Nicklaus’ record by returning a card of 74, equalizing two strokes. That, along with his -1 the day before, makes him a total +1 for the slide to 19th. Returning without a match after 17 months, the man who was guaranteed to win was clearly unsatisfactory – his last tournament was the 2020 edition of the Masters, which was postponed to November due to Covid-19 – but that was not all. Predict disaster as its beginning. At this point, a strange bird in the person of Scotty Scheffler flew into the discussions. The 25-year-old American, who has three consecutive wins at the World Championship of Match-Play (WGC) at the Arnold Palmer Invitational in Phoenix, is celebrating his World N.1 title in Augusta. Get a first Grand Slam, it’s so strong that between N.12 and N.16 he chained four birdies (seven forgetting two bogies in two of the first three holes), 67 (-5) score, a total of -8.
He is currently tentatively leading the five-man squad, which includes defending champion Japanese Hideki Matsuyama, former South Korean Sun Jae Im, Irishman Shane Lori and 2011 event winner Charles Schwartzel. Finally, like Brooks Koypka, Jordan Speith, Xander Schauffele or Bryson DiCambeu, it did not allow him to cross, but the unknown Stuart Zink made a difference to himself by signing the first hole at N.16 once a week.