Notes and Quotes from the Masters:
Japanese Golfers Worried about New Quake
AUGUSTA, Ga. – Golf felt different to Ryo Ishikawa, Hideki Matsuyama and Hiroyuki Fujita Thursday. Another earthquake had just hit back home in Japan.“I got to know the news this morning, when I saw it on the internet,” said Ishikawa, who opened the Masters with a 1-under 71. “I think I’m worried that it feels like we can’t relax because of the situation. I am a bit worried.”
This quake measured over 7.0 on the scale. The first was the 9.0 monster of March 11, that left 27,000 dead or missing, and devastated thousands of buildings.
Ishikawa, 19, the whiz kid of Japanese golf, has pledged all of his winnings this year to earthquake recovery. He earned over $1 million in each of the past three years.
Fujita, 41, shot 70 to open his first Masters, then came off the course to learn about the quake. “Do you know the damage so far?” he asked. “I don’t have any relatives in the [earthquake] area. My family is here. I’m just happy that whatever I do and how I play will encourage people in Japan.”
Said Ishikawa: “I think the best thing I can do is to play golf and play well. I understand that people, especially in Sendai, they are living in hell, and I would love to show the energy and power of what golf can bring to those people.”
* THE RULING BODIES RULE: In what must be a record performance, the U.S. Golf Association and the Royal & Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews have made a rules change on the run, and one that makes great good sense: It’s no longer an automatic death penalty for a golfer turned in by a TV busybody for not realizing he’d violated the rules.
It’s not quite that simple. Golf rules never are. But what happened here is that golf’s two ruling bodies, this time acting somewhat faster than a glacier, have said that a golfer who unknowingly violates a rule and doesn’t add the penalty to his card before signing it and turning it in won’t necessarily be disqualified. Padraig Harrington was the classic case in the European Tour’s Abu Dhabi Championship early this year when slow-motion replays showed he’d accidentally moved his ball about the width of a dimple when removing his marker. He’d shot 65, turned in his card, then was informed that he had signed an incorrect scorecard. He was disqualified.
Tour golf is littered with similar incidents brought on by TV viewers calling in to report violations. Under the new revision, Harrington would not have been DQd.
The revision, announced Thursday morning in time for the start of the Masters, says “a player … not aware he has breached a rule because of facts that he did not know and could not reasonably have discovered prior to returning his scorecard” will still get the penalty stroke(s), but not be disqualified. But a player cannot plead ignorance of the rules. DQ will still apply.
Rules changes often take perhaps years of study and discussion.
* COUNTING ON TIGER: It’s too early to count Tiger Woods out of this Masters. Also, the way he’s been playing, it’s too early to count him in.
Woods, seeking his fifth Masters, opened with a so-so 1-under 71. But then, in his four wins, he opened (in order) with 70, 70, 70, and 74.
It was all in the putting, he said, in his three-birdie, two-bogey round. “I hit a lot of beautiful putts,” he said. “Most of the putts looked like they should have gone in.” One sure did – a 50-footer at the 14th.
The question was, did he like his position, six off the lead?
“I’d rather be where Rory is,” Woods said, meaning Northern Ireland’s Rory McIlroy, then the leader at 65. McIlroy was later joined by Spain’s Alvaro Quiros, who missed the cut in his previous two Masters.
* DON’T BE ABOVE THE HOLE: That’s the standard warning at Augusta. Below the hole wasn’t so hot, either, for South Africa’s Tim Clark. He hit a superb second shot to the par-4 10th, to 10 feet under the hole. Then he four-putted for a double bogey and shot 73. “I feel I could have shot under par,” Clark lamented. Then he thought an injury might keep him from playing the second round.
* DON’T BE ABOVE THE HOLE II: Phoenix Open winner Mark Wilson stuck his third shot about 10 feet below the hole at the par-5 No. 8. “I firmed it through the break,” Wilson said. “And missed a three-footer coming back, and then another three-footer.” The four-putt gave him a double bogey-7, the big damage in a 76.
* THE CURSE OF THE FIRST-TIMER: Wilson is playing in his first Masters and the pressure showed. “I was surprised at what I did on No. 8,” Wilson said. “Normally, I was able to put that behind me, and I didn’t do a good job of that today … and I paid for it.” He followed the double bogey with three straight singles.
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