AUGUSTA, Ga. — Augusta National Golf Club makes much of its commitment to amateur golfers. Only this week, in fact, it announced that it would begin to more deliberately welcome collegiate champions to the Masters Tournament and the Augusta National Women’s Amateur.
But did the club anticipate that an amateur would hover near the top of the leaderboard after play on Friday? Probably not.
Sam Bennett is here, it seems, to challenge expectations. With back-to-back 68s, he stood at eight under par after finishing his second round. He has yet to make a bogey.
“I just wanted to put two good rounds up,” Bennett, a 23-year-old from Texas A&M University, said. “I knew my golf was good enough to compete out here. I found myself in a situation that now I’ve got a golf tournament that I can go out and win.”
No amateur has won the Masters, which debuted in 1934, but three have finished as runners-up. With the second round suspended because of poor weather, Bennett was third on the leaderboard, trailing Brooks Koepka by four strokes and Jon Rahm by one.
Bennett does not lack for confidence. Asked why he believed he could catch Koepka, he replied, “Because I know that my good golf is good enough.”
He said he did not expect all that many nerves whenever he plays the third round.
“I made the cut as an amateur,” he said. “I kind of made my mark. I played steady golf. Now, it’s time for me to go out and enjoy, soak it all in, be able to play the weekend at the Masters. I mean, growing up as a kid, if you would have told me that, I would have said you’re probably crazy.”
Bad news: The forecasters were probably right.
The weather forecast has not been the talk of Augusta this week, but it has been up there. Now it is the talk of the town — and plenty of players are wondering just how long they will need to stay around.
The tournament had a 21-minute weather delay in the 3 p.m. hour on Friday. Then came another suspension at 4:22 p.m. By 5:45 p.m., Augusta National said play would not restart on Friday.
Competition is scheduled to resume at 8 a.m. Eastern time on Saturday, but the forecast is not exactly encouraging.
“Widespread rain arrives early Saturday morning and will continue throughout the day, with heavy rainfall intensities likely to occur at times,” Augusta National wrote in a weather bulletin that said to expect up to two inches of rain on Saturday, as well as wind gusts of up to 30 miles per hour.
The tournament narrowly avoided a catastrophe on Friday, when winds toppled three trees by the tee on No. 17. Although spectators and tournament workers were nearby, no one was hurt.
“The safety and well-being of everyone attending the Masters Tournament will always be the top priority of the club,” Augusta National said in a statement on Friday evening. “We will continue to closely monitor weather today and through the tournament.”
The Masters last finished on a Monday in 1983, when Seve Ballesteros won.
Collin Morikawa isn’t ready to be counted out, but he knows Koepka will be tricky to chase.
Collin Morikawa, a winner of a British Open and a P.G.A. Championship, has climbed the leaderboard in each of his three Masters appearances, finishing fifth last year. He knows better than most how difficult it is to see a major tournament through to the end. (“People show up breathing differently, feeling differently,” he said on Friday.)
After posting a pair of 69s, he is not out of the hunt, standing in a tie for fourth at six under with Viktor Hovland. But given the weather conditions, Koepka is likely to have some advantages preserving his lead, shifting the burden decisively toward the trailing players. Expect to see players looking to claw back strokes in bite-size pieces.
“With the weather and everything, you’re going to have to really stay patient, and I’m going to have to go out and make some birdies,” Morikawa said. “I don’t think he’s really going to come backward, so we’re going to have to go out and chase him, and that’s going to be on me to figure out how to make a few more out there for these next 36.”
Phil Mickelson promises he’s about to ‘go on a tear.’
Phil Mickelson shot a three-under-par 69 in Friday’s second round, and coupled with his 71 on Thursday, he was tied for 10th when play was suspended. It is some of the best golf that Mickelson has played since last year when he joined the LIV Golf circuit, where he has finished outside the top 30 in 10 limited-field events.
But Mickelson, in postround comments Friday, insisted he was about “to go on a tear.”
He continued: “You wouldn’t think it. You look at the scores. But I’ve been playing exactly how I played yesterday, hitting the ball great, turning 65s, 66s into 77s somehow.
“I don’t know why I’m playing well — actually, I do. I’ve been putting in the work.”
Mickelson credited his teammates on LIV Golf’s Hyflyers team with helping him improve certain aspects of his game. He said that Cameron Tringale, whom Mickelson called “one of the best putters in the game,” had given him tips on his putting stroke and that another teammate, Brendan Steele, had straightened out his driver swing.
“Like I’m hitting so many good shots, pretty soon I’m going to have a really low one,” Mickelson said, meaning a low round. “When that happens and it clicks, then the game feels easy again. Then I stop putting pressure on myself, and the scores just start to fall into place.”
He added that people think he might be too old to contend in a major championship again at 52, but he insisted he was “on the precipice of playing as well as I played 15, 20 years ago because I’m seeing that when I’m at home. I’m seeing that in practice. I’m just not quite letting it happen when I’m out in the tournaments yet.”
Asked if the turnaround could happen over the weekend at the Masters, Mickelson, who counts three green jackets among his six major championships, replied: “It’s possible. Who knows when it will click? It could click tomorrow, I don’t know. Part of it is just slowing my mind down and letting it happen and then it clicks. But that’s kind of the biggest challenge in the game — not forcing it.”
— Bill Pennington
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