Spieth resumes Masters bid with two-shot lead

No, his second round was quiet.

As the afternoon threesomes featuring Tiger Woods and Sergio Garcia get going, we could see more gaudy scores on the leaderboard or that golfers could learn from the failures of the morning groups and succeed with a conservative game plan. Of the past 10 Masters winners, only two have failed to play that combination of holes in fewer than 5 under par for the week. Bad starts are tough to come back from.

Spieth could have built a bigger margin except for his wild tee shot to the left and into the trees on No. 18. Tiger slipped from a lie in the second cut and he rocketed one into the forest behind the green.

But given the enormous hype surrounding him and the solid golf he has been playing coming into the Masters, Woods’ opening 73 on Thursday came off a bit flat. I left myself in bad spots. He is one of seven players tied for fourth place after round one. He’s hoping that changes today, beginning on the second. This was the sixth time he’s shot in the 60s.

He followed, however, with back-to-back bogeys.

“But if you can not give any strokes away with your short-range putting from inside six feet”.

The American beer maker responded to the reported ban on Twitter, proclaiming the company will send 1,000 “Dilly Dilly” T-shirts to the Masters for fans to wear. The mess was complete.

No. 5: With a 3-wood off the tee, Woods flares it right and into the patrons.

The 38-year-old went for the green in two and then needed five more attempts to find the putting surface and hole out from nine feet to avoid any further damage.

Summing up the day, Shubhankar said “the putter did not work on the front nine and approach (shots did not work) on the back nine”.

Third shot: Play it low and run it up? He made five straight birdies, a career best for him in the majors. Same flop shot, of course.

Woods might be right about one thing. And of course, Phil Mickelson is very much in the running for his own tryst with destiny. Mickelson wandered over to the first cut, right off the tightly mowed grass and dropped there. The ball hit it instead of rolling up toward the green. It just barely gets up to the fringe, and he’s honestly lucky it didn’t roll back toward him or into the greenside bunker.

3rd shot: The chip shot is … well, it wasn’t good.

The later pairings of the day appear to score better with Jordan Spieth leading the field by two shots. Perhaps after the problems at 9, 11 and 12, he would make up for it with an eagle. Another wayward tee short at the 13th wound up in the pine straw, leaving Woods with no chance to go for the green. For a moment, he looked like he was going to have to scramble to save par. But when he curled in a 20-foot birdie put on No. 16, the galleries rewarded him with the loudest roar of the day. Ian Poulter would agree as, having scored an unsatisfactory one over in the first round of the Houston Open a week ago, he ended up winning the tournament. He was under par one only one hole.

Tiger will have an early Saturday tee time and need to do something insane on the weekend to have a shot. But his struggles weren’t over. Tune in to Masters.com and CBS Sport’s live stream and ESPN (Rounds 1 and 2) and CBS (Rounds 3 and 4) to catch all the action.