AUGUSTA, Ga. — For a person who held up 19 years to win his first significant title, Sergio Garcia met a staggering end in his first endeavor to shield it.
He suffocated.
In a stunning couple of minutes on the standard 5 fifteenth opening on Thursday, Garcia hit five back to back shots in the lake guarding the front of the green, completing with an octuple-intruder 13 — yes, that is a word — which tied the Masters record for most noteworthy score at any point recorded on any gap and everything except finished the Spaniard's mission for a sequential title. No player has ever returned to win a Masters in the wake of scoring 76 or higher on the primary day.
"I don't have the foggiest idea. I don't recognize what to let you know," he said.
Chilly actuality 1: Facing a 206-yard second shot, Garcia spun a 6-press that seemed to drop inside falcon extend yet then kicked back hard and moved off the all around manicured bank that fronts the lake.
"I thought it was impeccable," he said. "Directly at the banner. I don't have the foggiest idea. In the event that it conveys presumably two more feet, it's most likely great. Also, on the off chance that it most likely conveys a foot less, it presumably doesn't move off the green."
Icy actuality 2: From the drop zone, Garcia dropped four straight shots inside five feet of the stick. Every one of the four piece hard however moved gradually in reverse before energy conveyed every one of them once again into the water. The shots and results were so copied, it was relatively difficult to reveal to them separated in video replay. Finding the green with his fifth temporary ball, his two putts made for what the Spanish call trece, which sounds more fun than 13.
"I continued hitting great shots with the sand wedge and shockingly — I don't know why — the ball just wouldn't stop," he said.
No gap at Augusta National has treated Garcia so well previously. Over his initial 66 rivalry rounds, he was 31 under standard on No. 15, his most minimal aggregate of any opening on the course. He had scored 51 vocation birdies there to only seven intruder or higher. The opening did not play especially troublesome over the first round, yielding a greater number of birdies than standards. Inquired as to whether the stick position — front left around six feet off the periphery — represented an issue, Garcia wouldn't chomp.
"It's not the first run through it's been there, so it's not new," he said. "Be that as it may, the solidness of the greens and everything, I felt like the ball would stop. Also, lamentably for reasons unknown, it would not like to."
On the off chance that there's club for such cataclysm, Garcia joins the fraternity of Tommy Nakajima and Tom Weiskopf, whose four vocation second-put completes coordinate the Masters record for uselessness. It was amid the first round of the 1980 Masters that Weiskopf rolled a 7-press into Rae's Creek and after that dunked four straight from the drop zone.
Nakajima's accomplishment, coming two years previously, did not get as much news play but rather gives a decent test to maturing rules specialists. Nakajima drove the stream on No. 13 and after that discovered water again with his approach shot. Before he could get out, he skiped one shot off his foot — two-shot punishment — and afterward enabled his club to touch the water — another two-shot punishment — while endeavoring to hand it to his caddie.
At last, he chipped on and two-putt however when asked through an interpreter what had happened, Nakajima answered he'd "lost tally," as indicated by the Augusta Chronicle.