With half a century under his belt, Miguel Ángel Jiménez is proving that he has plenty of room for improvement. On the first day of the Augusta Masters, the player from Malaga was the best of the four Spaniards participating in the tournament by one stroke under par (71) and occupying eleventh place, tied with eight other players. The American Bill Haas was first after completing the course with four strokes under par (68), one less than the Australian Adam Scott, the South African Louis Oosthuizen and the also local Bubba Watson, all of them with 69, who followed him in the classification.
Sergio García and José María Olazábal both scored two strokes over par (73), which also leaves them with a chance of making the cut today, as they are in forty-second place, tied with ten other players. Gonzalo Fernández Castaño will have a more difficult time, as he was three strokes over par (75) and occupies 53rd place, shared with thirteen other golfers.
Jimenez maintained great consistency throughout the round with only one bogey on the 11th hole and a double bogey on the 12th, while he made four birdies (2, 6, 7 and 9), the rest were all pars.
Garcia started well with a birdie on the second hole, which he repeated on the sixth, seventh and thirteenth, but had bogeys on the third, fifth, eleventh, fourteenth, seventeenth and last (18).
Olazábal had two holes, the seventh and eleventh, which were two over par and that was what weighed on his final card, which could have been better in order to make sure he would be in contention for the weekend.
Fernández Castaño only managed a birdie on the fifteenth hole and had four bogeys (4, 7, 8 and 18), and the only birdie was on the fifteenth hole, which placed him in 54th place, tied with twelve other players.
Argentina’s Angel Cabrera also took no risks with his strokes and could only sign a card of six strokes over par (78), which complicates his chances of being in the weekend of the tournament, which he won in 2009 and was runner-up last year.
Cabrera this time did not take a risk in his favorite tournament and in the end paid for it with a qualification that was not expected and that will force him to have a great performance when he takes the field on Friday for the second round.
The Argentine golfer hit the flag with his second shot on the Par 4 of the always difficult 11th hole, and found the water to the left of the green, which cost him three putts and a triple bogey.
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