AUGUSTA, Ga. — The first hole at Augusta National, a par 4 measuring 445 yards, requires players to hit from an elevated tee to a fairway that breaks right to left, then hit their second shots to an elevated green. It calls to mind a roller coaster, and it made a few stomachs drop during the opening round of the Masters.
No one came away from the hole feeling sicker than Ernie Els, a runner-up in 2000 and 2004. He missed the green with his second shot, chipped to 3 feet and took six putts to find the hole. His 9 was the highest score on the hole in the tournament’s 80-year history. Four players — Olin Browne, Billy Casper, Scott Simpson and Jeev Milkha Singh — had recorded 8s.
After signing for an eight-over 80, Els described his problem as a case of the yips.
“I couldn’t get the putter back,” he said, adding: “It’s something that’s a short up there somewhere. You just can’t do what you normally do. It’s unexplainable. A lot of people have stopped playing the game after getting that feeling.”
Els, a four-time major winner, desperately wants to win this tournament. At 46, he knows his window is closing. For 235 days, the amount of time between the end of the P.G.A. Championship and the start of the Masters, Els had waited for his chance. After the first hole, he was essentially out of it.
“I don’t know how I stayed out there,” he said. “You love the game. You’ve got respect for the tournament and so forth.” He added: “Very difficult. I’m not sure where I’m going from here.”
AMATEUR IMPRESSES SPIETH Bryson DeChambeau and his coach, Mike Schy, have spent the past 10 years with their heads together, testing theories about the golf swing in a tent on a public course surrounded by farmland in California’s San Joaquin Valley. For much of that time, they have operated in a vacuum, isolated both geographically and by the grandeur of their ideas about transforming the game.
After so many years of a relatively quiet coexistence, the pair was part of a wonderfully chaotic tableau Thursday, when DeChambeau made his Masters debut as an amateur in a grouping that included the defending champion, Jordan Spieth, and Paul Casey.
Schy required his own course management strategy to maneuver around the thousands of patrons following the group so that he could monitor DeChambeau’s swings with his single-length set of irons and wedges.
“I knew today was going to be a mess trying to watch,” said Schy, who was able to manage, thanks to the advice he received from the wife of Bill Glasson, a Fresno, Calif., native who won seven times on the P.G.A. Tour.
She told Schy to stay a half-a-hole ahead of the players, and using that strategy, Schy saw most of DeChambeau’s swings as he shot an even-par 72. Spieth took the early lead with a 66 and Casey posted a 69.
“He seemed really comfortable out there,” Schy said, and it certainly appeared so. On the par-3 sixth, DeChambeau stepped up and knocked in a par putt while the patrons were still cheering for the 10-foot birdie that Spieth had drained moments earlier.
“Something I’ll never forget, and especially playing with Spieth, and him shooting 66,” DeChambeau said. “That was a fun day to watch him do that and make some putts out there.”
DeChambeau, 22, who will turn pro after this event, was more crisp from tee to green than Spieth, but could not match his putting prowess.
“We were walking up 18, and he said, ‘I don’t know what it is about this place, I just love putting here,’” DeChambeau said, adding, “I was quite impressed with that.”
Spieth, in turn, said he marveled at DeChambeau’s ball-striking.
“Watch out for him,” Spieth said. “In all honesty, it was really impressive watching his game today.”
He added: “I felt like he was a bit off on the greens and still was able to shoot even par. That’s really, really impressive in your first round here.”
PALMER THRILLS PATRONSArnold Palmer walked out of the Augusta National clubhouse and gingerly stepped into a waiting golf cart for the short trip to the first tee for the ceremonial first shots.
The cart moved slowly so the 86-year-old Palmer could connect with the patrons lining the cart path from the clubhouse. He made eye contact with people in the crowd and gave the thumbs-up signal with both hands.
Once he arrived at the tee, Palmer was helped into a chair, where he watched Gary Player, 80, and Jack Nicklaus, 76, hit. It was the first year since Palmer became an honorary starter in 2007 that he did not take a swing. He also did not join Player and Nicklaus afterward in the interview room.
At the champions dinner on Tuesday, Nicklaus said he told Palmer that if he wanted to participate in the ceremonial first shots, he could putt a ball off the tee and the patrons would be thrilled.
Nicklaus was not surprised when Palmer decided to pass.
“Arnold’s balance is not good,” Nicklaus said, “and that’s what they were worried about.”
It did not matter that Palmer remained seated.
“I think that everybody was happy to see Arnold out on the tee,” Nicklaus said. “I think Arnold was happy to be on the tee.”
Player gave voice to what many patrons seemed to be thinking when he said, “It was gratifying and sad because everything shall pass.”
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