AUGUSTA, Ga. — For the days and weeks leading up to the Masters, Clay Ogden's confidence never wavered. The 21-year-old from West Point was hitting the ball solidly and if there was any concern going into the tournament, it was how he'd handle the lightning-quick greens at Augusta National.
He found out in Thursday's opening round with a difficult lesson.
Playing the No. 9 hole, Ogden was just 25 feet below the hole putting for par, only to end up five-putting for quadruple bogey.
That's right, five-putting.
Later, at No. 14, Ogden had a 75-foot uphill putt from just off the two-level green. He didn't hit it quite hard enough and the ball rolled back down the hill, past where he was standing, leaving him with an 85-foot chip shot. He eventually made double bogey.
Take away those two holes and Ogden actually didn't play that badly Thursday. He finished with an 11-over-par 83, but was only 5-over on the other 16 holes.
"You've got to watch every little thing you do here," Ogden said. "It doesn't take much to do something stupid out here."
Even though he had played three practice rounds back in February and parts of three rounds earlier this week at Augusta, Ogden played the greens like he'd never seen them before. He ran several putts past the hole and left others short.
"I struggled all day with my speed control," he said. "Whenever I had an uphill putt, I'd hit it above the hole and then I'd have a tester coming back."
That's exactly what happened at the disastrous No. 9 hole.
Ogden had come into the hole at 4-over par with bogeys at 1, 4, 5 and 7. He made a nice recovery out of the trees at No. 8 and made a 5-footer for par. It appeared he would finish the front nine in 40, which is the same score Tiger Woods posted on his front nine when he was 21 years old, like Ogden.
Ogden pulled his drive at the 460-yard 9th hole but made another nice recovery, hitting a hook shot around some trees, leaving himself just short of the green in 2.
His chip was 25 feet short, and he tried to make the uphill par putt to a hole cut at the back part of the green. He gave the putt a run, "I thought I made it," he said later, but the putt was too firm and ran four feet past.
Now he faced a slippery downhill putt but again hit it too hard and the ball kept rolling . . . and rolling . . . and rolling, until it ended up back where he started 25 feet below the hole. Now Ogden was clearly flustered and hit his next putt short and missed a 3-footer, leaving him with a "snowman" 8.
Rattled, he bogeyed the next two holes but pulled himself together to make a pair of birdies, at the par-3 12th, when he hit an 8-iron to 6 feet, and No. 15 when he two-putted from the fringe.
Unfortunately he made bogey at No. 13 and the double at No. 14 and finally made a couple of pars at 17 and 18.
Ogden was thrilled to play with two-time champion Ben Crenshaw, who put on a clinic of how to putt the Augusta greens. The 54-year-old Crenshaw shot a 1-under-par 71 and put himself in position to make the cut for the first time since 1997.
"He was amazing," said Ogden. "I watched him growing up and got to see it firsthand today. He knows these greens better than anybody."
Ogden saw his hopes of making the 36-hole cut pretty much quashed, but he's hoping for a better round today.
"Unfortunately, it didn't go the way I wanted it, but it was still fun," Ogden said. "This is still definitely a positive experience. Hopefully I can put together a good round tomorrow."
Ogden plays with Crenshaw and Trevor Immelman again, and the threesome tees off at 11:18 a.m. local time (9:18 a.m. MDT).
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