Round 1 @ The Masters!

The day we have been preparing for over the past 6-9 months, finally came this morning. Rnd 1 at The Masters was finally upon us and we had some difficult Rnd 1 conditions to challenge us. The weather was great, but the course played very long and is was quite wet under foot from the rain and storms the previous few nights. The other aspect that made the course play tough was the tournament officials had placed a lot of pins in really tricky spots, making close iron shots really hard to come by.
Our Rnd 1 pairing was with Ben Crenshaw and Robert Karlsson. Ben is one of my all time favourite players and it was an awesome experience to walk the fairways, chatting with such a gentleman and true great of the game. Robert was also a really nice guy with loads of ability, as well as being one of the longest players on tour.
Brydens day started with an early morning workout with his trainer, Dave Donatucci. Our tee time was 8.34, which meant Bryden started his workout at approx 5.30am.

                                                 B-Mac working out with Dave! Pre Rnd Preperation!

We got to the course and went through our normal pre game warm up and B-Mac was feeling good. Getting to the first tee and seeing a sea of people watching your 1st tee shot down the 1st fairway at Augusta was quite a daunting experience. This is one situation I was looking forward to seeing how B-Mac was going to handle it, and he didnt disappoint at all! He crushed his drive down the middle of the fairway, as we were walking off the tee, he turned and looked at me and said "We can go home now".
After a tough front nine, where B-Mac had put himself in some tough spots on and around the greens, he started to settle and play some really good golf.
We got pretty lucky on the Par 4 11th, as we had approx 206yds from the right hand side of the fairway for out 3rd shot. This is definately not ideal!!
B-Mac put a pretty good swing on it but as it got past the tree line, the wind hit it and took it into the pond left of the green, or so we thought!
When we got down there, we noticed our ball had embedded on the bank of the hazard, approx 80% of the ball was plugged. Better than being in the pond!!
B-Mac then went ahead and blasted the ball from the plugged lie to about 12ft, where he sank the putt for a great bogey 5.
B-Mac finished with a 5 over 77, +4 front and +1 on the back. This was a pretty solid back nine, where he holed a nice 15ft for par on the last, where he got a prett kool back slap from Ben Crenshaw.
As B-Mac's Mental Game coach, being in the thick of it was great to see how he handled himself and I must say, I am super proud of the way he bounced back and re focused on the back nine to steady himself.
We are super psyched to have a crack at Rnd 2 tomorrow and setting our sights on shooting an under par score to put oursleves there on the weekend.

                           Bryden with some feel good vibes, with a Ramsay McMaster badge on his playing caps!

Looking forward to tomorrow, but for now its time to sleep and get ready for an assault on Augusta National tomorrow!!