The first day and many holes to go

Owing to one and a half inches of heavy rain at 5 pm on the Wednesday, the course was somewhat wet and, therefore, playing long. Anticipating this, the Tournament Committed positioned the pins with Day 4 severity. Some players were troubled by “mud balls”, which is a chunk of mud adhering to the golf ball on landing on soggy fairways. Most courses have "Lift, Clean and Replace" rules but not Augusta National, not The Masters. Players have no idea how the ball will fly (imagine driving your car super fast with a flat front wheel) although some could write a thesis on the subject. Even the top pros do not practice much with mud balls. Early morning eager beavers trying to catch the holy trinity (Palmer/ Nicklaus/ Player) of golf doing the honorary starting did not slither and slide on the steep slopes owing to the generous amounts of gravel (what colour? Green, of course!) that was shovelled onto all approaches and pathways. The course was liberally sprinkled with signs cautioning that the area was "slippery when wet". The day was crisp and clear and got off to a great start with the wildly cheering appreciative patrons celebrating the start of this 76th edition of The Masters. Ranked by age, Palmer at 82, hit his drive straight down the fairway, Player at 76, as expected, rocketed his drive far into the distance right of centre and Nicklaus at 72 comprehensively covered the left centre. Club house balconies were full to overloaded, patrons pressed against the ropes to catch a better glimpse of the living big three of golf. Click here for Cloud Computing Also Read Related Stories News Now - Not only for Masters? - Golf course design and Amen Corner - IBM facing golf gender bias after fighting racial barriers - Augusta National, Masters & the rest - Food inflation eases to 11.81% - Monsoon beats retreat after last-leg bounty But trouble was already brewing on the very first hole which proved to be the toughest in recent tournament history. Bradley, Cabrera, McIlroy, all recent winners of majors, doubled before stabilizing later in the day. However, the first was followed by the par 5 second hole, which proved to be the easiest of the day. Harrington was the first in red figures with a competent eagle on the 2nd. Thereafter the leader board was constantly changing, much like a game of snakes and ladders. Henrik Stenson, of "drive off the wing of an Etihad Airlines plane" together with this scribe, shot off to be 5 under in the front nine with two eagles in the bag and easier par 5 holes to come in the second half. However, the pressure of such an early lead and possibly visions of a matching 31 on the second half, proved to be too much and after a heartbreaking quadruple bogey on the 18th, he subsided to just be in the red numbers, four shots off the lead.