Day leads after second round, Guan makes cut

Day leads after second round, Guan makes cut











PGA.COM April 12, 2013 9:09 PM

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Jason Day shot a 4-under 68 Friday for a 6-under 138 total.(Getty Images)


By Doug Ferguson, Associated Press


AUGUSTA, Ga. -- The 14-year-old from China isn't going anywhere in a hurry. And this Masters is still a long way from taking shape.

Despite being the first player at Augusta National to get hit with a one-shot penalty for slow play, teen sensation Guan Tianlang still made history Friday as the youngest player to make the cut in a PGA Tour-sanctioned event.

And it came down to the last shot of a wild and windy day.

Jason Day could have sent the kid home early with a birdie from just off the front of the green on the 18th hole. But the Australian was wide left and tapped in for par, giving him a 4-under 68 and a one-shot lead over fellow Aussie Marc Leishman and the ageless Fred Couples.

The par meant that Guan, who had one shot added to his score on the 17th hole for his second bad time of the round -- made the cut under the 10-shot rule.

"If I can make it, I would be really happy for it," Guan said some five hours earlier. "But if I didn't make it, it's still a great week."

He's now part of a weekend at Augusta that should be as dynamic as ever.

Day was at 6-under 138, and 18 players were within four shots of the lead, including Tiger Woods.

Woods moved into a share of the lead with a two-putt birdie on the eighth hole, and his game looked to be as sharp as ever -- perhaps too sharp. Right when it looked like he might take the outright lead, Woods hit a lob wedge that was so perfect it hit the flag on the par-5 15th and caromed backward off the green and into the water. Instead of having a short birdie putt, he had to scramble to save bogey.

Woods posed over another shot on the 18th and was stunned to see it hop onto the upper shelf, leading to his second three-putt bogey of the week. He had to settle for a 71, though he was still only three shots out of the lead.

"My score doesn't quite indicate how well I played today," Woods said.

The 53-year-old Couples, who shared the 36-hole lead at the Masters last year, birdied the 18th hole for a 71 and will play in the final group.

Former Masters champion Angel Cabrera birdied five of his last six holes for a 69 and was in the group two shots behind, along with former U.S. Open champion Jim Furyk (71) and Brandt Snedeker (70). Woods was at 3-under 141 with six others, including Adam Scott (72), Lee Westwood (71) and Justin Rose (71).

And still in the mix was Rory McIlroy, who turned his fortunes around with a 5-wood from about 275 yards that set up a short eagle putt. He added three more birdies on the back nine and had a 70, leaving him only four shots out of the lead going into the weekend.

"Anything under par today was going to be a good score," McIlroy said.

The hole locations were severe in spots, with one pin tucked on top of a mound toward the front of the fifth green. The par 5s played into an opposite wind on the back nine, and they were not easy to reach. Furyk got home in two on the 15th hole Thursday with a hybrid. He used that same club to lay up on Friday.

Such tough conditions made the performance of Guan that much more impressive. He had a respectable 75, which included the one-shot penalty.

And for the longest time, it looked as though it might be costly.

Guan, playing with Matteo Manassero and Ben Crenshaw, was informed his group was out of position as it left the 10th green. They were on the clock on the 12th hole, meaning players would be timed to make sure they hit their shots within the 40-second limit. The teen got his first bad time with his second shot on the 13th hole, and it was clear he was in trouble after his shot into the 17th when John Paramor, chief referee in Europe, walked out to speak to him.

Tianlang Guan still alive at the Masters despite being on the wrong end of a horrible call

Tianlang Guan still alive at the Masters despite being on the wrong end of a horrible call











Dan Wetzel April 12, 2013 9:30 PMYahoo Sports





AUGUSTA, Ga. – Tianlang Guan approached his soon-to-be infamous second shot on the 17th fairway of Augusta National and found company. Ben Crenshaw's ball was a few yards back and to the right. Matteo Manassero's was a little ahead and to the left.

Which ball was which was, perhaps, confusing. Guan appeared concerned about violating one of golf's key rules: You can only play your own ball. The problem was, his ball landed with its logo face down into grass, making easy identification impossible.

Since another rule says you can't pick up or move the ball – even slightly – he crouched down multiple times, even going to all fours, in attempt to look under the ball and make sure he had the right one. Then he did it again, even if Crenshaw and Manassero expressed no such concern over where they landed.

The 14-year-old from China, the youngest player to ever compete in the Masters, was in position to do what many believed impossible – make the cut.

And he was leaving nothing to chance. Nothing. Not even an obvious thing like this.

These attributions of precision, patience and, indeed, pace – not to mention a delicate short game – are what eventually got him to the promised land of the weekend of the Masters.



[Related: Players rip decision to penalize Guan]

It is also what nearly cost him the entire thing.





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Tianlang Guan acknowledges the crowd's applause after making a putt on the second green at Augusta National. (Getty …Just moments after making sure that he had the right ball, throwing grass into the air to check the wind, walking up the hill to get a look at the green and then switching clubs, Guan was penalized a stroke for slow play. Official John Paramor, who earlier had issued two other direct warnings to Guan, ran a stopwatch on him that exceeded the minimum 40-second time limit.



A slow play penalty is so rare the Masters said it had no record of any others ever issued. It's occurred just three other times in the last 16 years of major tournaments and not for years in regular PGA Tour events. The penalty pushed Guan to 3-over on the day and 4-over for the tournament. He only made the cut because leader Jason Day's birdie putt on 18 went just left of the hole.

"I respect the decision," Guan said later of the penalty.

Taking the high road was a smart move for the kid. Especially since he made the cut anyway, a remarkable, remarkable accomplishment. He doesn't need to respect the decision, though.

There is plenty there not worth respecting.





This was the sport of golf in all its conflicting glory. There are rules upon rules, a game of honor in a sport that is played and understood globally. It's what makes golf great.

Yet in the end, there was a potentially cruel judgment call.

[Watch: Breaking down Friday at the Masters]

"He had warnings," Paramor said while standing by the 18th tee, just moments after his decision. "Everything needs to be done to [preserve fast play]. I made that clear on the walk from the 16th green to the 17th tee."

It's not that Guan wasn't guilty of slow play or isn't a slow player. He was and is. If you're a by the book guy, and Paramor claims to be – "No, it's the Masters," he said when asked if the situation merited some slack – then this is easy.

The culture of golf loves to puff out its chest and brag about these things.

"A rule is a rule," Guan's father, Hanwen, said through a translator, echoing the tsk-tsk from golf purists. "But I don't want to talk too much about it."

If he did, he might ask a simple question: What about everyone else? There was slow play everywhere across Augusta National on Friday, as play crawled around the famed course.

Tiger Woods' group teed off at 1:41 p.m. and finished up as the sunset behind the Georgia pines at 7:24. That's a painfully slow 5-hour, 43-minute round and wasn't unusual on this pressurized Friday.

[Related: Leaderboard: Day leads after Round 2]

And yet the only golfer cited for slow play by golf officials was a 14-year-old amateur with a local caddie and painfully little experience on the second-to-last-hole with an historic qualification hanging in the balance, all while playing in a group with the 61-year old Crenshaw, who put up a non-competitive 84? They ding a kid in that situation, but not one multimillionaire star?

"I don't know what they do," Guan said of other golfers playing slow. "But I don't think I'm too bad."

He isn't too bad, certainly not so bad he should've been the only one.

"He got a penalty for slow play?" said leader Day. "Wow."

"I'm sick," Crenshaw said. "I'm sick for him. He's 14 years old, we're playing – when you get the wind blowing out here, believe me, you're going to change your mind a lot."

You can't say a rule is a rule when that very rule isn't uniformly enforced. Once that's the case, the rule becomes subjectively determined. This was a choice.





In the end, a 140-pound middle schooler is playing the weekend rounds of a major championship. No one has ever done that at such an age.

[Related: Tiger Woods in the hunt]

Guan's accomplishment is rooted in his ability to take every little detail so seriously that he was able to ignore the greatest detail of all – he's an eighth grader in the Masters.

He left no detail unaddressed and showed extreme poise and mental toughness. He just plugged and plugged, distractions be damned. Just Thursday, his mother claimed he often concentrated so hard during tournaments he'd forget to eat and then run out of energy. That singular focus almost cost him on the 17th fairway. It's probably how he was able to fight through a cutthroat decision, though.

"It's his very first Masters," Paramor said just after the ruling. "He's a great player and he'll be fine. He's a strong player. I hope he makes a three [birdie] up there [pointing toward the 18th green] and is playing tomorrow."

Guan didn't hit a birdie on 18. He is playing tomorrow, anyway. The only golfer who brought homework with him to Augusta tees off at 9:55 a.m. Saturday.

In the end, he was stronger than even this strangely timed show of rulebook force.

Couples and Langer turn back clock to contend

Couples and Langer turn back clock to contend











PGA.COM April 12, 2013 11:12 PM

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Fred Couples, 53, who won his green jacket in 1992, followed up an opening 68 with an up-and-down round …


By Jim Litke, Associated Press


AUGUSTA, Ga. -- Fred Couples and Bernhard Langer briefly made round two of the Masters seem like "Old Timers Day."

The two former champions fell back on years of experience to navigate the tough, windy conditions Friday at Augusta National, climbing steadily up the leaderboard as many of their younger, stronger rivals lost their grip headed in the opposite direction.

Couples, 53, who won his green jacket in 1992, followed up an opening 68 with an up-and-down round of 71 Friday to get to 5-under and one shot off the lead. Langer, 55, who won twice and whose first green jacket (1985) is older than more than a few of his opponents, notched his second consecutive 71 to reach 2-under and a tie for 14th.

"I mean, I'm surprised," Couples said, "but I'm not going to freak out over it."

Langer wasn't buying the surprised angle at all.

"Fred loves this place," he said. "He's played here 28 times and he's only missed one cut by one shot. This is his second home."

So much so that Couples, who was in much the same position after two rounds just a year ago, renewed his threat to retire on the spot if he won at Augusta National again.

"You asked me that last year and I said, yeah, I would quit. I'm going to quit when I win this thing, I swear to God," he said to laughter. "I'm going to retire. It's probably not ever going to happen, but I'm going to retire.

"I'm not going to kid you. I mean, it's a hard course. I'm really tired. I'm swinging hard at every drive I hit."

Yet Langer wasn't buying the idea that Couples couldn't win, either. He was less certain about his own chances."

"I always thought that Freddie, with his length, can win it, because he hits it a good 30 yards by me, which helps a great deal on some of these holes," Langer said. "For me to win, everything has to go my way. I got to start making some putts most of all."

Couples was sharp with the putter most of the day, if only because he'd seen even the more diabolical pin positions at least once or twice before. But he felt like the biggest advantage of all those rounds at Augusta was remembering not to let the swirling winds confuse him or change the way he played his approaches into the greens.

"Any golf course plays hard when the wind blows," he said. "At Augusta where you're trying to judge your second shots and putts, it becomes really, really hard. ...

"I knew it was blowing downwind on 3. And so three hours later, we are playing a hole that runs that way, it's going to be playing downwind again, and you just have to keep believing that and doing that, because it swirls around in those trees. ... But when you're a guy trying to hit it, you can't stand there and say, I know it's coming into my face, but I'm not really sure. That's not how you want to stand up on a lot of holes. It's just that I've played so many rounds here that I feel pretty comfortable on some of these shots."

Of course, all the talk about experience can also get, well, old. When Langer was asked the third time recount something from his history at Augusta National, he promptly cut it short.

"I think this is my 30th," he said, chuckling. "I'm getting old."