Normangate hits the US Masters; Australians struggle in round one at Augusta
Cam Davis upstaged Australia’s ‘other’ Cam, as Bryson DeChambeau put on a power show during a rain-hit first round. | LEADERBOARD
Cam Davis’s head is out of the clouds.
“The first time you’re here, you’re just so happy to be here,” he said after leading the Australians on day one of the Masters. “The second time, you’re so happy to be here, but now you know what it’s about. Now you can spend a little bit more time prepping yourself for the golf you need to play rather than just being in awe of the place the entire time.
“Definitely this year I feel a little calmer out here. A little more at ease with the environment, with some of the shots you’ve got to play. In that regard it does feel like I’m a little more getting to business this week rather than just here to enjoy the ride.”
Davis finished 49th on debut at Augusta National last year. Making up the numbers. Now he’s gunning to win it. “I would love to,” he said after being tied for sixth, trailing opening-round leader Bryson DeChambeau by just four shots. “It’s a childhood dream to be here. It’s a childhood dream also to come up that last hole with a lead and finish it up. That’s the sort of dream we’re chasing now. Now we’re preparing to do that rather than just being happy to be here. What’s my game plan? How am I playing this place? I don’t need to copy someone else. I need to figure out how this works best for me and go from there. I think the back nine on Sunday is the only time you can start thinking about the leaderboard. You’ve got a lot of work to do to get there.”
The other Cam, Smith, slipped and nearly fell into Rae’s Creek while preparing for the Masters. He stayed dry but his ball was less fortunate on Thursday. A fluffed nine-iron found the bank in front of the 12th green before the ball inevitably, inexorably, inconveniently trickled into the body of water at Amen Corner that has drowned many a promising campaign.
Smith took a double-bogey five, fell back to even par but recovered to post a respectable enough one-under-par 71 following a compromised build-up lowlighted by severe food poisoning.
Of the other Australians, Min Woo Lee scribbled his signature on a 74; amateur Jasper Stubbs on an 80. Adam Scott and Jason Day didn’t complete their rounds after a two-hour morning rain delay. Scott was one-over after 13 holes; Day was even par after 13, playing alongside five-time Masters champion Tiger Woods, who was one-under.
“A bit of a poor shot,” Smith said of coming a cropper at Amen Corner. “It’s just a tough hole. It’s a tough back nine. It’s a tough golf course. It’s going to be a tough week.” Speaking of clouds, Smith won a British Open from them. The lesson? “Hang in there,” he said.
Norman gatecrashes the Masters
A bit bloody rich of Greg Norman to gatecrash the US Masters.
You can take on the establishment and launch a rebel tour but you’re being knowingly antagonistic and disruptive if you turn around and attend a tournament steeped in the sort of tradition you’re tearing apart.
He was acting as innocently as a great white dove when he strolled through the gates of Augusta National like it was no big deal. “Walking around here today, there’s not one person who said to me, ‘Why did you do LIV?’,” Norman told The Washington Post. “There’s been hundreds of people, even security guys, stopping me, saying, ‘Hey, what you’re doing is fantastic’. To me, that tells you that what we have and the platform fits within the ecosystem, and it’s good for the game of golf.”
Norman entered via Augusta’s main gate – Normangate – with two LIV officials and a ticket in his hand. He wore his wide-brimmed hat. The LIV Golf logo was on his shirt. He was among the tens of thousands of patrons walking the fairways, flanked by security, casting an eye on the 13 LIV players trying to raid the Masters after Sergio Garcia posted on X: “We’re coming for that green jacket.”
Norman said: “I’m here because we have 13 players that won 10 Masters between them. So I’m here just to support them, do the best I can to show them, ‘Hey, you know, the boss is here rooting for you’. I try to strip away all that other stuff, all the white noise and stuff. These guys are the best. So when the best get with the best, you’re always going to see the best rise at the top, no matter who (or) where they play.”
Unnecessarily combative. The boss can root for his rebels from afar. And among the Australian players, is the boss only rooting for LIV’s Cam Smith? Is the boss not rooting for Adam Scott? Min Woo Lee? Jason Day? Cam Davis? Jasper Stubbs? Is the boss waving his cheque book around on the hallowed turf at possible new recruits? Norman should have let the Masters be the Masters. Let it be one of the few weeks of the year when players from both sides of the great divide can slug it out without distraction. He should have let it be a pure golf tournament.
The boss did nothing except draw attention to himself and his tour. Which was probably the point of the exercise. Look at all these words we’ve devoted to it. And him. The boss did nothing to change the opinion of critics who reckon he’s a complete egomaniac. What a problematic patron. The boss keeps saying he’s interested only in the good of the game. The boss should have let the game be played without his circus at Augusta. Normangate.
Let’s move down the fairway to the event itself. The unique place it holds in Australian sport. All those countless generations of world-class players who won a mountain of majors elsewhere but only Scott has worn the green jacket.
Six Australians are on parade this year: Scott, Smith, Day, Lee, Davis and amateur Stubbs. “Why did it take 73 years for Scotty to win in 2013?” says Ian Baker-Finch, Australia’s British Open champion who had three top 10 finishes at Augusta in the early 1990s. “All of the close calls, I forget how many it is, but it’s well over 20 opportunities. Greg Norman had seven or eight of them. Pazza (Craig Parry) had a couple of chances, never putted well on the back nine. It means so much to us. The mystique, the history of it all, why Australians haven’t won more is nebulous. There’s no direct answer to it. Maybe this year Min Woo Lee fires up and does something creative.
“Smithy, maybe, comes back and does it. Cam Davis has got the game if he can finish it off. They are all really a chance. You’d think we’re overdue, right? It’s about time an Australian won another green jacket. We certainly have the talent and we keep producing great talent. I think it’s inevitable.”
Norman junior blasts ‘trolls’
Greg Norman jnr defended his father’s decision to buy a ticket to attend the Masters and called the LIV Golf boss’s critics “sociopathic online trolls” as Australia’s Cam Smith and Cam Davis made promising starts at Augusta National – with the Great White Shark again in the audience.
“Without a doubt, an invitation (from Augusta National) was not extended to my dad, and in fact, when he tried to buy one directly from them, he was denied. Hence, he had to buy on the secondary market,” Norman jnr wrote on X. “It was an amazing experience; hundreds of golf fans approached him walking outside the ropes. All positive support of him and LIV. Not one person said anything negative to him.”
Norman Jr. added: “And this is exactly the point of me posting this: we have received a lot of hate over the years, but this stems from financially incentivised opposing parties or bottom-of-the-barrel sociopathic online trolls. The vast majority of folks we run into are positive, encouraging, fans of LIV, or simply fans of golf. So, in light of this, here’s to an epic Masters. Four days where we put all the BS behind us, sit back, and watch a LIV player take the green jacket.”
Smith was two under par after seven holes, and Davis was two under after six, following a two-hour start to day one because of wet weather at Augusta. Amateur Jasper Stubbs was two over with four holes remaining; Min Woo Lee was three over after 11 as Norman watched from the other side of the fairway ropes. Australia’s only Masters champion, Adam Scott, was due to tee off at 3.42pm, followed at 3.54pm by Jason Day and Tiger Woods. It’s unlikely Scott and Day will complete their rounds on Friday.
Rahm having second thoughts on LIV defection?
The real boss of Augusta National, Fred S. Ridley, was here in the interview room on Wednesday. A few hours before Norman’s unscheduled arrival.
A penny for Ridley’s reaction. It was a year ago when Ridley said Norman’s invitation had been withheld “to keep the focus on the competition”. Perhaps Ridley wasn’t fussed. What a scene if the LIV Golf boss turns up to root for his players every day of the event.
He’s got some chops. More hide than a rhino. Anyway. Here’s my greatest impression of the boss’s LIV players. I reckon Jon Rahm is suffering a mild dose of multi-millionaire’s remorse. Wondering if he’s done the right thing by taking Norman’s dollars. Rahm is talking like the character in a Hollywood movie who joins the bad-boy criminals then starts suggesting “I’m not sure this is the right thing to do …”
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