Josele Ballester, the last talent of the Spanish factory, even in the amateur category, a future dazzling, ended the first contact with Augusta’s masters with some scratch. He signed 76 strokes, four on torque, broken card for hole 5 (triple bogey), on a slow, 5 hours and 25 minutes of play.
The boy was 21 years old, in the morning cool something anxious, but happy. Eager to put the second Birdie before the first. Seconds before 10.15, he looked, in the middle of a human corridor, to last testing what was the street 1 like the one who looks down to see if the asttaders arrive any day from the beginning of July. I wanted to hit, although that honor first corresponded to Scottie Scheffler for being the 2024 champion.
Thursday’s wait had been long. With 95 players in the field, eight left -handed, a record, everything had been advanced and widen the day. Until the Honor of the Legends Nicklaus, Watson and Player had accelerated half an hour compared to the traditional 8 am. More time for the show and for the business. The store, which invoices 70 million dollars in a week, was bursting. For the afternoon there would be not a stuffed animal. The day they decide to sell the sewer tapas exhaust them safe.
Josele Ballester (21), at the exit of Hole 8
“But I had rested well, much better mentally than when I debuted in the big ones two years ago in the British that I was nervous. I had practiced well and enjoyed the arrival of the Tee del 1,” Ufano said, without intimidating because he played next to the world number 1. “I don’t have so much to envy from him. From experience, knowledge of the field, etc., that I am very green there, it makes a difference. Also because it does not fail in the Green. He has made an unpolluted return. But from Tee to Green I do not see myself so far,” he had the impudence of the last generations that do not see limits.
Josele, who had reached almost the tee with the airpods on listening “, a song that brings me good memories of the US Amateur and I always wear it,” he gave a superb blow, but his life was complicated. The second shot failed little and translated into a bogey. He has not arrived in Augusta with the game around Green fine and that is a death sentence in this field. The seams were seen in Hole 5 (Par 4), where a philazo came out with the fourth blow that buried him in the bunker. He left there with a 7, triple bogey. For his fortune, in the next hole, he finally achieved a Birdie.
The Putt subtracted lucidity from the first nine holes, which end in front of the Club House. “They would have liked some advice of the Spaniards also in these first holes,” the Us Amateur champion had lamented. He closed that half -turn in 40 strokes, like Tiger Woods the year he won his first masters. He deserved less ballast. Beside him, Scheffler threw 33, matching the lowest score of a title defender, and went on to lead the masters. It would end at the end with 68 blows, such as Canadian Corey Conners, the best in the morning shift.
The one from Castellón reached the amen corner, holes 11, 12 and 13, the most special corner of sport. He paid tolls in the first, another Bogey, who shook with a brilliant putt in par 3 of the pond. In the pair 5 that abandons the magical corner, it did not achieve another one, after winning an ovation in a funny anecdote. “I wanted to pee and I didn’t know there was a bath there, so I got into the trees. When I heard the applause I thought it was for Justin or Scottie, but not.” At least in that fight, that of Amen Corner, scenario of historical sinking, hence amen, came out airy.
From there at the end, shot for Birdie, without a prize in a field that, with some wind, streaks of 26 km/h, was not impregnable. It allowed for example that Fred Couple, in retirement age (65 years), became the second player in history to play under torque at that age. Seventy -one blows like Tom Watson, in 2015. For the memory he left an Eagle since 175 meters. Of genius.
“I am convinced that I can go through the cut, because I am playing well,” said Ballester. “I have had two mistakes at the beginning and then some bad luck in Hole 5 because after the drive I was very badly placed almost attached to the bunker, I had no position and barely gave him 20 meters. Then it is true that I hit a very bad fourth blow and it was when I said ‘wow, what a day’. Luckily to the next hole I gave a great iron and I would calm down.”