Jason Day’s Masters hopes have taken a hit after dropping four shots late in an otherwise brilliant round to lose his grip on runaway leader Brooks Koepka.
Day and Koepka were among the half of the field in the fortunate Thursday afternoon Friday morning side of the draw before play was suspended Friday afternoon.
Moments after a resurgent Koepka had posted a 12 under total through three rounds courtesy of a 67 on Friday, Day stood on the tee at the par-5 only three shots back.
Then disaster struck his scorecard.
Day pulled his tee shot left into the trees on No.15 and after laying up short of the water, fatted a wedge shot from 82 yards straight into the pond. He made double-bogey on the par 5. A rattled Day then three-putted the par-3 16th and the par-4 18th to drop four shots in his last four holes.
He wound up with an even-par round of 72 and at five under, he fell to seven behind Koepka with play still underway. Breakout star amateur Sam Bennett continued his Cinderella story and shot a second straight 68 to sit at eight under.
“Yeah, it’s disappointing to go from 9 back to 5 in a matter of four holes,” a frustrated Day said after his round. “I’m very disappointed with how I finished. Being decently close to where Brooks was going into the weekend, you never know how it goes, and obviously going from 9 to 5 was a bit of a kick in the gut.”
It was a huge shock to Day given he had channelled his brilliant 2015-16 form to rocket up the leaderboard. Day was snapping at Koepka’s heels courtesy of birdies at Nos. 2, 3 and 9 but with a sloppy bogey at the par-5 eighth thrown in. Day then chipped in for birdie at No. 11 and added another at No.13.
He was flying.
“To be honest [the chip-in on No. 11] I was trying to just get it up-and-down, and fortunately I hit a really nice chip shot, and it went in, which was good,” Day said. “That was kind of the nice kick in the right direction going off on the back side that I needed just because I wasn’t hitting it as good as [round one]. Sometimes you need things like that to go your way. Like I said, I had really good momentum going into 15 and then just had three bad holes.”
Not that it was any consolation, but all five Australians were struggling midway through the second wave on day two.
Adam Scott, the 2013 Masters winner, started day two at four under but dropped a shot to sit at three under early on in his front nine. Cameron Smith, the reigning Open champion and world No.6, had dropped a shot to sink from two under to one under, also early in his second round.
Playing together, Harrison Crowe (three over to five over) and DP World Tour star Min Woo Lee (three over to six over) were also struggling midway through their rounds.
More to come…
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