The story of Mike Weir’s first round at the Masters – of his career of late – could be summed by his tee shot at the par-four ninth hole.
His drive hooked hard right and banged around a few pine trees before settling on the straw carpet below, giving ‘wide right’ a whole new meaning.
His playing partners were a good 150 yards ahead on the fairway, sizing up birdie chances. Weir pulled a five-wood slammed it up at the green where he had to scramble for one of his six bogies against a pair of birdies on his way to an opening-round 76.
The 2003 Masters champion has struggled mightily driving the golf ball this season and may well be the worst golfer on Tour in the vital category.
He’s last in total driving – a combination of his accuracy and distance – on Tour, ranking 193rd coming into the week. He’s almost equally awful in both categories. His 264.7 yard average off the tee is the worst on Tour and his 46.7 per cent of fairways hit is second worst.
It’s a horrible combination and the main reason Weir has reconnected with his coach Mike Wilson and opted to rebuild his swing from scratch.
He feels like he’s headed in the right direction, but there is no quick fix.
“I’ve been thinking too much, a little bit,” he said. “If I can just trust it and let it go again I think we’ll be in the ball park again. It’s definitely physical things. I’ve been working hard with [his coach Mike Wilson]. You try to keep those things as simple as you can.”
Yesterday was more of the same for Weir. He hit just five of 14 fairways at Augusta National and as a result hit just six of 18 greens in regulation. In that context his four-over-par 76 was pretty good.
“When you go to work on something you work on quite a few little things, but when you play you have to think of one or two,” he said. “If you have three or four or five things [to think about] it gets a little harder, so I’m trying to narrow it down to one or two things that I can play with and I haven’t been able to figure out what that key is.”
