US Masters: Sandy Lyle feels as if he was 'playing with a square ball' in nightmarish second round

Published on Saturday 10 April 2010 00:47

A DAY after charging into contention at the Masters, former champion Sandy Lyle endured a nightmare second round as he toiled to a 14-over-par 86.

The 52-year-old Scot, who won the cherished Green Jacket at Augusta National in 1988, started with three successive 6s on a difficult day for scoring.

"I never got it going at all," Lyle told reporters after covering the front nine in an ugly ten-over 46.

"I was just very bad. I lost rhythm completely." Gusting winds and quickening greens did not help Lyle's cause after he had ended the opening round just three strokes off the lead following a five-birdie 69.

"It's probably about as bad as yesterday was good," the Scot said after posting an 11-over total of 155. "There's a lot more wind and the greens I think are a bit quicker in places so it's a little scary."

Lyle's triple-bogey 6 at the 155-yard 12th epitomised his struggles after he took two shots to escape a greenside bunker. "I had a whack at it and only moved the ball about an inch," he said. "Another whack and it went flying across into the water so that sums the day up.

"Everything gets magnified out here on the greens. You just keep missing the greens in the wrong place and you have to take gambles. It was just tough, very, very tough."

Lyle's front nine was only three fewer than the worst in the tournament's long history and his horror story started immediately. Everybody was expecting tougher pin placings than on the first day when no fewer than 16 of the 96 players broke 70, three short of last year's record.

Sure enough, the first was front left just over the guarding bunker and Lyle, unaware that England's Simon Dyson had already taken 6 there in the first group of the day, did the same.

Dyson, resuming five over, came up short and then three-putted, whereas Lyle went left and from in front of the nearby ninth tee sent his chip-and-run up the bank and 30 feet past the hole, from where he took three more. A bogey 6 followed, then another double bogey 6, then a bogey 4, then a third double bogey 6 before further shots went on the seventh and eighth.

It had reached the point where Lyle, whose first-day performance matched his best since his 1988 victory, even gave his caddie a smile as he left the ninth green after just missing a birdie attempt.

"I'm battered and bruised," said Lyle, who at 11 over par found himself out of an event for which he had such high hopes 24 hours earlier. "You have to smile. It got beyond a joke. I lost my rhythm completely and just couldn't regroup. For the first nine holes I thought I was playing with a square ball."

Debutants Simon Dyson and Chris Wood finished six-over and ten-over respectively after rounds of 73 and 76, while Ireland's triple major winner Padraig Harrington (five over) disappointed too.

With Ross Fisher, Luke Donald, Paul Casey and Oliver Wilson struggling, England's eight-strong field dwindled to the leading pair of Ian Poulter and Lee Westwood for the final two days.

Dyson said: "Watching on television, you think it can't be that hard, but it really is.

"If somebody had said I would play like I did I would have taken it, but the wind probably cost me ten shots."

Wood, fifth and third in the last two Opens, agreed with his compatriot: "Very disappointing, very hard – harder than it looks on telly," he said.

"It's pretty much the one you dream of playing in and suddenly I was. It's probably the most nervous I've ever been on a golf course.

"Everybody says you need to know the course and I didn't until ten days ago."

Sergio Garcia safely made the cut with a 70 improving on his opening 74 but the Spaniard remains eight shots adrift and is unlikely to end his major drought on this occasion.