Sandy Lyle makes his final Masters appearance this week to draw an end to his illustrious two-time Major winning playing career, but he couldn’t have got off to a worse start after two shots on Thursday morning.
The 1988 Green Jacket winner carved his opening drive into the trees and was heard crying out “Ohh rubbish!” as the ball flew down the right into the shrubbery.
The Masters website shows every shot of every player but Lyle’s second shot is missing, although thankfully The Scotsman’s Martin Dempster was there to report what happened.
Eventful start for Sandy Lyle in his 42nd and final @TheMasters, pushing tee shot at 1st into trees. From under a low trunk, he played left-handed second shot that didn’t find fairway as it hit a cameraman and also resulted in his club snapping but made a great 5@ScotsmanSport pic.twitter.com/UHnpgX0SnbApril 6, 2023
Lyle apparently played his second shot left-handed, resulting in one of his clubs snapping, with his shot also hitting a cameraman.
In the video of his third shot, labelled as his second shot on the Masters website, you can clearly see his caddie Ken Martin holding a club that had been snapped in half.
Footage from the Masters website showed Lyle’s caddie holding a snapped club
(Image credit: masters.com)
Following that nightmare start, Lyle’s fortunes turned around with a pitch up the fairway and then a stellar wedge shot to around 10ft, which he duly rolled in for a great bogey.
He composed himself to par the par 5 2nd and will hope to put something solid together today in order to give himself a chance at making the cut.
Watch Sandy Lyle’s opening round on the Masters website
“It won’t be that emotional playing around here,” Lyle said on Wednesday at Augusta.
“I’m not even thinking about it because I’m come back next year and play here in the par-3 but under different rules. I won’t be competing in the main tournament. It’s not a hard decision. I’m not going to get that emotional about it. It will be probably the last hole or so thinking, thank God I don’t have to go out here for — this is a beast of a golf course, and the young ones hit it so much further than me.
“I suppose Nicklaus said the same thing in ’86 when he was 46, and I was lucky enough to be playing with him, and he was basically classed as almost too old or over the hill, and he proved to everybody else he wasn’t over the hill. I’m not expecting to do the same thing, but it’s just age catches you up.
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