First round at Augusta National

Editor’s Note: Peter Malnati qualified for his first Masters by winning the Valspar Championship last month. The 36-year-old veteran hadn’t won in nearly nine years on the PGA Tour. He’s sharing a first-person account of his experience daily only at Golfweek.com.

For part three, click here.

AUGUSTA, Ga. — Definitely some mixed emotions after an opening round 82 in my first Masters tournament. I still am feeling gratitude for having the opportunity to be in the tournament and to play here. But once they announce your name on the first tee on Thursday, it’s hard to turn that competitive nature off. I didn’t enjoy every bit of the round because I played lousy and that’s not fun.

But there were still highlights, too. From a straight up ball-striking perspective, I’d be way off to say I was good, but I did have plenty of good shots. I had a great one on No. 6, the par 3. It was straight downwind and there was really only a couple steps where you could land it and have it pop up, hop and stop and stay on the green with a back, left-hand hole location and I landed it right in the perfect spot and had it on a beautiful line. I knew it was a beauty the moment I struck it and twirled my club. The ball stopped 4 feet short of going in the hole. Unfortunately, I missed the putt on the left edge. It was that type of day.

At No. 8, I had a good drive and I really thought that the second shot I hit had a chance to get on the right side of the humps and funnel on to the middle of the green. I pulled it too far left and I guess it got on the left side of the humps and I was left in a really tough spot. I made bogey and I was pretty disappointed at the turn after shooting 3 over on the first nine.

Still, I had a positive thought pop in my mind of trying to pull off a Tiger Woods in 1997. That’s when he shot 40 on the first nine and then went on to shoot 30 on the second nine and win by 12. With thoughts of going low on the brain, I piped a drive down 10 and then I hit one of my best iron shots, flagging this little 6-iron that I thought was straight into the wind. It was going right at the flag and my caddie actually said, “Get back there,” because we were trying to play wisely, six or eight steps short of the back right hole location. I just hit it so well and it was on such a good line. Well, it flew in the back fringe and bounced into the spectators over the green. That was disappointing and resulted in a bogey after what was two really good…