Former champion 'alone' with nine holes on the first day of Master 2023
Weir competes for the Master this year, at the age of 52, thanks to the 2003 championship. In this tournament, the champion has the privilege of competing "Green Jacket" for life.
This year's tournament, Weir was arranged in the same doubles group with Na for the first two rounds. But in the opening round, Na suddenly reported illness and quit after bogey hole 9. Before that, he repeatedly expressed unstable health.
So Weir played singles through the last nine holes of the round. He said it was a strange situation in his career, since his professional debut in 1992. However, the former Masters champion insists that the experience brings a greater sense of serenity due to the initiative in the rhythm of the competition.
In the first round, Weir hit 72 strokes. With this result, he stands at T37 with an even par while the top of the table is at -7, belonging to Brooks Koepka, Jon Rahm and Viktor Hovland.
Weir guessed that the organizers would arrange a symbolic player for him to fight with in the next match. However, they still left the Canadian golfer alone in the second round, from 9:30 pm on April 7 in Hanoi time. This match, Weir hit 76 strokes and scored +4.
Masters 2023 still has no official cut line because bad weather caused the 2nd round to be postponed. The expected filter score is at +2. Weir did not cross the Masters cut from 2014 to 2022.
The filling of the same person, although a long-standing solution, is only implemented when the list is cut off in odd numbers. That task belongs to Jeff Knox - a senior member of Augusta National for the last 20 years. However, Knox, 60 years old this year, has announced to stop working after the 2022 match. The field has not announced a replacement for Knox.
Knox was once "in the even group" with A-rank players, like Rory McIlroy at the 2014 Masters and Jason Day in the 2017 tournament.
On the occasion of playing with Day and sharing the tee box, Knox reached a handicap of about 1.0, closing the round of 77 strokes. When playing in the members tee box, Knox set a lap record at Augusta National, at 61 strokes and to date no one has broken.
