Masters notes: McIlroy's game goes down the drain - Houston Chronicle

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Masters notes: McIlroy's game goes down the drain - Houston Chronicle Apr 8th 2012, 04:32 Rory McIlroy looked sad, almost forlorn, as he stood alongside the left edge of the No. 17 fairway. His ball sat atop a drain. Several trees blocked his path to the green. And he was playing No. 7 at the time, not No. 17. The scene neatly captured McIlroy's miserable Saturday at the Masters. He plunged from tournament favorite to Augusta National punch line. McIlroy shot 42 on the front nine and 77 for the round. He had started the day tied for third, a logical candidate to wear the green jacket Sunday. He ended the day tied for 27th, positioned only to become an afterthought Sunday. McIlroy's double bogey on No. 7 accelerated his downfall. He received relief from the drain and actually hit an astonishing recovery shot, flying below those trees and stopping near the green. McIlroy chipped to four feet, leaving himself a good chance to save par - and he three-putted. "I think No. 7 was the turning point," he said. It reached the point where McIlroy and his playing companion, Sergio Garcia (75), offered each other solace. They shared an exaggerated and sarcastic hug on the 12th green, after both players made birdie - their first of the day. "We couldn't feed off each other's good energy," Garcia said, "because there really wasn't any." Heady times for Hanson Peter Hanson carried zero name recognition in the United States before his Masters-low 65 on Saturday. Hanson, 34, from Sweden, had an initial childhood ambition to play professional tennis - Bjorn Borg counted as a nice model. Asked what he thought it would be like to sleep on the lead, Hanson candidly said: "It's going to be tough - this is a new situation for me. I've been up on the leader board a few times, but I've never led in anything like this." Hanson tied for seventh in last year's U.S. Open, his only top-10 finish in 18 previous major starts. Ron Kroichick This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.

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