ESPN.com - Golf Online - Masters 2001 - Thursday notebook: Getting clocked

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Thursday, April 5

AUGUSTA, Ga. -- Australian left-hander Greg Chalmers hit spectators with his first two shots at The Masters.


	Chalmers

Chalmers, making his Masters debut, pushed his drive off the first tee to the left of the fairway, hitting a man in the crowd on the head.

The spectator fell to the ground where he lay for several minutes before being helped to his feet and taken away for treatment. There was no immediate report on his condition.

His second shot glanced off the shoulder of another spectator at the 410-yard opening hole, as Chalmers scrambled to a bogey.

"I was a little nervous at the start and it wasn't helped by the fact that I clocked some guy on the forehead," said Chalmers, 27. "And then I clocked another guy on the shoulder with my second shot. I was really unsettled but I made what I like to call a settling bogey."

Chalmers finished with a 4-over 76.

"These kind of freak things always seem to happen when you're under pressure or a little twitchy," he said.

Singh happy with start
Defending Masters champion Vijay Singh saved himself from a disastrous start Thursday.


	Singh

Errant off the third tee box, Singh hit a tree about 170 yards away, his ball coming to rest short and to the right of the fairway.

The second shot also strayed to the right, but Singh made it up and down for par, part of an opening-round 69.

"I was very confident, very calm, focused," Singh said. "It was a great way to start."

Singh is trying to join Jack Nicklaus and Nick Faldo as only the third champion to repeat.

Too soft
Unbelievable as it may sound, some players were complaining that the greens were too slow Thursday.


	Garcia

The opening round was played under cloudy skies after two days of on-and-off rain. It made the greens spongier than normal, and made the putting different from the lightning-quick conditions these players usually expect.

"I felt the greens were really slow for Augusta," said Sergio Garcia, who shot 2-under. "It was really hard to make yourself hit it harder. It took me until 11 or 12 to make up my mind to hit it further."

Ian Woosnam, the 1991 champion, shot 71 but thought it could have been better.

"I found the greens very slow this morning, soft and slow," Woosnam said. "It's hard to get it to the hole. You think the opposite. You think it's going to be lightning fast and it's not."

No beeper required
Good thing the U.S. Open, or any major championship, is not played the first week in November.


	Mickelson

Amy Mickelson is expecting.

Two years ago, Phil Mickelson carried a pager with him during the U.S. Open and threatened to leave -- even if he were leading -- as soon as his wife went into labor. Mickelson finished one stroke behind the late Payne Stewart, and his daughter was born the next day.

His wife is due the first of November, and broke the news to family members gathered at Augusta National this week.

The one tournament that could get in the way is the Tour Championship, to be played Nov. 1-4 at Champions Golf Club in Houston. Mickelson is the defending champion.

Shark bites
Seeking to win at age 46, the way Nicklaus did 15 years ago, Greg Norman played himself into contention by shooting a 1-under 71.


	Norman

The round included an eagle on the par-5 13th hole, the eighth of his career at Augusta and fifth on that hole. Other than that, the Shark called it a "pretty gentle round."

"It was a good, balanced 18 holes," he said. "There was no heavy duty work to be done anywhere."

Norman has finished second at The Masters three times, third three times and has three other top-6 finishes.

Divots

Miguel Angel Jiminez fired his caddie, Paul Smith, last week, and put his older brother, Juan, on the bag for The Masters. He shot 4-under and finished tied for seventh.

Franklin Langham, who posted the numbers on the 16th hole scoreboard as a high schooler in the 1980s, shot 72, including a par on the hole he used to oversee. Langham was born in Augusta and grew up about 30 miles down the road in the tiny town of Thomson.

Returning from three weeks off with a wrist injury, David Duval shot 71.

Mark O'Meara, the 1998 champion, opened with a 69. He had only one top-10 finish in 19 starts last year and hasn't finished better than 39th in six tournaments this season.

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