Moving Day at the 2024 Masters Tournament
Augusta, GA - The conditions at the 2024 Masters have not been friendly to the field of golfers. With the high wind speeds and thunderstorms giving trouble through the first two days, Augusta National Golf Course has been anything but easy. Yesterday’s conditions have been much more friendly as the nasty weather has drifted away. Given that this golf course is already severely difficult, this field of players has the ability to go low with the improved weather conditions. The ultimate goal, for each of these players, is to set themselves up for the final push on Sunday.
Normally, when you think of Moving Day, the typical thought is the players moving up the scoreboard. Today was not the case. Collin Morikawa was one of the very few players to improve their score from the previous round. He totaled a 69 (-3) and only trails Scottie Scheffler by one stroke. Scheffler had a very busy scorecard in round three. With a double-bogey on hole 10 and a bogey on hole 11, it seemed he was toying with the competition and wanted to make it more difficult on himself because he eagled hole 13 to tie the lead. These two will be the final pairing on Sunday and will be a great watch.
One of the biggest storylines of the day was how Tiger Woods was going to keep his body in tune to play the weekend. Woods set the Masters Tournament record for most consecutive cuts made with 24. He was previously tied with Gary Player and Fred Couples, each with 23 consecutive cuts made. Unfortunately, for the Big Cat, he scored a 82 during yesterday’s third round. This was his career-highest scoring round at Augusta. Through his first nine holes, he totaled a 42 on his scorecard. It was obvious watching that he was feeling fatigued, especially on the back nine.
Some other notable performances on the day included Ludvig Åberg finishing with a 70 (-2), Chris Kirk with the lowest round three score (-4), and Xander Schauffele finishing bogey-free (-2). Scheffler was a dark horse coming into the tournament to win and he is only five back of the lead. If he can go bogey-free again and score a few more birdies, who knows what could happen? Bryson DeChambeau had the shot of the day as he holed out on 18 after his tee shot went into the woods. It was a great finishing hole for DeChambeau after he put up a 75 (+3) and he regained some confidence back, heading into the final round on Sunday.
