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Posted April 5, 2012, 4:14 pm
BY
Nathan Dominitz
|
Morris News Service

Practice-round rains make for muddy Thursday

Watson doesn't like playing in mud

 

Mud and Tom Watson don’t mix. Not well, anyway.

Watson said his group, with Johnson Wagner and Hideki Matsuyama, had to contend with muddy conditions on what already was a long course.

“We hit a number of mud balls,” said Watson, noting Matsuyama hit a shot 40 yards off line because of dirt sticking to the ball. “That happened to me two or three times today. You don’t know where the ball’s going to go. A big ol’ hunk of mud on the ball, it may go left like on No. 1 duck-hooked into the bunker. And No. 8 just squirted to the right. You never know.”

Still, Watson acknowledged he was his own worst enemy when it came to shot-making, as he made three birdies and eight bogeys in posting a 5-over 77.

“My round was pretty ugly. I didn’t do much of anything very well,” Watson said. “I hit a couple of good shots. My chipping was off. I didn’t get the ball up and down, actually, from pretty easy shots. I failed to get it up and down, I think, every time I was chipping the ball. I only had one tough chip and that was on No. 6. All the rest of them, I should have gotten them up and down."

While Watson said he drove pretty well and putted pretty well, in between was not so good.

“I could have turned a 77 into a 73 today,” Watson said. “That’s nothing to shout about, a 73, but with some decent chipping that’s probably what I should have shot.”

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