Jordan Spieth sets Masters pace with first-round 64

A fan on his way out of Augusta National Golf Club did a double take when he looked at the big scoreboard off the first fairway late Thursday afternoon. Jordan Spieth’s 8-under-par 64 had just been posted.

“Wow,” was all he said.

Spieth has started the 79th Mas­ters Tournament intent on picking up the green jacket he fell short of last year.

”I think I certainly thought about what I’m expecting coming in,” Spieth said. “Obviously everyone wants to win this golf tournament. It leaves your name in history and a legacy, and the hardest thing to do is to put that behind you when you start on the first hole, I think.”

Spieth parred the first hole, birdied No. 2 and was on his way.

“It’s one of the better rounds I’ve ever played. I carried a lot of momentum into this week,” said Spieth, who lost in a playoff in Houston last week.

The 21-year-old Texan, who led by two shots with 11 holes left in the final round in 2014 before tying for second place, supplied the most fireworks in a first round full of them.

Spieth played his final 11 holes in 6-under par to shoot his 64 and take a three-shot lead.

Spieth is the youngest player in Masters history to shoot 64, a score that has now been shot just 13 times. It matched the lowest tournament round since Bo Van Pelt’s 64 in the final round of 2012. Only two players have shot 64 in the first round – Mike Donald in 1990 and Lloyd Mangrum in 1940, neither of whom won.

“He’s an unbelievable talent at 21 years of age,” said Billy Horschel, one of Spieth’s playing partners, who shot 70. “He’s playing like he’s in his early to mid-30s and been on the tour 10 or 15 years already. It’s thoroughly impressive.”

Spieth’s round consisted of nine birdies – two off the 18-hole tournament record – and a bogey.

Spieth got a standing ovation as he walked onto the 18th green, which didn’t bother Horschel, who still had to play, he said.

“They were showing their appreciation for the great round of golf he was playing that day,” Hor­schel said. “He was playing a hell of a round of golf.”

At one point in the round, Spieth said, Horschel told him he needed a tape recorder that kept repeating the phrase “nice hole Jordan.”

Tied for second place at 67 are four-time major champion Ernie Els, past U.S. Open champion Justin Rose, Jason Day and Charley Hoffman, who played in the day’s first group.

Els, 45, is a two-time Masters runner-up, in 2000 and 2004. But he hasn’t cracked the top 10 since his heartbreak in 2004. The 67 was the first time he’d broken 70 in the first round in his 21-year Masters career.

Top-ranked Rory McIlory, who is seeking his third consecutive major championship title and can complete the career Grand Slam with a Masters victory, opened with 71.

Tiger Woods, playing for the first time in nine weeks after a self-imposed break to improve a game that had fallen into disrepair and a sore back, battled his way to 73, which included a water ball on No. 12 and some wayward drives.

Defending champion Bubba Watson, seeking his third green jacket in the past four years, had 71 – the same score as another two-time winner, 65-year-old Tom Watson.

Jimmy Walker and Patrick Reed, the other two players who make up the Texas Big Three with Spieth, were overshadowed by another Texan, Ryan Palmer.

Palmer had 69 while Reed shot 70 and Walker had 73.

The story of the day was Spieth, who made one of his birdies on the tough par-4 14th when his second shot from the right rough came into the green hot, hit the pin and came to rest 3 feet from the hole.

That birdie moved Spieth to 8-under and in position to break or tie the course record of 9-under 63.

“I wasn’t aware what the course record was here, let alone that it actually would have been the lowest round in major championship history,” Spieth said.

Actually, it would have tied the lowest major championship round, but his next hole kept that out of consideration.

Spieth hit his second shot over the green on the par-5 15th and emerged with bogey. He then parred Nos. 16 and 17 and birdied No. 18.

Having the first-round lead is not necessarily the best place to be at Augusta National. Spieth’s fellow Texan Ben Crenshaw, in 1984, is the last player to have the outright first-round lead to go on and win.

“I’ve always said it’s very tough on the frontrunner at this place,” Cren­shaw said after his round Thursday. “You want to play aggressive golf and you have to play smart golf as well. You always know what can happen behind you, so it’s a tough position to be in.”

Maybe not for Spieth, who is ranked fourth in the world and was the hottest player on the planet coming into the Masters. In his past three starts, he has won, finished second and lost in a playoff.

“What a player,” said Els, who was paired with Spieth last week in Houston. “You just cannot see this kid not winning many, many majors. He’s by far the most balanced young player I’ve seen. He’s got that little tenacity to him and he’s really got a fighting spirt and he’s the nicest kid in the world. He’s a tough kid. He wants to get the most out of himself.”