2021 Masters: Ian Poulter Has Roller Coaster Round
By Tim Letcher
Ian Poulter has played Augusta National many times before. But he may have never had a round on the classic course like he did on Thursday in the first round of the 2021 Masters.
Poulter didn’t have any disastrous holes but he didn’t have any great holes either. Still, his results provided an interesting looking scorecard at the end of the day.
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The Englishman started his round with a routine par at the first hole. He then birdied the par-5 second hole to get to 1-under on his round. Nothing abnormal through two holes.
Poulter then bogeyed the par-4 third hole to slip back to even. He was stay at that number with a par on the par-3 fourth hole.
He would birdie the par-5 fifth hole to get back into red figures. But he would fall into some trouble over the rest of his front nine.
In fact, Poulter would bogey the sixth, seventh, eighth and ninth holes. He went from 1-under par to 3-over par, finishing his front nine with a 39.
Poulter would par the 10th hole but would bogey both the 11th and 12th holes. He was 5-over par at that point and seemingly headed for a bad round.
But something seemed to click for Poulter after that and he turned his day around.
It started on the par-5 13th hole, where Poulter drove it right but was able to get his second shot into the bunker to the left of the green. His third shot went across and off the green, leaving him a hillside lie, off the green, for his fourth shot. He elected to chip the shot and he chipped it very well. In fact, it went in the hole for a birdie that seemed to jump start Poulter.
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He parred the 14th hole but would birdie the 15th and 16th to get back to 2-over par. He closed with pars on the 17th and 18th holes to shoot a 2-over par 74. But it could have been much worse.
Looking at Poulter’s card is very interesting. He carded seven bogeys, six pars and five birdies. That’s a lot of circles and squares on a single card but Poulter avoided disaster and did not take himself out of contention on Thursday.