The Spanish Jon Rahm, in full action in the Augusta Masters competition. (Getty Images/AFP)
Competing against rain and wind, the Spanish Jon Rahm placed this Saturday two shots behind the leader Brooks Koepka at the close of the second round of the Augusta Masters, where Tiger Woods managed in an agonizing way to make the cut for the 23rd consecutive time .
The round had been suspended on Friday afternoon for the arrival of a storm to the Augusta National Golf Club (Georgia), where several large trees fell near an area with fans without anyone getting hurt.
The action resumed early on Saturday to 39 players who had to finish their second round despite fierce conditions on the course, where the temperature plummeted to below 10ºC.
In the middle of a rain at times of great intensity, rahm He managed to cut some ground from the three shots that distanced him at the start of the American’s day brooks koepkawho remains at the top since finishing his second round on Friday.
Koepka, representative of the “rebel” circuit LIV Golfleads with an accumulated 132 hits, 12 under parwhile Rahm completed his second run in 69 hits (-3) and has a balance of -10.
The world number 3 started the morning strong with birdies on the 12th and 15th holes, scoring another epic birdie on the 17th but slipped on bogeys on the 16th and 18th, not allowing him to get any closer to Koepka before the third round.
Rahm, who longs to put on his first green jacketstarts the third round in the last group with Koepka and the amateur sam bennettone of the sensations of the tournament with his third place with -8.
The one-on-one between Rahm and Koepka also symbolizes the current confrontation between the PGA circuits, of which the Spaniard is one of its great stars, and LIV Golf, the competition that started last year financed by Saudi Arabia.
Koepka, who aspires to be the winner with the lowest world ranking (118th) beating Argentine Ángel Cabrera (69th in 2009), has four Grand Slam trophies and is one of the main figures LIV managed to wrest from the PGA.
The lead is reduced to one stroke. Rahm birdies No. 17 to reach 11 under par. #themasters pic.twitter.com/mLWKtTMLYN
—The Masters (@TheMasters) April 8, 2023
The ‘Tiger’ is still alive
Outside of the fight for the title, attention was focused on the historic Tiger Woodswho was under threat of his first elimination as a professional until the last moment.
The Californian, who came to be below the projected cut-off line of +2 on Friday, secured his first three par holes and at 15, after seeing how his first attempt bounced off the flag, added a birdie who celebrated in style with their fans.
But Woods then stumbled with a bogey at 17 that forced him into a dramatic last hole that needed to close out at least par.
The American repeated the bogey and left the field grieving in the rain with a card of 73 strokes (+1) and an accumulated score of +2.
To Woods, who competes with a visible limp and pain in the right leg product of the 2021 car accident, he still had an option not to say goodbye prematurely in a scenario where he has won five times.
For this he needed either his compatriot Justin Thomas or the south korean Sungjae Im they would end their round with a stack of +3 or worse, which would move the cut to that lane.
Ultimately it was Thomas, Woods’s best friend on the circuit, who collaborated with two final bogeys that lowered it to +4 and left him out of the competition and Tiger in.
Tiger, 47, has only missed the cut in one of his 24 previous participations in the Masterswhen he competed as an amateur in 1996, a year before his first win.
Now he has 23 consecutive appearances making the cut, which equals the record shared by South African Gary Player and American Fred Couples.
At 63, Couples wrote his own history on Saturday by becoming the oldest golfer to make the Augusta cut, something that Grand Slam winners like world number 2 Rory McIlroy or Sergio Garcia of Spain did not.
