For a guy who waited 19 years to win his first major championship, Sergio Garcia met a stunning end in his first attempt to defend it.
He drowned.
In a stupefying few minutes on the par-5 15th hole on Thursday, Garcia hit five consecutive shots in the pond guarding the front of the green, finishing with an octuple-bogey 13 -- yes, that is a word -- which tied the Masters record for highest score ever recorded on any hole and all but ended the Spaniard's quest for a consecutive title. No player has ever come back to win a Masters after scoring 76 or higher on the first day.
"I don't know. I don't know what to tell you," he said.
Cold fact 1: Facing a 206-yard second shot, Garcia spun a 6-iron that appeared to drop within eagle range but then kicked back hard and rolled off the well-manicured bank that fronts the pond.
"I thought it was perfect," he said. "Straight at the flag. I don't know. If it carries probably two more feet, it's probably good. And if it probably carries a foot less, it probably doesn't roll off the green."
Cold fact 2: From the drop zone, Garcia dropped four straight shots within five feet of the pin. All four bit hard but rolled slowly backward before momentum carried all of them back into the water. The shots and results were so duplicated, it was almost impossible to tell them apart in video replay. Finding the green with his fifth provisional ball, his two putts made for what the Spanish call trece, which sounds more fun than 13.
"I kept hitting good shots with the sand wedge and unfortunately -- I don't know why -- the ball just wouldn't stop," he said.
No hole at Augusta National has treated Garcia so well in the past. Over his first 66 competition rounds, he was 31 under par on No. 15, his lowest total of any hole on the course. He had scored 51 career birdies there to just seven bogeys or higher. The hole did not play particularly difficult over the first round, yielding more birdies than pars. Asked if the pin placement -- front left approximately six feet off the fringe -- posed a problem, Garcia wouldn't bite.
"It's not the first time it's been there, so it's not new," he said. "But the firmness of the greens and everything, I felt like the ball was going to stop. And unfortunately for whatever reason, it didn't want to."
If there's club for such calamity, Garcia joins the brotherhood of Tommy Nakajima and Tom Weiskopf, whose four career second-place finishes match the Masters record for futility. It was during the first round of the 1980 Masters that Weiskopf rolled an 7-iron into Rae's Creek and then dunked four straight from the drop zone.
Nakajima feat, coming two years before, did not get as much news play but provides a good quiz for budding rules experts. Nakajima drove the creek on No. 13 and then found water again with his approach shot. Before he could get out, he bounced one shot off his foot -- two-shot penalty -- and then allowed his club to touch the water -- another two-shot penalty -- while trying to hand it to his caddie.
In the end, he chipped on and two-putt but when asked through a translator what had happened, Nakajima replied he'd "lost count," according to the Augusta Chronicle.
It is to Garcia's credit that he responded with a birdie on the following hole. He played his other 17 holes at 1-over, which his 81 will not reflect.
"I don't know. It's the first time in my career where I make a 13 without missing a shot," he said. "Simple as that. I felt like I hit a lot of good shot and unfortunately, the ball just didn't want to stop."
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