Andrew Johnston’s Masters hopes in tatters after short hole mishaps at the Houston Open
Only a win would be good enough for charismatic British golfer Beef to book a place at Augusta and play in front of an adoring US crowd
ANDREW "BEEF" JOHNSTON was in a bit of a stew as his hopes of claiming the final spot in next week’s Masters were wrecked by short hole mishaps at the Houston Open.
Only a win would be good enough for Beef to book a place at Augusta, and he turned up in Texas with high hopes after his first top ten of the season in last week’s Puerto Rico Open.
The shouts of "Go Beef" that greeted him underlined Johnston’s popularity among American spectators, who would love to see the bearded Englishman striding down Augusta’s manicured lawns.
He was going along nicely at two under par until he reached the fearsome 216 yards 14th, where he duffed his iron shot and came up forty yards short of the green.
That led to his first bogey, and he stumbled again at the short 16th, three-putting from sixty feet to drop another shot.
It got even worse when he dragged his tee shot into a fairway bunker on the final hole. A third bogey meant he signed for a one over par 73 – and the mountain he already had to climb had suddenly got a whole lot higher.
Johnston was nine shots behind early pace-setter Rickie Fowler, who has been flying under the radar recently despite his Honda Classic victory.
Houston may have escaped the tornado that was forecast to strike on the eve of the tournament, but the course was still playing tough after it was lashed by heavy storms on Wednesday.
But Fowler made light of the muddy conditions as he shot an eight under par 64, before dashing off to throw the first pitch at the Houston Astro baseball match.
He beamed: “If I can control the baseball the way I controlled my golf ball, I’ve got to be hoping to throw a strike.”
While the world No 9 was making thing look easy, Lee Westwood looked as if he was playing in a minefield rather than a paddy field.
Westwood got off to an horrendous start, hitting his opening tee shot into an unplayable lie to start with a double bogey – and he repeated the dose two holes later by sending a bunker shot knifing over the green into a lake”
After starting on the tenth he also three-putted the eleventh, and he had slumped to five over par just three holes into his round.