AUGUSTA, Ga. (AP) — It was a really reassuring day at Augusta Nationwide.

Seems, the inexperienced jacket is not going to be draped over the largest, strongest shoulders — not in the event that they belong to a man who has no concept the place that little white ball goes.

Bryson DeChambeau, the Unimaginable Hulk of the hyperlinks, arrived on the Masters speaking boldly of overpowering considered one of golf’s most hallowed grounds.

As an alternative, he acquired minimize right down to measurement.

DeChambeau spent Friday spraying photographs everywhere in the course, his frustration threatening to boil over at any second just like the fictional Hulk.

He even managed to lose a ball in really weird vogue.

Then there was Abraham Ancer, checking in in any respect of 5-foot-7 and 160 kilos, roughly the dimensions of considered one of DeChambeau’s forearms.

The 29-year-old Mexican ranked far down the checklist in driving distance, his common of 279.5 yards greater than half a soccer discipline behind DeChambeau’s moon photographs.

However Ancer had a significantly better concept of the place his ball would find yourself. And when he walked off the course on the finish of the second spherical, he had a 9-under 135 on his card that gave him a share of the unfinished 36-hole lead.

“I didn’t actually hit it my finest off the tee,” Ancer mentioned. “However I’ve been capable of scramble rather well and made some putts for birdie, which is what stored me in it. I performed the par 3s actually good.”

These are the shortest holes, after all, however they’re often essentially the most devilish. They’re all about contact, not power.

Ancer birdied three of them through the second spherical, a giant purpose the Masters rookie left the course tied for the lead.

DeChambeau will merely be attempting to make the minimize when he returns Saturday morning to finish his remaining six holes of his second spherical. He performed the primary dozen at Three over, leaving him a whopping 10 strokes behind Ancer and three others on the prime of the leaderboard.

Hardly what was anticipated from a man who has remodeled his physique into one thing resembling an NFL center linebacker, who overpowered the U.S. Open discipline at Winged Foot to seize his first main title, who brashly set par at Augusta as 67 fairly than 72.

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“I can attain all of the par 5s in two, no downside,” boasted DeChambeau, who has sought to normalize the thought of 400-yard drives and swing speeds that may maintain their very own in opposition to an Indy race automobile.

If Augusta’s 4 par 5s turn into par 4s on DeChambeau’s presumptive and presumptuous scorecard, that absolutely means the third gap — at 350 yards, by far the shortest par four on the course — is marked right down to a par Three at Bryson’s Mammoth Tee Shot Emporium.

Nicely, you are not going to consider what occurred at No. 3.

Exhaling loudly earlier than his membership wind-milled round with scary velocity, DeChambeau took purpose together with his driver down the left aspect of the green, the inexperienced clearly in his sights.

However the ball rocketed additional left than he supposed, touching down in a patch of thick grass nonetheless dampened from heavy rain this week. It was touring with such pressure that it plugged deep into the bottom.

DeChambeau and about 15 others — officers, employees, anybody else standing round within the sparse gallery at this patron-less Masters — scoured the turf for a full three minutes, poking and prodding on the floor.

No ball.

“When you will have Bryson hitting it as exhausting as he hits it, it’s type of hooking with not a lot spin right into a comfortable space … we have been all assured it was fairly buried and it was going to be exhausting to seek out,” mentioned enjoying companion Jon Rahm, who additionally joined the search get together.

Since there additionally have been no quick reviews of it coming out on the opposite aspect of the world, DeChambeau was left to take the Trip of Disgrace. A cart ferried him again to the tee field to hit once more. He wound up making a triple-bogey 7 at a gap that has yielded a mean rating of three.966.

(FWIW, Golf.com reported the ball was discovered about 10 minutes later by a gallery guard, not more than 10 ft off the green, however solely seen to somebody proper on prime of it.)

While you mix the triple-bogey with one other 7 on Thursday — when DeChambeau drove one behind a pine tree, yanked the following shot into some azalea bushes, hit a provisional into Rae’s Creek, discovered his first ball, took a penalty drop, chunked a chip and wound up making double bogey on the third-easiest gap on the course — it is simple to see why he is within the predicament he is in.

It does not matter that he is acquired 9 birdies on his card and the highest spot in your entire discipline in driving distance — 13 yards away from the following man.

Whereas DeChambeau was making a large number of issues, 63-year-old Bernhard Langer was methodically plodding his approach across the course.

The diminutive German ranks 88th out of 91 gamers in driving distances, however he is tied for third in driving accuracy, lacking simply three fairways within the first two rounds.

The end result: Langer is Three below and warranted of changing into the oldest participant in Masters historical past to make the minimize.

“Drove the ball effectively and putted pretty effectively, and that stored me in there though I’m hitting very lengthy golf equipment,” Langer mentioned. “I like this golf course. I believe I understand how to get round it, though I hit very lengthy golf equipment. However it’s actually not simple. It’s an extended hitter’s place. All the time has been.”

Happily, there’s extra to Augusta than who hits it the farthest.

We acquired a reminder of that Friday.

No offense to DeChambeau, however that was very reassuring.

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Paul Newberry is a sports activities columnist for The Related Press. Write to him at pnewberry(at)ap.org or at https://twitter.com/pnewberry196 His work might be discovered at https://apnews.com/search/paulnewberry