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Thursday at Augusta - final word

Friday, 4 July 2008
Neil Tappin
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The first day of the 2008 Masters is crawling slowly towards its conclusion and Justin Rose's round of 68 is looking better and better. There's a certain sense of déja vu about all this so instead of telling you how he's going to grind out three more solid rounds and pick up his first Green Jacket, I'll just say well done and leave it at that.

It's also been a good day for the GM team. Last night Luke decided to pile his cash on Trevor Immelman. I, of course, laughed and told him he knew nothing about golf and wasn't worthy of his illustrious seat in this fine media centre. What can I say? Luke was spot on and Immelman's odds of 150/1 have now been trimmed to 16/1. Luke is looking very smug and already thinking about using his winnings to buy a hideous Masters rug – there's no accounting for taste.

Bill Elliott on the other hand decided that the first round of the Masters was the ideal time to take a trip to the Augusta shopping mall. This is his 27th consecutive Masters and I guess that when you get to that level, you can do whatever the hell you like. Intent on buying himself a tuxedo, I'm beginning to think that Mr Elliott may have landed the role as presenter of Double Jeopardy.

As for me, well I managed to be in the right place at the right time. Wandering around aimlessly enjoying the morning sunshine I stumbled across Ian Poulter's group as they teed off at 16. You don't need me to tell you what happened next, it provided a moment of serious excitement – exactly the sort that went AWOL in 2007.

One last thing… You may have thought that an evening at Hooters wouldn't be the ideal way to prepare for the opening round of the Masters. Clearly however, that's not the case. I'm not just talking about the GM team here either – one former champion was spotted in there last night and for a long time today was threatening the top of the leaderboard. Maybe I'll tell Tiger to get himself down there tonight!