Ben Coley's Masters analysis: Scottie Scheffler well-placed at Augusta

Masters leaderboard

• 65 - Rose
• 68 - Scheffler, Aberg, Conners
• 69 - Hatton, DeChambeau
• 70 - Rai, English, Day, Bhatia

Full scoring here via Masters.com

Augusta looked soft, played hard

Conditions were perfect for scoring on day one of the Masters, or so they seemed. What wind there was could barely be detected and from a very early stage it was clear that greens, while fast, were receptive. There are plenty of mid-irons at Augusta and at holes like the fourth, fifth, 10th and 11th, those that found the target tended to stop close to where they landed.

Yet Luke Donald was right to call out a demanding set of pin positions and they ensured that scoring was fairly tough. Aaron Rai and Stephan Jaeger both got to four-under then stumbled and it soon became clear that few players would break 70 – at one stage it looked possible that nobody would.

Often, you have to shoot 70 or lower in order to hold on to a realistic chance of winning the Masters and the strength at the top of this leaderboard may mean that remains true, but those who shot 71 or 72 certainly won't feel beaten. Scoring was just a fraction higher than last year's first round and maybe, just maybe, that difference is enough to keep them in it.

Tough, not absurd was the theme on Thursday, but as greens hinted at repelling shots as the afternoon wore on, it may need every inch of the forecast overnight rain to delay the arrival of absurd, or at least absurdly tough. This could be a reasonably high-scoring Masters if the greens do firm up. Double-digits to win?

Several ways to Scheffler

Scottie Scheffler didn't hit the ball anything like as well as he can on Thursday. He shot 68.

Brandel Chamblee pointed out in his pre-tournament analysis that Scheffler's two Masters wins came about as much as anything because of his work around the greens. His first, remember, was ignited by a chip-in birdie at the third hole of the final round, just as it looked like he was about to run into trouble, and he was just as effective last year.

Could his third Masters come about because of his putting? Probably not, because Masters champions generally need to excel in a different area, allowing a good putting week to prove the icing on the cake. But it was undoubtedly Scheffler's putting, highlighted by a 60-footer at the fourth and rounded off with a 40-footer at the 16th, which got his second defence off to an ideal start.

It almost didn't feel fair, to be honest.

Not what was agreed

For much of the first round, Rory McIlroy did exactly what he'd told Jack Nicklaus he would do.

Nicklaus had earlier revealed that he and McIlroy sat down for a chat recently and that, when he asked McIlroy to talk through his plan for each hole, Nicklaus had no notes. In Jack's mind, do that and McIlroy wins the Masters at last.

Stood over a six-foot birdie chance at the 14th, one which would've seen him move into solo second, McIlroy had presumably done as promised. He'd had some nice breaks, bounces on the eighth and 13th for instance, but had played beautifully, executing his plan without any real stress bar a short-side miss at the 10th, which he mopped up stylishly.

Then came a mistake some would hastily declare is the type Scheffler doesn't make as he found water on 15 and ran up a costly double-bogey.

But McIlroy really didn't do a lot wrong. His second was pretty much as drawn up, except it ran through the green and left him pitching back towards the water. That fiendishly difficult shot was slightly heavy-handed, pitched too deep and ran through into the pond, the sort of micro mistake made to look massive by this treacherous course. Minutes earlier, Patrick Cantlay had done it twice.

McIlroy made his mistake on the wrong hole at the wrong time, but as for the Scheffler comparison, remember: even he made double-bogeys in both Masters wins. Granted, the first came on the final hole with a four-putt, the job already done, but the second looked like it might cost him during the third round last year.

The difference, some might argue, is that Scheffler wouldn't have made an even worse mistake just two holes later, where McIlroy overshot the 17th green with his approach and then compounded the error with a three-putt. This was less about Augusta, more about the player.

McIlroy's grand slam bid got off to a dream start, but a nightmare ending leaves him back at square one, with not just Scheffler but a host of other world-class golfers to outperform over the next 54 holes if he's to do it. The final hour on Thursday changed everything.

Dunlapped

It's slightly cruel to pick out any player when they've endured one of those days at Augusta, particularly a young player like Nick Dunlap, but needs must. Dunlap shot 90, which equates to one bogey per hole on average but was far less tidy than that. Nobody has carded a higher scorer since Ben Crenshaw, aged 63, shot 91 a decade ago.

I'm not sure there's anybody on the PGA Tour right now who is quite as lost as Dunlap is, not even someone like Max Homa who can at least call upon previous experiences as he looks to find light at the end of this dark tunnel he's in. Homa, by the way, shot 74.

Dunlap arrived at Augusta as statistically the worst driver so far this season, and the gap between him and the next-worst will only have widened after this miserable round of 90. He's lost distance and accuracy and while this was his weakest club in his two-win rookie season, what's happening right now is different. Over his last six rounds, Dunlap has given up about 20 shots to the average driver, 40 to the best.

The oldest maxim in golf, that you drive for show and putt for dough, always has been misleading, especially when we're talking about a period longer than 18 holes. Destructive driving ruins careers and while Dunlap is at the very beginning of his, with two more years of PGA Tour status in the bank, the road back to where he was nine months ago looks a long one.

Same again, and again?

Justin Rose leads the Masters. This is not new: Rose has now led this tournament after round one five times in his career. Nine times he has ended a round of the Masters in first place, including the final one in 2017 before losing a play-off to Sergio Garcia. No player in history has reached such a number without winning the thing.

Could Rose, at 44 years of age, rid himself of that unwanted statistic? Maybe. This is a major-winning former world number one we're talking about and while his B-game is very poor these days, his A-game, rare though it is to see, remains top-class. Last year he was largely quiet – except he contended for two majors. This year he's been largely quiet – except for top-10s in a pair of Signature Events.

His best? That's good enough. Three more days of it, with Scheffler likely there throughout, is a huge task for Rose, but he'll be thrilled to be facing it. Almost 27 years on from his arrival as an amateur in the Open, he is still making headlines in majors. What a player.

'Well done, Rosey'

Butch Harmon remains a gift to us UK viewers and nothing summed up his contribution better than this classic Harman line at the 11th, after the Englishman piped his drive down the centre of the fairway.

In the hands of anyone else, it would've come across as condescending. In the hands of 81-year-old Harman it was just warm and grandfatherly.

You're taking the...

So, erm, Jose Luis Ballester, the Spanish amateur grouped with Scheffler and Justin Thomas, appears to have marked his Masters debut in the same way that a dog might – by urinating in Rae's Creek.

I'll let him describe it.

"I'm like, I really need to pee. Didn't really know where to go, and since JT had an issue on the green, I'm like, I'm just going to sneak here in the river and probably people would not see that much, and they clapped for me.

"They saw me. It was not embarrassing for me. If I had to do it again, I would do it again."

The question is whether Augusta's members will let him back on the property to give it a try.