AUGUSTA, GA — Fred Couples and his easy-breezy golf swing are still recognizable at the age of 65. It’s his golf bag that isn’t.
“I’ve got a lot of headcovers,” Couples said with a sheepish grin.
What’s in Fred’s bag? A driver, 3-wood, 5-wood, putter, and 3-, 4-, 5- and 6-hybrids. Hence, a posse of headcovers. The longest iron in his bag is a 7-iron. He had just gone through his lineup of clubs in answer to a reporter’s question after shooting a 1-under-par 71 in the 89th Masters Tournament’s first round.
It sounds like a typical senior citizen’s bag. It also sounds like a typical senior citizen talking about his clubs. He loves those hybrids. Which is good because he has to hit longer clubs into Augusta National’s greens than ever before and that’s what made his opening round so special.
“Now I have a set of clubs I feel like I can hit around here,” Couples said. “Tomorrow may be different. But it was a very fun day today.”
Let’s set aside the fact that he has an uncanny knack for playing well in the Masters. He also exhibited some old-time Fred magic.
At the opening hole, he hit a nice drive and a superb approach shot. “I’m just posing over the shot,” he said, “and then they (spectators) go ‘Awww!’ and you can see that ball roll off the green. It’s down there on the left where you never want to be. l’m going, Okay, here we go. What am I going to make from here? And then I holed it.”
Couples putted up a slope from off the fringe, close to 50 feet, and it never looked like it wasn’t going in. “It was just potluck,” he said. “I mean, it was a pure shot. It just trickled in.”
There was more. At the par-4 14th hole, he holed a 6-hybrid from 186 yards for an eagle 2. “It was hit really well and it just did carry that ridge,” Couples said. “You couldn’t see it from the fairway. The ball went over the hill, the people started to go like…” He raised his arms to chest level, as if he was about to throw them up in the air in celebration.”
And then the roar got pretty loud,” he said. So he knew it was in. “It was fun, you know,” he said. ‘I don’t know if I’ve ever had an eagle on a par 4 here. I don’t think so.”
The Masters-lover in Fred would definitely remember such a thing. He is known for the good break he got in 1992 when his shot at the 12th hole stayed up on the
bank of Rae’s Creek instead of rolling back into the water, a key moment that sparked his eventual victory.
He is also known for his longevity in this event. He held the record for most consecutive Masters cuts made at 23 until Tiger Woods sneaked one ahead of him last year. He played a power game in his youth but combined that with a soft touch around the greens and with his irons.
Couples was consistently on the leaderboard somewhere and his record shows that. He had five top-5 finishes and 11 top-10 finishes. He made 31 cuts, not that far off the Masters record of 37 held by six-time champion Jack Nicklaus.
Thursday’s round was a continuation of a big week for Houston. First, the University of Houston made it to the NCAA basketball championship game and lost a heartbreaker. Houston alum Jim Nantz, the CBS voice of the Masters and Couples’ college roommate, predicted earlier in the week that his buddy would play well at Augusta.
Couples stifled a chuckle when that was pointed out to him after his round. “He’s been saying that every year since I turned 50,” he said. “He’s been right a few times.”
Nantz is looking downright Nostradamus-y so far. That seemed like a bold call after last year’s Masters when Couples played poorly. He was, however, playing hurt.
“I was not very healthy at all,” he recalled. “I had a bunch of cortisone shots and really, it was the most pain I’ve ever been in. If I can come here and I can swing a club, I play. It wasn’t awful. I just couldn’t hit it far enough or well enough.”
Couples tried to play more golf than usual last year on PGA Tour Champions in an attempt to sharpen his game for this week but it backfired as it left his body battered and sore. This year, he relaxed and has taken it easy. He chipped and putted two or three days last week so he wouldn’t feel stiff. Plus he went to his basement and worked on hitting his new rescue clubs. He feels good and it showed.
He sounds suspiciously like a player with some newly-won confidence. Not to win the Masters but to make the cut. That’s the realistic goal of any over-60 Masters competitor. Couples mistakenly thought age 65 was the cutoff for his Masters eligibility but his agent told him no, you play until you decide you shouldn’t. Bernhard Langer, one of Fred’s contemporaries, said this is his final Masters at age 67. Couples had said recently he didn’t want to come out and play like a clown in the Masters.
“I really should use the word clown,” he said. “I don’t want to use the word ‘clown’ around Augusta.”
That’s one of those Augusta words that probably lacks the proper decorum for the green-jacketed crowd. Like the words the announcers aren’t supposed to say during the telecast. Mob. (It’s a crowd.) Fans. (They’re patrons.) Back nine. “Second nine.” Rough. (It’s second cut.) And the year Gary McCord said “bikini wax” and “bodybags” in what proved to be his final Masters appearance.
Back to Fred. He has a glint in his eyes.
“I can play golf,” he said. “I can play around here. If the weather is like this and not hard, and I can shoot 73, 74 or 75, that’s no embarrassing at all. The goal for me is to make the cut.”
Couples was paired with Harris English and Taylor Pendrith, a young Canadian power-hitter.
“He’s a legend here,” Pendrith said of Couples. “It’s his 40th time playing the Masters. People love him. They’re all cheering for him. It was really cool to play with him in my first Masters and his 40th.”
Couples called his 71 “a hell of a round.” He added, “I am exhausted, I’ll tell you what. It was a battle. I think about the Masters all the time. If I could have won it one more time, it would have been the greatest upset in the world of golf but I didn’t. But still, at 65, I get to come back. I love coming here, I just love this place.”
Langer sensed it is time for him to retire from Masters competition. When will Couples know it’s time for him?
“I can’t answer that, I really can’t,” he said. “I’m 65. I don’t feel 70. I don’t feel 50, either. I’m not even going to guess. It might be next year, it might be when I’m 70.”
This week, Couples let his headcovers do the talking for him.
