AUGUSTA, Ga. — Corey Conners was a sneaky favourite this week after winning on the PGA Tour last Sunday and notching three top-10 finishes in a row at the Masters.
He didn’t have his 'A' game this week, however, he told Sportsnet, and ended up with an early exit at the first major of the year.
Conners shot a seven-over 79 on Friday and finished at eight over for the week.
Brooks Koepka held the lead midway through the second round at 12 under. Play was suspended just after 3 p.m. ET due to dangerous weather in the Augusta area.
The Canadian said his effort at Augusta National this week, especially with his irons, was "obviously really disappointing."
Conners is one of the game's most elite ball strikers, sitting 14th on the PGA Tour in Greens in Regulation for the season. He hit only a shade over half of his greens this week at the Masters, though.
“Came in with rather high hopes,” said Conners. “I felt positive about some parts of my game just didn’t seem to have control of my irons. I was stripping some solid, but my distances seemed to be all over the place. Just couldn’t get it close to the hole (and) not really sure (why). I felt like I struck a lot of solid shots, some of them were flying further or shorter than I expected. Kind of unusual. Usually something I do pretty well.”
Conners made a birdie on the par-five second but had three bogeys on Nos. 4, 7, and 8. He added a birdie on No. 9 before making the turn and started to claw his way back closer to the cut line but his hopes of playing four rounds at this year’s Masters were dashed after a double bogey on No. 13 after he hit his pitch into the water.
This was the second day in a row he hit a chip that ended up wet.
“Would have liked that one back,” said Conners. “Would have been a nice momentum saver to get that one up-and-down but walked off with a double so that was a bit unfortunate.”
Conners said he wasn’t surprised to see a score like Koepka’s at 12-under given the conditions being so calm until mid-afternoon Friday. He was surprised, however, that Koepka had a four-shot lead.
“It’s an impressive score, but I thought it was doable the last couple of days to shoot three, four, five-under-par each day,” said Conners. “(I was ) just a little bit off and didn’t quite have it.”
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