Augusta, Ga. • Finding himself tied for the lead at the moment when he completed his first round of the Masters did not shock Tony Finau. Just being able to tee off Thursday was enough of a surprise.
“Nothing short of a miracle, if you ask me,” Finau said.
The Lehi resident posted a 4-under-par 68 in his first official tour of Augusta National, ending up tied with Matt Kuchar for second place, two strokes behind Jordan Spieth. When he awakened Thursday morning, with his ankle hurting and knowing he needed an MRI exam to be cleared to play, Finau might have taken any score he could get.
The 68 required a recovery that stemmed from faith, a lot of tape and a driving-range remedy that Finau and his coach, Boyd Summerhays, concocted a couple of hours before the round as they stood at the far end of the practice tee. They found a setup to compensate for Finau’s not being able to fully shift his weight onto his left side and trust his ankle, due to ligament damage and a high ankle sprain, and it worked wonderfully.
Any nervousness attached to his Masters debut was “masked … because I had to think about my foot,” Finau said.
So in 24 hours, Finau went from being part of one of the craziest stories in Masters lore to having his name on the manual scoreboards around the fabled course and being invited into the interview room. His ankle was a popular subject, especially considering how the injury happened.
The sequence of events started with a hole-in-one Wednesday during the annual Par 3 Contest. The 12th ace of Finau’s life came in front of his wife, four children and other relatives in a setting he always pictured. So it evoked a celebration unlike any other, leading to “one of my most embarrassing moments,” he said.
Finau ran down the fairway, then turned and backpedaled as his children ran toward him. He landed awkwardly and dislocated his ankle, then popped the bone into place. His self-diagnosis: “I saw where it was, and I knew where it needed to be.”
That solved an immediate problem; the bigger issue was structural damage. Having seen the videotape of the celebration and injury, Finau rewatched it in his mind “millions of times during the night,” while wondering if he would be able to play.
“It was quite scary all night,” Finau said, “just not knowing what was going to happen.”
As he watched his son save a par on No. 7, Kelepi Finau said the subject of playing Thursday was never in question, while retelling the story of how Tony overcame pneumonia to win the 2006 State Amateur. Finau, though, said he would have heeded medical advice to withdraw, if that’s what the MRI results suggested.
Being allowed to play made him “ecstatic” as he walked to the first tee, and then he bogeyed No. 1. But then the PGA Tour’s longest driver immediately started taking advantage of Augusta National’s four par-5 holes. Finau birdied all of them.
After Finau blasted a drive on No. 8, veteran golfer Bernhard Langer jokingly offered Finau his own ball and tee. Langer then hit a nice drive that ended up 35 yards short of Finau’s ball, and he just smiled.
Finau made lengthy, par-saving putts on the last two holes. On No. 18, where Spieth and several contenders made bogeys, Finau merely tipped his cap and nodded, acknowledging big cheers.
His next big celebration could wait until Sunday. The former West High School basketball player, known as one of the PGA Tour’s best athletes, is just happy he could laugh about the backpedaling skills that wouldn’t qualify him to become a defensive back in football.
After a long journey to Augusta National, starting when he turned pro at age 17, Finau closed the book on the tumult surrounding his first round by suggesting it was “just another part of the story, I guess.”
He hopes the material gets even better this weekend.
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