After finishing plum last of the 52 players who made the weekend cut at the Masters, Tyrrell Hatton has come out firing, saying the course set-up at Augusta National can at times cross the line between what’s fair and what isn’t.
Hatton signed off on a difficult final day with an eight-over par 80, leaving him to prop up the weekend field at 17-over par. Arriving off the back of his best Masters finish of a T18 last year, whatever goodwill Hatton had built up for the Georgia gem 12 months ago was wiped clear on a bitterly disappointing Sunday where he felt good shots went unrewarded because of Augusta’s wildly sloping greens and tricky pin placements.
“You can hit good shots here and not get any reward for it. It’s unfair at times,” said Hatton, who carded five bogeys and two doubles on Sunday.
“I don’t agree with that. If you hit a good shot, you should end up near the hole — not short-sided into a bunker because of the slopes that they’ve created and stuff. Yeah, I don’t think it’s a fair test at times, and when you hit good shots and you’re not rewarded for it, it shows.”
Hatton’s Sunday showing was just one shot better than his moving day 79, with Hatton admitting he couldn’t get off the course quick enough given how little he was gleaning from his game:
“It’s not even trying to build on anything for next week. I’m just trying to ideally get off the golf course as fast as possible.”
Hatton has largely struggled to get to grips with Augusta having twice missed the cut from five starts and finished outside the top-40 on two others. He managed to grind outscores of 72 and 73 over the first two days in much tougher conditions to what he experienced on Sunday but he walks away from this year’s tournament no closer to figuring out Augusta, likely not helped by his left to right ball-flight that’s far from ideal when it comes to navigating its tree-lined fairways.
“I’m glad it’s over,” Hatton said.
“I think that’s a pretty good way to sum it up. Obviously, disappointed, but I just never do well here. This course doesn’t really suit my eye, to be honest, so, yeah, it’s just one of those weeks that I feel like if I come back in the future, it’s just a case of trying to get through the best that I can.”
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