Henley in good shape after strong Masters first round

In his fourth appearance at the Masters, Macon’s Russell Henley says he feels comfortable working his way around the Augusta National Golf Club layout.

He certainly looked comfortable Thursday in the first round, even in the windy conditions that hit the course throughout the day.

Henley, who won last week at the Houston Open just to get into the Masters, shot a 1-under-par 71 as he played in the first group of the day with Daniel Summerhays. Thursday marked Henley’s 11th round at the Masters, and it was his fourth round under par. Summerhays finished with a 2-over 74.

“I would say just being able to flight the ball lower than the tree line and just control my distances,” Henley said about the key to Thursday’s round. “I feel like I left myself in a really bad spot maybe once or twice, but the rest of the day, I was hitting it in spots where I could score from and make pars, and I made a couple putts.

“(The wind was) pretty bad, but I feel like I have a low ball flight. I feel like I know how to flight the ball into the wind and have gotten better and better at that. With the soft conditions, I just felt like I could play well (Thursday). Obviously, I won last week, and I’m feeling confident, but I was just excited to go out there and play, and I just feel like I can play well on this course right now.”

Henley started strong with a birdie on the second hole but gave a shot back with a bogey on No. 3. He got that shot right back with a birdie on No. 4 and had pars on the rest of the front nine for a 1-under 35.

Henley stumbled a bit to open the back nine with back-to-back bogeys but got things going with birdies on the next three holes. He almost made it five straight birdies as he just missed birdie putts on Nos. 15 and 16.

“I thought I played No. 10 really well, and actually, I thought I played 11 not that bad, and I somehow hit it 25 yards past the pin, which is not where you want to be,” Henley said. “I didn’t think the bogey was that bad on 10, and then I didn’t really lose any confidence from it. That’s kind of what I did last week. I might have made a bogey or whatever, but you never really lose confidence. I felt I was doing what I was doing well with my game.”

That was on display on the stretch of three straight birdies starting on the 12th.

“I hit a great shot into 12, just kept it below the wind and hit it to about 7 feet and made it,” Henley said. “And then I feel like I played 13 and 14 pretty well but would have been happy with par from where I was. So, yeah, it was a fun day.”

It certainly wasn’t fun for many players Thursday dealing with the wind. But Henley handled that well. He pointed to the second shot on No. 11, which led to the bogey, as the one that gave him the most trouble in the round.

“The weirdest? Let me think here. No. 11. No. 11 was just so hard into it us,” Henley said. “And as you know, we’re up on the hill — well, it’s not as high at this point, but you’re pretty high on 11, and the wind is from the west, so it’s straight into the wind there. And when Daniel hit, it looked like his kind of ballooned up in the air. It hit on the front of the green.

“I tried to hit a 5-iron from 200, and I hit it solid, blocked it a little, and I was about 25 yards past the pin. So I don’t know what happened right there, I think (the wind) might have just stopped. I just think it gets tricky down there going around those trees and whatnot. So I would say Amen Corner is definitely really tough.”

The wind was also difficult on the greens, although Henley putted well throughout the round.

“A couple times the ball was oscillating. I don’t know how to spell oscillating, but I heard people say that,” Henley said with a smile. “So I think it was definitely moving a little bit, a couple of times on the more exposed ones. So when you get a little higher up, the higher greens on the course, you can get those gusts, and you see the ball moving a little bit.”

This story was originally published April 6, 2017 at 1:13 PM with the headline "Henley in good shape after strong Masters first round."