It was a bit of a wet finish to the first round of the 2012 Masters, causing much of the field to bunch of near the top of the leaderboard. But at the end of the day, it was Englishman Lee Westwood who would finish atop the pile, shooting a 5-under 67 to take the lead at Augusta National on Thursday.
Westwood had five birdies on his front side, but cooled off a bit on the second nine, trailed by former British Open champion Louis Oosthuizen and Swede Peter Hanson ad 4-under. Bubba Watson, Jason Dufner, and four other players are tied at 3-under, while another four sit at 2-under, including former Masters champion Zach Johnson.
As for Tiger Woods, he battled some swing issues late in the round and never really got it going, finishing with three birdies and three bogies to shoot an even par round of 72. Two of those bogies came on 17 and 18. Defending U.S. Open champion Rory McIlroy scratched his way to finish in red numbers at one-under par, while Phil Mickelson struggled most of the day, but birdied the 18th to finish with a round of two-over 74.
Henrik Stenson had the best round of the day going, getting as low as 6-under heading into the sixth hole. He would collapse, including a four-over 8 on the par-4 18th to finish at 1-under for the day.
Complete first round scores can be found here.
