Hideki’s tour de force, Billy Ho’s masterpiece, and contender/pretender for Sunday

The Shotgun Start

A lively virtual Bixby House results in this punch-drunk Masters table-setter for Sunday. Andy and Brendan react to that outrageous inward 30 from Hideki Matsuyama, but not without first pondering a preposterous rules hypothetical related to JT. Then they run through the leaderboard with a manichean contender/pretender judgment for each player. Two of the four players at 7-under are dubbed pretenders, while the head and the heart battle for a Spieth assessment six shots back. Jose Maria’s valiant fight is praised. Billy Ho’s absolutely ridiculous circus act is re-told, with a full notebook of details on the hole-by-hole indignities (pardon our language but it’s not ours, it’s his). They close with their picks to win and some rambling about a section of the English language that befuddles Andy.