However, the 38-year-old Spaniard says he doesn’t feel like he hit a bad shot on the 485-metre hole, even though he hit five consecutive shots into the pond guarding the green.
“I don’t know what to tell you. It’s one of those things,” García said. “It’s the first time in my career where I make a 13 without missing a shot. Simple as that.”
“I felt like I hit a lot of good shots, and unfortunately the ball just didn’t want to stop. So it’s just unfortunate, but that’s what it is.”
“I kept hitting good shots with the sand wedge,” García added. “I don’t know why the ball just wouldn’t stop.”
García was level for the worst score on any hole played in Masters history, the other 13-stroke efforts coming from Tommy Nakajima in 1978 at the par-5 13th and Tom Weiskopf in 1980 at the par-3 12th.
It’s the worst Masters score on any hole outside the famed Amen Corner – the 11th, 12th and 13th holes that often decide Masters glory.
“With the firmness of the greens and everything, I felt like the ball was going to stop,” García said. “Unfortunately, for whatever reason, it didn’t want to.”
García hit that ball with a mind of its own off the tee to 188 metres from the pin, then used a 6-iron from the fairway on his first try.
“I thought it was perfect. Straight at the flag,” García said. “If it carries probably two more feet, it’s probably good. And if it probably carries a foot less, it probably doesn’t go off the green and probably stays on the fringe.”
“But unfortunately I flew it on the perfect spot for it to come back.”
García then moved to the relief area to try again, and again, and again, and again, before mercifully reaching the green and ending the misery.
Ninth-ranked García, who birdied the par-3 16th after the horror show, finished with a nine-over par 81 in his first round as a defending champion of a major, a nightmare epilogue to what had been the Spaniard’s feel-good story.
García won his first major title on his 74th try at last year’s Masters on what would have been the 60th birthday of his idol, the late Masters champion Seve Ballesteros.
Since then, García got married, wearing his champion’s green jacket at the wedding reception, and last month became a father, naming his daughter Azalea after Augusta National’s 13th hole.
“I shot 81, which is not great. I was fighting hard. I was doing quite well,” García said.
But García lipped out a birdie putt at 13, and then made bogey at 14.
“And then, obviously,” he said. “The rest is history.”