Chuffed Lyle has flier at Augusta

Sandy Lyle's huge affection for The Masters and Augusta National continued with a three under par first round of 69 - his first sub-70 in the event for 18 years.

It left the 52-year-old 1988 champion, who has made the halfway cut the last three years, only two behind pacesetters Tom Watson - now 60 - Lee Westwood, YE Yang and Phil Mickelson.

"I'm very chuffed with that," said Shropshire golfer Lyle today.

"A birdie-birdie finish will always put a smile on your face around here, especially in those conditions because it was very blustery out there at times.

"I just started to hole a couple of putts as I was coming down the stretch, which was good because I hadn't really holed anything all day.

"You look at that leaderboard and you just see the quality of the guys that compete on the Senior Tour every week, be it Couples, Watson, Langer.

"We can all still play and the standards are very high.

"I would snapped your hand off for a 69 when I was standing on that first tee.

"A lot of chance to take it lower as well — I had an eagle chance on No 2 from eight feet that I left hanging over the hole.

"I had another eight-footer on 15 for eagle that stayed up and on (par five) 13 I was hitting a seven-iron to the green for my second shot.

"I hit a seven-iron into the 17th to 20 feet and then a nine-iron into the last to 10 feet.

"I was almost in my favourite bunker again at the last, but I ended up on the grass between the two bunkers."

For his victory 22 years ago Lyle hit a seven-iron from the sand and birdied to beat Mark Calcavecchia.

There was not such good news for Shropshire's other former Masters champion Ian Woosnam.

He struggled with the swirling winds on his way to a round of 81.