AUGUSTA, Ga. — On the scoreboard beside the third green, someone named “FLESH” was 1 over par. Steve Flesch wasn't feeling so hot, either.

        The Union, Ky., resident played his first Masters round Thursday, struggling to a 2-over 74 he blamed partly on inexperience and partly on a cold that left him coughing over putts.

        “I was just out of energy,” said Flesch, nine shots behind leader Chris DiMarco. “I hit a couple shots just from laziness.”

        Flesch did not suffer a case of “the wows” that often affects rookie players at the Masters. The place didn't awe or intimidate him. “I think I've played enough, I'm not really caught up in the hoopla,” he said. He just never got anything going.

        Typical was No.13, a short par-5 that was emi nently birdie-able on a cool, windless Thursday. Flesch put his tee shot in the pine straw to the right of the fairway, 220 yards from the hole. But his second shot, a 3-iron, stopped 40 feet from the cup. A two-putt birdie there might have turned the day.

        Instead, Flesch “mis-hit” the first putt and left it 8 feet short. It took him two shoves from there, for par.

        Lack of experience hurts every Masters rookie. “It's hard to soak it all up in three days of practice,” Flesch said. Inexperience got to Flesch at the par-3 16th, where he missed the green to the right, a wise move only if you're playing for bogey. Flesch made bogey. He rallied with a 6-foot birdie putt at 17, then parred 18 to complete the “frustrating” 74.

        Plus, he felt lousy.

        “I didn't take any (medicine),” he said. “I was afraid it might make me jumpy or something.”

        Flesch, um, hacked his way around Augusta National. “I was miserable,” he said.

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