Lee Westwood is your first-round leader

For bookkeeping purposes, Lee Westwood is your first-round leader after shooting a 5-under-par 67 on Thursday. He achieved it over a day in the event the predicted thunderstorms never attained Augusta National, though the nuttiness did.

Westwood will be the No. 3-ranked player in the world. His humorousness is drier than cotton mouth and I'd pay money to attend his news conferences. But he's never won a serious.

He's come near. A lot. A Masters ping g15 irons second-place finish. A second place and T-3 on the Open Championship. 1 / 3 place and T-3 in the U.S. Open. A T-3 on the PGA Championship.

Now Westwood has his first-ever 18-hole lead with a major. But can he ensure that it stays?

"Just wanting to cruise my distance to the tournament today and acquire inside a good position and then hopefully stay there," he explained.

It's actually a cool story, however it will need to stay at home line after a Thursday round of craziness. Compared to any devices that happened inside land of pimento cheese sandwiches, Westwood's 67 was Yawnsville.

Go through the top nine on this Masters leaderboard:

There's six international players, two Golf Boys and something guy from Auburn who's going to marry a Bama girl. And I haven't even mentioned the large Three yet -- Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson and Rory McIlroy -- or even the guy who placed a Big Eight on his scorecard.

Anyway, we have Westwood (England), who's one stroke ahead of former Open Championship winner Louis Oosthuizen (South African) and Peter Hanson (Sweden). Then another British Open champion, Paul Lawrie (Scotland), Miguel Angel Jimenez (Spain) and Francesco Taylormade Rocketballz Irons Molinari (Italy) join video sensations Ben Crane (USA) and Bubba Watson (Mars), as well as Jason Dufner (War Eagle) at 3-under.

I watched the pony-tailed Jimenez, otherwise known as "The Mechanic," for the driving range and putting green Thursday morning. He'd a cigar in their mouth the dimensions of a flashlight. Jimenez continues to be No. 1 argument against Golfers As Athletes, but he's just goofy enough to generate a run.

The past time anyone saw the 43-year old Lawrie, he was finishing T-60 at Doral. That is his sixth Masters anf the husband has three missed cuts. So nobody was exactly alerting a tailor to measure him to get a green jacket.

Crane and Watson were section of the four-man "Golf Boys" video that set humankind back decades. Watson can be a gas to view, but he's never done much here. He did Thursday.

And Dufner, who took part in his only other discount golf clubs Masters this season, is a proponent of War Eagle/Roll Tide marriages. Some inside the SEC will dsicover that unsettling.

Fundamental essentials men attempting to each win their first green jacket. Yet it's early.