Freddie Couples loves to play the Masters

If you can still call a 52-year-old man “Freddie,” don’t be surprised if he plays like a kid.

Freddie Couples at the Masters Tournament is like Tom Watson at the Open Championship. Some things in golf are just timeless.

With the lowest round of the day, Couples’ 67 vaulted him to a share of the 36-hole lead with last year’s PGA Championship runner-up, Jason Dufner. That makes Couples the oldest man ever to lead the Masters entering the weekend. He and Jack Nicklaus are the only seniors to ever lead after any round – Couples did it two years ago with a first-round 66 at age 50 and Nicklaus was 53 when he shot 67 in 1993.

“I don’t feel old on this course just yet,” said Couples, who won just two weeks ago on the senior tour. “There will be a time when I sit here and tell you, ‘Wow, I’m done thinking I’ll do well.’ I come here with the idea of knowing that playing like I can, I can still do well here even if I’m 52 or 32.”

Couples was just 32 when he won his only career major here 20 years ago. He could have (and probably should have) won in 1998 and 2006, but fate and a faulty putter conspired against him.

Yet every spring he returns to Augusta with the enthusiasm of a kid going to Disney World. It’s as though the fountain of youth is sitting at the end of Magnolia Lane.

Someone asked him if it was the “Tom Watson Effect,” alluding to the five-time British Open champ’s incredible runner-up finish at Turnberry in 2009 on an artificial hip.

“The effect for me here is this is my favorite place in the world and I get really, really excited to be here,” Couples said. “Tom has won a lot of British Opens and I know he still plays great golf. He was 59. That to me is miraculous. I fought with Phil (Mickelson) a few years back to try and win this in my late 40s and I never looked at that any differently. But if I was 59 and fighting Rory McIlroy when he is 30 to win this thing, that would be bizarre.”

Couples will get his chance this weekend among a cast of contenders familiar with the major hunt. Of the top 10 players on the leaderboard, only one – Kuchar – has never finished runner-up or better in a major.

None of them, however, has Couples’ history of consistent excellence on this course. In his case, it’s not age so much as experience that will take the first tee in the final pairing this afternoon.

“Golf’s a different sport,” Couples said. “It has no idea if you feel well, whatever your age is. Don’t get me wrong, when Tom Watson played the British Open, for me personally, even though he lost, it was still maybe the greatest feat I’ve ever seen. I mean, 59 years old and the shot he hit on 18 was as pure as you can hit it.

“But for me at 52, I don’t consider that to be really old. It’s old for this event because there are some other guys playing because they’ve won and a lot of them don’t do that well. I feel like I’ve continued to do well in my late 40s and early 50s, and that’s because I still hit the ball a long way for me.”

The last two days on a course drenched by pre-tournament rains, Couples consistently outdrove playing partners Darren Clarke and Ryo Ishikawa. It should be noted that when he needed a birdie to win on the Champions Tour in Mississippi two weeks ago, he banged out a 315-yard drive on the 18th hole.

So making seven birdies on a course he knows as well as anyone in the field is nothing. He’s as capable of figuring out a way to score at Augusta as his friend and three-time Masters winner Mickelson.

“I feel like this is a park for Phil, and he walks around and there’s a lake over here and if he’s got to carve it across this pond, then, do this or that – I feel the same way,” Couples said. “I don’t feel too much stress. Now, obviously, there’s stress out there. What I’m getting at is, when you’re playing here, I’m not going to let too many things bother me. It’s so beautiful. You can’t say it’s your favorite place and then break a club on the fourth hole on Saturday.”

For the first time in 22 years, Couples is playing a Masters without his longtime sidekick Joe LaCava. His old caddie is eight shots behind with Tiger Woods while Couples sits at the top with former Fuzzy Zoeller caddie Casey Kerr at his side.

Was he missing LaCava?

“Not today,” he said.

Rory McIlroy is 30 years younger than Couples and sitting just a shot off the lead. Couples believes the kid from Northern Ireland “will win this several times.” But it’s McIlroy who is in awe of Couples.

“He’s just cool,” McIlroy said. “I hope I’m that cool when I’m 52, or whatever he is. Yeah, he’s just a cool guy. And he’s good fun. I’ve gotten to know him a little bit over the last couple of years, and you know, he’s laid back and relaxed and just a really nice guy.”

Despite the generational gap, Couples isn’t conceding anything to the youngsters behind him.

“Can I win?” he said. “I believe I can, yes.”

And how will people judge his career if he does become the oldest player to ever win a major?

“They’d probably never see me again,” he said. “I’ve said that a couple times. It would be a walk-off. I am dead serious when I say that. What a way to go. ... I will never play another tournament – well, I’ll play here.”

Of course he would. And whenever he saunters back onto Augusta National, only a fool would count Freddie out.