Masters rookie Hojgaard gets Amen Corner lesson

AUGUSTA, Georgia : Denmark's Nicolai Hojgaard had a short-lived stint atop the leaderboard on Saturday before the Masters debutant quickly got acquainted with the perils of Amen Corner.

Hojgaard, bidding to become the first Masters rookie to win a Green Jacket since Fuzzy Zoeller 1979, carded a two-over-par 74 that left him at two-under on the week and five strokes back of third-round leader Scottie Scheffler.

While the 23-year-old Hojgaard knew he was in the midst of putting together an impressive round in tricky conditions, he was unaware that he was actually leading the year's first major.

"No, not really. I didn't really think about it, where I was," said Hojgaard. "Whatever, I was in a position where I was really good mentally, playing really good golf. Hit a couple loose shots."

Hojgaard made three consecutive birdies around the turn to supplant playing partner Scheffler atop the leaderboard after the world number one had just double-bogeyed the 10th.

But at the par-four 11th, which marks the beginning of the three-hole stretch known as Amen Corner and which has thwarted many Sunday runs for the Masters title, Hojgaard made the first of five consecutive bogeys to drop down the leaderboard.

Hojgaard simply had no answers for the notoriously tricky layout and finally stopped the bleeding when he made a 10-foot par save at the par-three 16th, something he naturally wished he could have done much earlier.

"If I knew the formula, I probably would have done it out there. It's just tricky. The course is playing tricky," said Hojgaard, who is five shots back of 54-hole leader Scheffler and in a share of sixth place.

"I was probably in a period of my game where it was a little bit tricky and a little bit - yeah, a little bit out of