A timely turnaround (PGATOUR.com)

PGATOUR.COM

AUGUSTA, Ga.—Camilo Villegas has had a most un-Camilo Villegas-like year so far in 2011.

The three-time PGA TOUR champion was DQ’d in the season opener and has only shot in the 60s in two of the 15 rounds he’s played. The 29-year-old from Colombia hasn’t finished higher than 35th in seven stroke-play events, either.

So the 70 Villegas fired at Augusta National on Thursday was definitely a step in the right direction. It was his lowest score since he shot the same score in the second round of the Farmers Insurance Open more than two months ago.

“It’s a funny game,” Villegas said. “We’re always trying to get better, we’re always trying to improve. And we go through good times, bad times, we go through times where the confidence is really high and we go through times where the confidence is not so good. You just got to be patient.

“… So, yeah, it hasn’t been my best (start) of the year, but maybe I just, I’m maybe not feeling the best, but you got to go out there with whatever you have. You got to battle, you got to grind, you got to play the course. And I think that that’s kind of what I did today. I was patient all day.”

Indeed. Villegas didn’t get rattled Thursday when he made bogey from the center of the fairway at the first hole. In fact, he came back with birdies at the sixth and eighth holes before failing to get up and down from the right greenside bunker at the 10th hole, which brought him back to even par.

A string of three straight birdies that began at the par-5 13th, though, earned Villegas a spot on the leaderboard. Granted, he bogeyed the 17th hole but, overall, the day was a step in the right direction.

Villegas is playing in his fifth consecutive Masters this week. His best finish came in 2009, when he shot 6 under and tied for 13th. During that time, he feels like he has learned to respect, not fear Augusta National.

“My second year, I played a lot better just with that in my mind,” Villegas said. “And the reason why is because there’s a lot of trouble out there, but there’s a lot of holes for birdie. … You just got to be careful and you got to play with patience and you got to know when to go and when to back off.”

The same can be said in life. Villegas said he worked extremely hard during the offseason but the results weren’t what he wanted. So he’s regrouped, and he’s hoping Thursday started an upward spiral.

“We always try to do stuff and get better,” Villegas explained. “Sometimes the stuff you do to get better doesn’t really end up like that. It’s just like running a business, you run a business, you make the decision. Sometimes it’s good, other times it doesn’t work.

“And at the end of last year and then the beginning of this year, believe it or not, I said, okay, I need to work harder, I need to work a lot harder. And I just tried a little bit and I got off track and things weren’t going the way I wanted them to go at the beginning of the year.

“But like I said, I’m looking forward to the rest of this week, I’m looking forward to the rest of the year, and looking forward to having a long and nice career.”