A Mint Rookie Card

It’s quiet here.

There is no gallery conversation, no clicking cameras, no buzzing helicopters, no flapping banners, no beepers, no cell phones, none of the sounds of modern golf.

A bird chirps during a backswing. Crickets sing to a putt.

It’s so quiet, at times it feels as though one is attending not a tournament, but church.

Quiet enough to hear a young man curse.

“Damn!” said Tiger Woods as he walked down the 17th fairway.

It’s a painting here.

The red-and-white azaleas and dogwoods hug the wide fairways like antique drapes. The old bridges and manicured ponds are from a children’s book.

With no tall grass and with pine trees swimming in seas of brown needles, it feels not like a golf course, but your grandmother’s garden.

Lovely enough to notice a snarling young man curling up in anger.

“I can’t believe this,” said Tiger Woods after missing a putt on the 16th green.

For the completion of possibly the greatest individual sport achievement in our lifetime, the Masters Golf Tournament at Augusta National Golf Club is the perfect place.

If only Tiger Woods would show a little more art appreciation.

Trying to become the first man to hold all four modern major golf championships at the same time, Woods stepped across this gorgeous and potentially historic tableau with mud on his spikes. And a confused look on his face.

He shot two-under-par 70, considered healthy for any first day of any major tournament.

But with no wind, and soft greens, and cold temperatures, this was a day that 70 was not ground gained, but opportunity lost.

A day that somebody named Chris DiMarco, best known for a putting grip named “psycho,” shot 65.

A day that somebody else named Angel Cabrera, who recently played well in the Qatar Masters, shot 66.

“With the greens being soft and receptive, the guys who are hitting kind of borderline can get away with it,” Woods said afterward. “Once the greens become baked out, borderline shots won’t work out anymore, not to these greens, not to these pin locations.”

He should hope so. He is tied for 15th place behind a mess of mostly borderline guys.

Woods had four birdies. But he could have had at least four more.

He had two bogeys. But he could have avoided at least one.

There was the eight-foot putt he missed on the first hole. Then the missed 12-footer on No. 2.

Then the three-foot putt that circled the hole and reversed direction on No. 10, beginning a string of five consecutive holes in which he missed the sorts of putts he usually makes.

“I thought I played pretty solid today,” he said.

Then he promptly left the interview room and joined coach Butch Harmon on the putting green.

“My mood, my attitude was great, just like it is in any tournament,” he said.

But only after spending five hours scowling and muttering, stalking through Augusta National like a guy whose green jacket is suddenly too tight.

The year Woods won the Masters and set a tournament record with an 18-under-par 270, his first day score was also a 70.

There is no reason to think he couldn’t win it again. Is there ever a reason to think Woods cannot win any tournament at any time?

The only folks ahead of him who figure to still be hanging around in three days are Phil Mickelson, Lee Janzen and Vijay Singh.

“Everyone knows--it’s awfully hard to go out there and shoot in the mid-60s every day in a major,” Woods said.

But everybody also knows that, coming off consecutive tour victories, Woods arrived in this cluttered town around the course with more momentum than a new drive-thru fried chicken and chili burger joint.

The intimidation remains. But that momentum is lost.

It was gone from the moment he knocked his first tee shot left into the pine chips, then his second shot into the bunker.

“Usually, in years past, you put it over there, it’s no big deal,” Woods said. “But with the three new trees there, it blocks you out.”

Complaining about new trees at Augusta National is a little bit like complaining about new sculptures at the Louvre, but we get his point.

Several times, the momentum could have returned. Tiger Woods moments popped up like fish out of those perfect ponds.

He had a 20-foot putt from off the green for an eagle on No. 13. But he missed that putt, and the one after it.

He had another chance for an eagle on the other par-five hole on the back nine, No. 15, but missed another 20-footer.

“Well, no one is going to shoot 15, 18 under par [the first day],” Woods said. “I mean, if you can just shoot under par today, and that was my mind-set going out there today . . . you are going to be in an all right position.”

Imagine that. Tiger Woods behaving as if he is satisfied trailing, among 14 others, an amateur named James Driscoll.

Don’t believe it. Don’t believe his words, believe his glare. Believe his wince. Believe those balls he putted through Thursday’s early-evening shadows.

A victory here may not give him a true Grand Slam because he won the other three tournaments last year, but believe this.

Tiger Woods has fouled off his first fat pitches.

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Bill Plaschke can be reached at his e-mail address: bill.plaschke@latimes.com.