Golf-Finau shakes off ankle injury to grab Masters lead

AUGUSTA, Georgia, April 5 (Reuters) - Masters rookie Tony Finau stunningly defied the freak ankle injury he suffered on the eve of the tournament while celebrating a hole-in-one by grabbing the surprise first-round clubhouse lead on Thursday.

Finau, whose status for the year’s first major was up in the air as late as Thursday morning, mixed six birdies with two bogeys for a four-under-par 68 that left him one shot clear on a tightly-bunched leaderboard.

The 28-year-old American suffered the injury during the Masters Par 3 Contest when he charged toward the green after an ace. Moments after Finau turned and started to backpedal down the fairway he rolled his left ankle and fell to the ground.

Finau popped his ankle back into place right on the fairway and while an X-ray later on Wednesday reveled no breaks he was only deemed fit to play after an early-morning MRI scan.

The world number 34 set off in the afternoon wave at Augusta National and got off to an inauspicious start with a bogey at the par-four opening hole.

But Finau, who was playing alongside Germany’s Bernhard Langer and Japan’s Yuta Ikeda, quickly steadied the ship with a birdie at the par-five second.

That marked the start of a flawless 12-hole stretch that included five birdies. His only other bogey came at the par-four 14th and was followed immediately with a birdie before closing with three consecutive pars.

Of Tongan and American Samoan descent, Finau is the first person of such ancestry to play on the PGA Tour. He turned professional aged 17 in 2007, turning down college scholarship offers to play basketball.

In 2015 Finau played his first year on the PGA Tour and in 31 starts that year he made 22 cuts and enjoyed five top-10 finishes. He earned his sole PGA Tour victory in 2016 at the Puerto Rico Open. (Reporting by Frank Pingue; editing by Ken Ferris)