From Augusta National: 5 Masters Storylines To Keep An Eye On All Week
Jamie Squire. Getty Images.AUGUSTA — Here's a little secret about the Masters: for all the poetic hyperbole written about the golf course, the endless hours spent blabbering about possibilities, the vast majority of the pre-tournament content boils down to this question: How will Player X do?
This preview will largely touch on that same theme. But we'll get way-too deep in the weeds to analyze why a player will or won't play well. With that hedge out the way, we'll begin with a non-player centric bit. Always keeping you on your toes.
How will the course handle the rain?
If radar's to be believed, Augusta will receive about a half-inch of rain over a three-ish hour period on Thursday morning. That's a damn shame, because a relatively dry winter and early spring have this course as bouncy as it's been in years. And a firm Augusta National is a great Augusta National, for it asks players pointed questions.
"Especially around the greens, spin is a massive factor, but it's also the height that it comes in at," says Jordan Spieth, who's played Augusta better than anyone over the past decade. "Because sometimes you can have as much spin as you want on the ball, but because of the firmness of these greens, that first hop may go far enough where it's going down a hill, even though you've hit a shot where, say, next week it would end up four feet versus a little higher one might be one foot shorter. The dispersion is so much wider here."
Augusta has a SubAir moisture management system under its greens that's designed to suck moisture away, so one stretch of rain shouldn't turn this into a 2020-style birdiefest. Speaking of which…Augusta National chairman Fred Ridley all but agreed that all records set during that one-off November Masters—Dustin Johnson's scoring record of -20 and Cameron Smith becoming the first player to shoot in the 60s all four days—deserve an asterisk.
"(The course) doesn't play the way we want it to play in the fall for a major tournament," Ridley said. "We did have one, one time, and Dustin Johnson did very well. And as a matter of fact, he pulled me aside -- we had a nice conversation after the Champions Dinner last night, and he said, You know, I think my 20-under is safe. And I said, Well, I think I think you're right, unless we have another tournament in November."
Can Tiger break another Augusta record?
Woods has entered this tournament as an outright favorite (it's true, he was -125 in 2007) and a giant question mark (like in 2022, when he played 14 months after an SUV crushed his right leg). All the while he has never missed the cut as a professional. He's already tied the Masters record by making 23 straight, a record he's favored to break this year—but only slightly. Woods has played just one full round in competition this year, and that's despite saying back in December that he hoped to play once a month moving forward. So why hasn't he?
"Well, I wasn't ready to play," Woods said Tuesday. "My body wasn't ready. My game wasn't ready. And I thought that when I was at Hero, once a month would be a really nice rhythm. Hasn't worked out that way. But now we have major championships every month from here through July. So now the once a month hopefully kicks in…The body's just—things just flare up. Again, the training that we have to do at home, it changes from day-to-day basis. Some days I just feel really good, and other days, not so much."
There is little reason to believe he'll be able to contend beyond the simple but very-relevant fact that he is Tiger Woods and this is Augusta National. He takes great pride in never missing cuts, and this record would mean something to him. I think he makes the weekend.
How will Scottie putt?
It's a virtual certainty that Scottie Scheffler will hit the ball well enough to win the Masters. From tee-to-green he's on the best run we've seen since Woods in the mid 2000s, and if he plays to that standard the tournament essentially lies on his putter. He's been working with putting guru Phil Kenyon for the better part of a year and it's finally starting to pay dividends—he's gained ground on the field putting in his last three starts, which have produced two wins and a second-place finish. If he plays his game and he putts well, he wins.
Can a first-timer finally break the streak?
A Masters debutant has not won the tournament since Fuzzy Zoeller in 1979. It adds to the Augusta lore, this notion that it takes a few years to learn the nooks and crannies of this golf course. It's not like guys haven't been close—just three years ago Will Zalatoris came up one shot short as a Masters rookie.
This year's crop boasts, by one metric, the two best Masters rookies ever. At world No. 4 Wyndham Clark is the highest-rank rookie ever, and no. 2 on that list is Ludvig Aberg, who enters this week as the world No. 6 despite being a professional for just 10 months. Clark, never short on confidence, believes he can be the guy to break a 45-year-old trend.
"Stats like that are meant to be broken," Clark says. He's already won a signature event this year (AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am) and finished solo second to Scottie Scheffler at two others. "So I know it's a tall task. It's a challenging golf course. There's a bunch of good golfers. With that said, you still have to match -- you have to still bring your game. So it's not like you can just flip a switch and win it. But, yeah, that would be an amazing accomplishment. And I like my chances. I really like myself on this golf course. I feel good on a lot of tee shots and approaches, and there's so much creativity. So I feel good coming into the week."
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As for Aberg, a 24-year-old Swede, he's going with a little more of a stop-and-smell-the-azaleas approach. This isn't just his first Masters; it's his first-ever major championship. He became the first player ever to play in a Ryder Cup before playing in a major.
"It's a tricky balance because obviously I'm feeling all the first-time feelings that everyone's feeling, but I'm also trying to be okay with all those things coming at me at the same time," he says. Because I think once you start fighting it, once you start trying to push it away, I think that's when it becomes tricky. So I guess all I'm trying to do is just embrace all the nerves and all the excitement that I feel and at the same time know my capabilities and know my qualities and know that that's probably going to be good enough to compete. I can't make any promises, but I'll definitely make sure that, coming Thursday, I'll be as prepared as I can."
Other first-timers in the field include Jake Knapp, the long-hitting Californian with a jaw-dropping swing that's half John Daly, half friend couples; Nick Dunlap, the reigning U.S. Amateur champion who in January became the first amateur to win a PGA Tour event since Phil Mickelson in 1993; Peter Malnati, who won last month to get into the field for the first time at age 37; Stephan Jaeger, who held off Scheffler to win the Houston Open; Eric Cole, last year's PGA Tour rookie of the year; Mathieu Pavon, the Frenchman who won at Torrey Pines and Nicolai Hojgaard, the 22-year-old Dane who played in the Ryder Cup. It's a very, very talented group.
Does current form matter at all for Brooks Koepka?
This week feels like the ultimate acid test for whether current form matters at all for Major Brooks Koepka. He played very poorly at LIV Miami last week, shooting 77-77 over the weekend. He doesn't have a top 10, in fields of 54, in his last four LIV events. He's toying with the idea of putting a mallet in play despite winning all five of his majors with a blade.
But does it matter? Like, at all? Would it be at all surprising if he shoots an opening-round 68, plants himself on the first page of the leaderboard and never moves?
"If you can't get up for the biggest events, I don't know, I think there's something wrong with you," he says. "It's what I always dreamed of when I was a kid. When I was practicing at my dad's course when I was younger it was always to win a major championship. Even today, that's what I first see, that's what I think you're judged by, your legacy, what you're defined by. I've always said it, I think you can tell exactly how many Jack, Tiger, Arnold, Tom, you can tell, all these guys, how many majors they won. It's tough to tell how many events they won, but I know that there's one sure-fire way to figure out who is who is by major championships."
Jake Knapp and Erik van Rooyen will kick off the 2024 Masters at 8:00 a.m. local time—or whenever the rain subsides. But you knew that already.
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