Counting down the days until the Masters
Jhonny Vegas joins Augusta field; France's own Boutier gets Women's Olympics off to strong start
Welcome to the first of periodic updates counting down the days until ALL the best players in the world gather again for the next men’s major championship at the Masters, April 10-13, 2025. The Daily Drive can’t guarantee that it will make the time go by faster, but like having a golf trip booked on the calendar it’ll give you something to look forward to during the next eight months until balls are in the air at Augusta National.
Vegas beat odds to end drought
Jhonny Vegas didn’t qualify to play in last week’s Olympics, but the Venezuelan is going back to Augusta National.
For the first time since finishing T38 at the Masters in 2018, the 39-year-old Vegas qualified to compete at Augusta for the fourth time with his fourth career PGA Tour victory two weeks ago at the 3M Championship in Minnesota — snapping a seven-year victory drought.
“Wow, yes, seven years,” Jhonattan Vegas said after sealing his win with a birdie on the 72nd green at TPC Twin Cities. “In my head it doesn’t really seem that it’s been that long, but obviously it’s been seven years. You know, it hasn’t been easy, that’s for sure. It’s been a lot of grinding, a lot of dealing with injuries, a lot of headaches, but these are the moments that you get up every day and you work hard, you do all the right things because nothing feels better than this.”
Vegas brings the 2025 qualified Masters field up to 53 players — a number that didn’t change with reigning green jacket holder Scottie Scheffler winning gold in the Men’s Olympic Golf Competition. There are only three more automatic qualifying PGA Tour events before the Tour Championship, which gives Masters exemptions to all 30 players who qualify for East Lake Golf Club.
“That’s the beauty of golf, that’s the beauty of the PGA Tour,” Vegas said after his victory moved him into the top 70 with an opportunity to secure his spot in the FedEx Cup playoffs and a chance to play for bigger perks. “No other tour in the world provides that. Any week can change your life forever.”
Jhonny Vegas snapped a seven-year drought at 3M (Nick Wosika/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
Vegas had surgery on his elbow in 2022 to remove a bone spur and after coming back a little too soon he needed another surgery in May 2023 for an inflamed shoulder. Neither his elbow nor his shoulder are back to pain-free normal.
“I came back beginning of this year not feeling 100 percent,” he said last Sunday. “Today I wasn’t 100 percent and I felt it right away on the first hole. It was a nightmare, but luckily stayed calm and I was able to play pretty solid and not make huge mistakes.”
Despite his physical challenges and the long drought since he won the second of consecutive Canadian Opens in 2017 for his third PGA Tour win, Vegas said he’s never considered packing it in.
“No, that never crossed my mind,” he said. “Obviously I’ve always fought through a lot of stuff to be sitting here. … The goal’s always been to get into this position. Obviously it came a little earlier than I thought it would, but I just kept working every day, kept seeing my therapist, kept seeing all my doctors. We knew we were on a good path, we just had to wait for the shoulder to respond. Luckily it did for most of this week.”
Vegas is just the fifth player to secure an automatic spot in the 2025 Masters solely via a PGA Tour win, joining Robert MacIntyre (Canadian and Scottish Opens), Taylor Pendrith (Byron Nelson), Davis Riley (Colonial) and Davis Thompson (John Deere). Pendrith, Riley and Thompson are all first-time qualifiers for the Masters.
The Masters still offers invitations to winners of the eight events in the FedEx Cup Fall series that starts Sept. 12-15 at the newly named Procure Championship in Napa, Calif., and runs through the RSM Classic at Sea Island, Ga., Nov. 21-24.
Here’s how the 53 players currently qualified to play in the 2025 Masters got into the field.
2025 Masters Field
Through Men’s Olympic Golf Competition
# First-timers (7); * Amateurs (2); Americans (25); Internationals (28); Seniors (6)
CATEGORY 1 (20 players)
Masters Tournament Champions (Lifetime)
Angel Cabrera (1) – Argentina
Fred Couples (1)
Sergio Garcia (1) – Spain
Dustin Johnson (1)
Zach Johnson (1)
Bernhard Langer (1) – Germany
Hideki Matsuyama (1) – Japan
Phil Mickelson (1, 4)
Jose Maria Olazabal (1) – Spain
Jon Rahm (1, 2) – Spain
Patrick Reed (1, 13)
Scottie Scheffler (1, 5, 6, 13, 17)
Charl Schwartzel (1) – South Africa
Adam Scott (1) – Australia
Vijay Singh (1) – Fiji
Jordan Spieth (1)
Bubba Watson (1)
Mike Weir (1) – Canada
Danny Willett (1) – England
Tiger Woods (1)
CATEGORY 2 (3 players)
U.S. Open champions (Honorary, non-competing after 5 years)
Wyndham Clark (2) – through 2028
Bryson DeChambeau (2, 13) – through 2029
Matthew Fitzpatrick (2) – England – through 2027
CATEGORY 3 (4 players)
British Open Champions (Honorary, non-competing after 5 years)
Brian Harman (3) – through 2028
Collin Morikawa (3, 4, 13) – through 2026
Xander Schauffele (3, 4, 13) – through 2029
Cameron Smith (3, 5) – Australia – through 2027
CATEGORY 4 (2 players)
PGA Champions (Honorary, non-competing after 5 years)
Brooks Koepka (4) – through 2028
Justin Thomas (4) – through 2027
CATEGORY 5 (0 players)
The Players Championship Winners (3 years)
CATEGORY 6 (0 players)
Current Olympic Gold Medalist (for 2025)
CATEGORY 7 A&B (2 players)
Current U.S. Amateur champion (A, Honorary, non-competing after 1 year) and runner-up (B)
TBD Aug. 18, 2024
CATEGORY 8 (1 player)
Current British Amateur Champion (Honorary, non-competing after 1 year)
#*Jacob Skov Olesen (8) – Denmark
CATEGORY 9 (1 player)
Current Asia-Pacific Amateur Champion
TBD Oct. 6, 2024
CATEGORY 10 (1 player)
Current Latin America Amateur Champion
TBD Jan. 19, 2025
CATEGORY 11 (1 player)
Current U.S. Mid-Amateur Champion
TBD Sept. 26, 2024
CATEGORY 12 (1 player)
Current NCAA Individual Champion
#*Hiroshi Tai (12) – Singapore
CATEGORY 13 (9 players)
First 12 players (including ties) in previous year’s Masters
Ludvig Åberg (13) – Sweden
Cam Davis (13, 17) – Australia
Tommy Fleetwood (13) – England
Tyrrell Hatton (13) – England
Max Homa (13)
Mattieu Pavon (13) – France
Adam Schenk (13)
Cameron Young (13)
Will Zalatoris (13)
CATEGORY 14 (3 players)
First 4 players (including ties) in previous year’s U.S. Open
Patrick Cantlay (14)
Tony Finau (14)
Rory McIlroy (14, 17) – Northern Ireland
CATEGORY 15 (3 players)
First 4 players (including ties) in previous year’s British Open
Billy Horschel (15)
#Thriston Lawrence (15) – South Africa
Justin Rose (15) – England
CATEGORY 16 (2 players)
First 4 players (including ties) in previous year’s PGA Championship
#Thomas Detry (16) – Belgium
Viktor Hovland (16) – Norway
CATEGORY 17 (5 players)
Winners of non-opposite PGA Tour events from previous Masters to current Masters
Robert MacIntyre (17) – Scotland
#Taylor Pendrith (17) – Canada
#Davis Riley (17)
#Davis Thompson (17)
Jhonattan Vegas (17) – Venezuela
CATEGORY 18 (TBD players)
Eligible qualifiers for previous year’s season-ending Tour Championship
TBD
CATEGORY 19 (TBD players)
Top 50 on final Official World Golf Ranking for previous calendar year
TBD
CATEGORY 20 (TBD players)
Top 50 on Official World Golf Ranking published week prior to current Masters
TBD
SPECIAL EXEMPTION (TBD)
The Masters Committee, at its discretion, also invites players otherwise not qualified
TBD
Celine Boutier takes full advantage of French support with fast start in her hometown (Tracy Wilcox/PGA Tour/IGF)
France’s Boutier starts hot in Paris
SAINT-QUENTIN-EN-YVELINES, France (IGF/DD) — Picking up where the men’s competition left off, the Women’s Olympic Golf Competition continued the enthusiastic vibe at Le Golf National.
Celine Boutier, whose lone major victory so far came in her native France at the 2023 Amundi Evian Championship, riled up the host nation’s hopes with a 7-under 65 in the first round to take a three-shot lead in the 60-player field over South Africa’s Ashleigh Buhai.
With big galleries gathered for the first round at Le Golf National on Wednesday, world No. 7 Boutier was inspired as she recorded eight birdies and one bogey to make a dream start in her medal pursuit. Her total equaled the lowest first-round score at the Olympics, matching efforts by Ariya Jutanugarn in 2016 and Madelene Sagström at Tokyo 2020.
“I’m really over the moon with the way the tournament started for me,” said Boutier, who hopes to reverse trend of the eventual champion not holding the first-round lead in either Rio or Tokyo Olympics.
Boutier made three front-nine birdies before back-to-back gains after the turn saw her move into the solo lead. After finding a fairway bunker off the tee at the 12th, the 30-year-old dropped her lone shot of the day on the par 4. But that only appeared to refocus her mind as she then reeled off three consecutive birdies from the 14th through to the 16th, highlighted by a chip-in at the par-3 16th hole. The French star then parred the final two holes before receiving a great ovation from the waves of fans assembled around the 18th green.
“I think every time I play at home I never want to disappoint people, to have that many people show up,” she said. “And obviously they want to cheer for some things. So it’s always nice to be able to give them that. … Nobody wants to play bad on home grounds. So it’s always nice to get a good start, but I also know that it’s still a long way to go and I have to focus on the next round.”
Buhai, the 2022 AIG Women’s British Open champ playing in her second Olympics, mixed five birdies with one bogey to card a 68. She grabbed birdies on the seventh and ninth holes to turn in 2-under, and was then flawless on the back nine, as a pair of birdies at the 13th and 14th helped her post a 4-under.
“Unfortunately Rio, what, was Zika, and then we had COVID,” said Buhai, who skipped the Tokyo Games. “So this is the first one where we’ve final been all in it. All the players want to be here, and we’re treating it as it’s like a major for us. We want to be here and try and win a medal.”
World No. 2 Lilia Vu, winner of both the Chevron Championship and Women’s British Open in 2023, leads the three American in the top 12 on the leaderboard with a share of third place, shooting 2-under 70 finishing with a bogey on 18 after hitting her drive in the water.
Tied for third with Vu — who pre-tournament said a gold medal would trump her two major wins — are Mexico’s Gaby Lopez, Switzerland’s Morgane Metraux and Colombia’s Maríajo Uribe, who announced she will be retiring after the Olympics.
“I'm playing for my country that kind of saved my family when we needed to on the boat,” Vu said of her family that escaped Vietnam on a boat in 1980 and were taken in by America as refugees. “So I’m playing for more than just me. I’m playing … I’m trying to give back to my country and earn them a medal.”
Nelly Korda, the world No. 1 and defending gold medalist from Tokyo, got off to an abysmal start stacking up three-putts and bogeys to fall to 3-over through seven holes, but fought her way back with birdies on 9, 13 and 14 to shoot even-par 72 and sit in a crowd at T13 along with fellow American Rose Zhang and .
“I actually didn’t hit it that bad. I just made four 3-putts,” Korda said. “The greens were just so like completely different, just from the practice green to the golf course, they were a lot slower. I feel like they were almost a foot slower from what I felt personally. It was very much a pace thing. I actually came up really short on No. 1. Short on No. 2. Very short on No. 3. So it was just a pace thing.”
Korda ranked third in greens in regulation and 54th in strokes gained putting, averaging 2.07 putts per green in regulation.
“It’s] amazing,” Korda said of the atmosphere. “We were actually talking that it would be so much fun to have a Solheim Cup out here. I know the Ryder Cup was amazing, but the atmosphere was insane. I can’t even imagine what it is like within Celine’s group. I’ve heard a couple of the roars, and it’s been such an amazing experience so far.”
Zhang finished even in her own way, overcoming bogeys at 1, 8 and 11 with birdies at 4, 9 and 14. She was most impressed with the crowd support that continued the momentum built by last week’s men’s event.
“It’s really nice to have the crowds and there’s a little bit more light on women’s golf in general,” said Zhang. “That’s really fun, especially with it being the Olympics.”
Two-time major winner Minjee Lee of Australia shot 1-under 71 to sit tied for seventh.
New Zealand’s Lydia Ko — a serial Olympics medalist with silver in Rio and bronze in Tokyo — is also part of the 13-player tie at 13th on even par that includes major winners Amy Yang of Korea and Ruoning Yin of China. Ko can book her spot in the LPGA Hall of Fame by adding a gold medal to her Olympics collection.
Ko started outside the top 10 with 69 and 70 in each of her previous two Olympics, so she hopes to claw her way back into a podium finish again in Paris.
“Made one hiccup on one hole,” said Ko of double she suffered after hitting in water on 15. “The course is difficult, and it can really get away from you. I think for the most part, I was able to stay patient out there and to finish off with a birdie, definitely kept the first round on a high note.”