Look who's coming to Augusta
Masters field, a guest DJ appearance and 'Stray Shots'
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Moving on, look who’s coming to Augusta!
The 88th Masters commences next week and the field is all but set, with 88 qualifiers already booked for Augusta National and one potential spot left on next week’s tee sheet if this week’s winner in San Antonio is not already in the field.
German-born Stephan Jaeger held off world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler’s bid for a third straight victory, earning an automatic invitation to his first Masters with a one-shot win at the Texas Childrens’ Houston on Sunday. Former U.S. Amateur winner Ben An of South Korea was the only player to earn an 11th-hour place in the field via the top-50 Official World Golf Ranking on Monday.
The automatic invite for winning a PGA Tour event has been particularly fruitful this season. Jaeger joins six others – Chris Kirk, Grayson Murray, Mathieu Pavon, Jake Knapp, Austin Eckroat and Peter Malnati – in booking passage in 2024 by winning one of the 13 qualifying tour events.
2023 Masters champion Jon Rahm (Simon Bruty/Augusta National)
There are now 19 first-timers in this year’s field – one more than there are past Masters champions teeing it up. And these aren’t just any ordinary Augusta rookies. Among them are one major champion (Wyndham Clark), two Ryder Cup winners (Ludvig Åberg and Nicolai Højgaard) and a reigning U.S. Amateur champion playing as a PGA Tour winning professional (Nick Dunlap).
There are 47 Americans in the field and 41 foreign-born players – a rare occasion since the OWGR became a qualifying criteria that the majority of competitors hail from the United States.
There are five amateurs in the field out of seven possible. Dunlap, the U.S. Amateur champion, won the PGA Tour’s American Express and will play as a professional instead. NCAA champion Fred Biondi of Brazil turned professional as well and forfeited his invitation.
U.S. Amateur runner-up Neal Shipley will be there. Shipley (and his links to Masters royalty) was the subject of this recent profile by Scott Michaux in Global Golf Post+. Another feature by Michaux on super-sized South African Christo Lamprecht – the reigning British Amateur champion – drops Thursday at GGP+.
Of course, this Masters will also be notable for who will not be there. There has been a natural changing of the guard attributable to normal roster churn. Familiar faces like Matt Kuchar, Lee Westwood and Ian Poulter are aging out regardless of what tour they play on.
But there are some LIV golfers with reasonable gripes about the lack of access thanks to the tour’s exclusion from the OWGR. While the Masters gave one of three special international invitations to red-hot Joaquin Niemann of Chile, who won the Australian Open in December among other strong finishes outside of LIV Golf, that didn’t quiet the noise coming from the fledgling golf league. LIV’s 2023 individual points champion Talor Gooch and Louis Oosthuizen rank 37th and 44th in the independent Data Golf Rankings, creating some frustration that they don’t have access to majors. Gooch even lobbed an “asterisk” grenade at whoever wins the Masters by griping about his (and other) exclusions diminishing the accomplishment.
Of course, the Masters has always been exclusive. PGA Tour pros Christiaan Bezuidenhout (26th in Data Golf), Alex Noren (35), Tom Hoge (42) and Beau Hossler (43) aren’t invited to Augusta, either. It’s hard to qualify for the Masters, and not everybody considered worthy gets in. That getting-in part is what makes it so unique and compelling – and what added to the charm of recent victories by Malnati and Jaeger.
A total of 13 LIV golfers will be in the Masters field, including reigning Masters and PGA champions Jon Rahm and Brooks Koepka. Seven LIV golfers have lifetime exemptions as past champions while recent major winners Bryson DeChambeau and Cameron Smith still have exemption standing. Recent LIV signees Tyrrell Hatton and Adrian Meronk qualified via the OWGR top 50 and Joaquin Niemann received a special international invitation.
Is DJ back?
Scottie Scheffler didn’t win his third event in a row on Sunday but he will still head to Augusta National next week as the hottest player in golf, an odds-on-favorite to win his second green jacket and someone who is looking like he will be very difficult to beat.
It all sounds familiar to Dustin Johnson. The 2020 Masters champion was on a similar roll heading to the Masters in 2017. Like Scheffler, he was the No. 1-ranked player in the world. Also like Scheffler, he had a strong run of tournaments leading up to the Masters, winning three in a row.
And then, the day before the tournament, Johnson had a freak accident, slipping on stairs in his rental home and injuring his back. He attempted to go but withdrew minutes before his first-round tee time. Sergio Garcia went on to win the Masters for his lone major title.
Johnson was left to wonder what might have been.
“Yeah, if I have two green jackets instead of one,’’ DJ said recently during a conference call with reporters. “I don’t really think about it that much other than I do look back in that I was working with Butch (Harmon) at that time. He has videos of my swing. And I had fantastic prep going into that week. So we look at the swing from time to time and kind of compare it and try to get back to that form. We use it because we know how well I was playing at that point.’’
Johnson, 39, would undoubtedly love to return to that form, especially coming off a year that he considered disappointing in the major championships. While he won a LIV Golf event, his best finish in the majors was a tie for 10th at the U.S. Open. He tied for 48th at the Masters and missed the cut at the Open Championship.
“I feel like the game is trending in that direction. Am I exactly there? It’ll be hard to get back to as good as I played that week [in 2020]. But am I playing good enough now where I can have a week like that? Absolutely.’’ – Dustin Johnson
A back injury that knocked Johnson out of the 2023 Saudi International – an event he had won twice – meant a slow start to the year. Johnson also suggested he was not pleased with his effort or approach.
“Last year, I struggled a little bit,’’ Johnson said. “You know, didn’t play near as well as I’d like to. But this year, obviously getting off to a little bit better start. I feel like the game’s in really good form. To be honest, putting in a little more work. Just wasn’t pleased with my results. Putting in the effort, I think, is the biggest thing. I just wasn’t happy with the way I played. So I’m working a little bit harder this year.’’
Johnson had a victory this year at LIV’s Las Vegas event after finishing tied for fifth at the season opener in Mexico before a couple of middling performances that last two LIV events in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, and Hong Kong.
But he’s playing in this week’s LIV Golf Miami event at Doral – where he won a World Golf Championship event in 2015 – and is looking forward to getting back to Augusta National.
And he wouldn’t mind a return to the form that saw him win his lone green jacket in 2020. when the Masters was postponed until November because of the pandemic.
“Obviously, I was playing very good, and you know that week I played very well all four days, but I see signs of it,’’ he said. “I feel like the game is trending in that direction. Am I exactly there? It’ll be hard to get back to as good as I played that week. But am I playing good enough now where I can have a week like that? Absolutely.’’
Stray Shots
By Peter Kaufman
1. Rory McIlroy. He is now 34 years old, and he’s played 34 majors since winning the last of his four. That is an awful lot of majors. Winning the Masters would complete a career Grand Slam for him. He has come close – but his Augusta record has been a trifle up-and-down of late; two missed cuts in the past three years, and a second and T5 around those.
There are no more excuses. He is no longer distracted by his role as the self-anointed conscience of the PGA Tour, no longer speaking weekly (if not more often) about the lack of principles and scruples of his brethren who took LIV money. Not much chatter anymore about how his great and good friend, commissioner Jay Monahan, left him soaking wet and hanging out to dry when the PGA Tour, in the dark of night last June, cut a “framework agreement” with the PIF even as Rory was being permitted to rail against the dark forces of LIV et al.
It’s time to focus on golf, and he must want this tournament title badly indeed. McIlroy is a fan favorite, if not the fan favorite, and his would be a very popular Masters win indeed.
2. Full Swing: Season 2. The Kaufman Clan loved this new season, perhaps not as much as Season 1 but we could not stop binge-watching it. Last year, each episode was about one or two players, and the ensuing deep dives were riveting. This year is more of a moveable feast, and here are a couple of observations without spoiling the enjoyment for anyone:
— If you are not a Tom Kim fan after viewing this season, you have no soul. he has top-10 finishes in both Opens, but it was his Open Championship T2 on a badly hurt ankle that defines him thus far, much more than his incredibly impressive three PGA Tour wins before age 21. His 2024 has been lackluster to date — and he withdrew a couple weeks ago from the Players Championship due to illness — but here is hoping he has his health and his game back for Augusta. This kid can be super popular, and his game is all-around terrific.
— Keegan Bradley and Zach Johnson. The Ryder Cup coverage in Full Swing was mesmerizing. It was not captain Zach’s best look that he appeared to be sharing a house with Jordan Spieth, Justin Thomas and Rickie Fowler at the Open, and then picked the latter two for the team while Bradley was left out. And it’s not a stretch to say that buddies and perceived “lockerroom chemistry” won out over merit.
Thomas had a very poor year, for him, but he is pals with Johnson and Spieth and heretofore had a 6-2-1 Ryder Cup record, gaudy indeed, and he was a chosen one. Thomas went but 1-2-1 in Rome and the US Team got waxed - crushed - by the underdog Europeans. An editorial note: while the core of Europe are well-recognized for their excellence, what with Jon Rahm, McIlroy, Matt Fitzpatrick and Viktor Hovland, it’s not too much of a stretch to observe that even seasoned golf fans would have a tough time picking the bottom of Team Europe out of a lineup. There was a good reason why America was favored.
Of course, that’s why they play the matches. Perhaps merit might have been more important than camaraderie.
— Rickie Fowler is super popular and remains so even with his desultory results the past couple years (he did win the Rocket Mortgage last year). But at the denouement of the Ryder Cup, he lay about 6 to 7 feet from the hole while Tommy Fleetwood had 3 feet left. To prevent Fleetwood from clinching the Cup, Rickie needed to make his putt and Fleetwood needed to miss. But Rickie conceded Fleetwood the putt, and the Cup, before putting himself.
My own theory is that Rickie wanted no part of needing to make his own putt under that pressure (if he missed then Fleetwood could two-putt from 3 feet to clinch the Ryder Cup), and if so who can blame him.
— The Fitzpatrick brothers episode was the best of the bunch. Watching Matthew, it was patently clear that being a major champion imbued him with just a different aura than he had shown heretofore — utterly confident without swaggering while knowing he is now viewed as elite. And to see his younger brother, Alex, “living in the shadow” yet persevering right through a T17 at the Open as a qualifier — with a better outcome than his big brother — was most satisfying.
3. Jackie Burke Jr. That’s Mr. Burke to me, and probably should be to you, too. He passed earlier this year at 100. This will be first Masters ever played without him on Earth. Not much bigger than a minute, he was tough as they come. A two-time major winner and teacher of hand-to-hand combat to Marines in WWII, he remained on top of his teaching game — including lots of Tour pros — his whole life.
His widow, Robin (an estimable golf talent in her own right) is facing life without Mr. Burke for the first time in 37 years. She notes that he flat-out loved his life and fought for it right up to the end. Pretty neat trick to remain so relevant for so long.
One of my daughters and I were blessed to spend a morning with Mr. Burke and Robin at their Champions Golf Club in Houston last year. Unforgettable stuff. If you are interested, here is a link to a feature I wrote about Mr. Burke for Sports Illustrated in 2022.