'Math' drama sets table for Masters field
Scrappy M. Kim sneaks in over Griffin; debutante Canter among 5 late top-50 qualifiers
Michael Kim climbed 112 spots in OWGR in eight weeks (Leslie Plaza Johnson/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
While most fans were watching to see if Min Woo Lee could hold it together to beat the world No. 1 and win his first PGA Tour event (or if an irritated Alejandro Tosti might take him out first), there was a compelling drama going on further down the leaderboard.
It was a competition involving math, and the best way follow it was to follow OWGR guru Nosferatu on the forum formerly known as Twitter, who was keeping running tabs of the complicated math that changed with every stroke taken in the final round of the Texas Children’s Houston Open. And the drama was to see if Michael Kim or Ben Griffin could finish high enough to claim the No. 50 spot and a place on the tee sheet at the Masters.
“Did I do enough @VC606?” Kim asked Nosferatu after making a nervy 7-footer on the last to save par and a T32 finish at Memorial Park.
Still on the course was Griffin, who needed a couple more birdies coming in to leap frog Kim in the world ranking a steal that 50th perch. Griffin missed a 5-footer on his next to last hole that would have been enough to bump Kim, but his T18 finish came up just short and left him No. 51 by 0.5132 points in OWGR. It was so close, even Nosferatu put disclaimers on his prognostication.
“Since this has been an incredibly tense and tight race, I would strongly suggest everyone to wait for the official #OWGR update and the confirmation,” he wrote.
“I’m keeping an eye on these things for a long time, this is the closest and tightest race of this kind I can remember…
“‘Ifs & buts’ stat of the day: If you followed yesterday's top 50 #OWGR drama, turns out that if Ben Griffin made that short birdie putt at the penultimate hole, his and MK’s final ranks would’ve been switched! If MK missed his last par putt, he would’ve still made it through...”
Math may not be the most exciting “sport” but it was of vital importance to both Kim and Griffin as they tried their hardest to reach the season’s first major. They did their parts in Houston as best they could and hoped the numbers would crunch in their favor.
It weighed heavily on both players’ minds during the final round.
“I don’t know, I truly don’t know,” Kim said when asked if he thought he’d done enough. “I’m sure I’m pretty close to that right now. What’s Ben Griffin at?
“I made some pretty nervy swings on the back nine there thinking about it. My driver cracked on, I don’t know exactly what hole but it was cracked and I was trying to get a replacement on 18, but rules official took too long for it so I just hit it anyway.
“I mean, at the end of the day I’m just trying to make the best score possible. That doesn’t change whether I’m trying to get into the Masters or any other day. You know, that extra added consequence didn’t make it feel any easier, for sure.”
Ditto for Griffin, a 28-year-old trying to earn his first trip to Augusta National.
“Just about every shot,” Griffin said when asked if the how much the Masters was on his mind Sunday.
“The best thing for me I could do was in between shots try not to think about it too much — think about other things. Think about basketball, all right. Let’s check the score of the Houston game or whatever if you had to wait on a tee. Stuff like that to try to get it off my mind. But man, when you have a dream as a little kid and you have a chance, there’s a lot of emotions over every shot. I mean, I’m tearing up right now thinking about it. Yeah, we’ll see what happens.”
It all made for a stressful wait before the official ranking update came out not long after the Houston Open concluded.
“I don’t even know what to look for,” Griffin said. “That’s the thing, like there’s no real … I know there’s a guy on Twitter. I’ve been getting notifications all week on Twitter about the Masters and the shifting in points, and after I shot 29 I was easily projected in, that was Friday morning.
“I’ve just got to wait and hope that I snag that 50th spot. I heard that I was two ahead of Michael Kim this week. I don’t know if that’s going to be enough points to necessarily jump him or not, we’ll just have to see. I’m proud of the way I fought and gave myself a lot of chances, and it would be a dream come true to tee it up at Augusta, it’s been a dream since I was a little kid to be there.”
Unfortunately for Griffin, that dream is deferred. His last hope is to win this week at the Valero Texas Open and book the 97th and final spot into next week’s Masters field.
The two protagonists in the down-ballot drama were good sports about it.
Kim earned the Masters invite with a strong eight-week run since his runner-up in the WM Phoenix Open that lifted him from No. 162 in the world all the way to No. 50. He had four other top-13 finishes including fourth at Bay Hill and T6 at PGA National.
“Obviously very happy that I qualified for the Masters,” Kim wrote on his very informative social media account. “It’s the tournament that every kid has dreamed of playing and I’m glad to be making my 2nd appearance and playing much better than last time.
“Time for a week off! It’s been 8 straight weeks and 11/12 weeks so will relish this one, work on some things and get ready for another big stretch of golf.”
Kim missed the cut in his only previous Masters start in 2019.
Griffin was 68th to start 2025 but consecutive T4s in the Mexico Open and Cognizant Classic gave him a chance on the bubble.
In addition to Kim, England’s Laurie Canter (No. 48) held on to a top-50 spot to earn his first trip to the Masters, while J.J. Spaun (No. 28), Stephan Jaeger (42) and Daniel Berger (44) also locked up returns to Augusta National at the final OWGR deadline.
That brings the 2025 field up to 96 players expected to play, the largest field of starters since 97 teed it up in both 2014 and 2015.