The core of the golf season has begun! Well, for those who read this blog, there is no core of the season since the entire campaign matters. But a chapter does seem to be turned each year when the Masters Tournament is played in such a way that you don't get with the fall series or even the Players Championship. Perhaps it's in the way that CBS replaces NBC as the primary U.S. weekend afternoon broadcaster of PGA Tour events through at least the Wyndham Championship every August. (This year, since it's an Olympic year, CBS gets the FedEx Cup playoffs as well so that NBC can concentrate on the Games in Paris.) Especially in recent years, it also matters that LIV member-contractors are back alongside PGA Tour golfers in a way you normally don't see outside the majors. Or maybe it's the fact that almost everywhere you go in the Lower 48, it's springtime, a fact not lost on Augusta National Golf Club. Here in Minnesota, we had temps in the 70s this past weekend!
Masters Week began in earnest Tuesday night (after the usual practice round for all 89 participants, of course) with defending champion Jon Rahm serving up a Basque-style Champions' Dinner in the ANGC clubhouse, four decades to the year after Seve Ballesteros served his second and final Masters Club. Rahm collaborated with his countryman, the legendary chef Jose Andres, to feed what by all accounts was a tasty meal to 32 fellow past champions--including one Umcee, 2007 champion Zach Johnson--and ANGC chairman Fred Ridley. The only non-attendees among past champs were Angel Cabrera (2009), who is still dealing with visa issues stemming from his domestic-abuse past in Argentina, and Bernhard Langer (1985/1993), who injured his Achilles while playing pickleball. (Langer has vowed to make 2025 his last Masters actually playing--a fitting swan song forty years after his first win.) Of course, most of us will never know what it was really like, as the only elements historically made known to virtually everyone who isn't a past Masters champion have been a picture of the past surviving champs and a copy of the menu. In any case, the night's fun and unity ended when Tom Watson (1977/1981) said: "Ain't it good to be together again?" Raymond Floyd (1984/1995) apparently felt his blood run so cold that he left the dinner. The remaining attendees sat there in silence, as Watson himself attested two days later following his ceremonial tee-off with Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player.
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| The Masters' past champions betray little sign of dissension in their ranks (Golf Magazine). |
Controversy and gastronomy aside, the next day was marked by the par-3 contest. It is said that you don't want to win the event if you want a green jacket come Sunday evening, for no par-3 contest winner has gone on to win the main event the same year. This year, the fun but unfortunate burden dropped upon Rickie Fowler. He needed others to struggle in the tough conditions of Friday to avoid the same MC fate that befell Johnson's fellow-Umcee Tom Hoge last year. Fowler at least went -1/143 at the weekend to finish T30, but it obviously wasn't nearly enough to end the curse. He earned $124 200 for his week.
In the end, the winner was surprisingly predictable. Scottie Scheffler, who came in at 4-1 odds--having lost the Houston Open a fortnight earlier by missing a short birdie try to Stephan Jaeger of Germany--pulled away from a tie at -7 through three rounds with Collin Morikawa (who remains a green jacket and U.S. Open title away from the career grand slam) to beat Masters (and major championship) newbie Ludvig Aberg by four strokes, -11/277 to -7/281. Morikawa finished third alongside Max Homa and Tommy Fleetwood (who remains winless stateside despite seven DP World Tour wins) on -4/284. The top LIV member-contractors were Bryson DeChambeau and Cam Smith, two shots back at -2/286. Percentagewise, it was a pretty good showing for the LIV contingent. Let me explain:
Thirteen LIV member-contractors participated in the 2024 Masters Tournament out of 89 total competitors. If you divide 13 by 89, you get a proportion of ~14.6067 per cent affiliated with LIV at Augusta National.
Fifteen players--the top twelve and anybody tying for twelfth--are expected to be back next year at Augusta. If you multiply 15 by the proportion of 14.6067 per cent, you get about 2.191 LIV golfers expected to finish in that range on average. Rounded up to the next whole number, it's safe to say three would have been a decent expectation. In the end, four--DeChambeau, Smith, Tyrrell Hatton and past champ Patrick Reed--were among the free invites. Of course, it's not like the first two were in need of a qualifying mechanism anyway, as DeChambeau is exempt at all majors through next year's U.S. Open and that one alone for five years thereafter, while Smith is exempt to them all through 2027. That said, given how far LIV member-contractors have fallen down the OWGR for lack of points for the circuit or access to points-bearing events better than those on the Asian Tour for the most part, I'm sure Hatton will be especially grateful for the opportunity to come back next year.
Other, more PGA Tour-loyal beneficiaries of the expected top-12 rule are Xander Schauffele, Cam Young, Will Zalatoris, Cam Davis, Matthieu Pavon and Adam Schenk. Given the tough conditions, it's no surprise that only Xander finished under par for the week.
Questions for next year's tournament: Will Angel Cabrera be let back into the United States? How will Bernhard Langer fare in what's expected to be his final Masters? Will the mainstream tours--including, but not limited to, the PGA Tour--be any nearer a rapprochement with LIV Golf, rendering Watson's quip redundant? How many Umcees will be in the field? Perhaps above all, will Scottie Scheffler retain the green jacket; and if so, will he have to put it on by himself?! (If not, of course, whom will he invest with it?)
As a postscript, I should note that as I write this, one of the busiest fortnights of the blog year is upon me. My next post, scheduled for Wednesday or even Tuesday, recognizes the top Upper Midwest connection of Masters Week. By Friday, you can expect to see my FA Cup semifinal picks, and then the next week sees another Upper Midwest Connection of the Week post. And of course, I'll need to get tuned up for the golf season at my local course. But the biggest part of these next two weeks for the blog is my NFL Draft Day Party Hangover live feed. See the Glossary that I put up during the weekend for more details on the system and its inspiration, but I will reiterate the details in all likelihood in some future post here.
Edward the Scop
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