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      At the Masters, Tiger Woods Begins to Show Acceptance

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      AUGUSTA, Ga. — Tiger Woods has many kinds of smiles.Some are genuinely welcoming. Some are a cultivated response, a performance learned from decades in the spotlight. Some, when he is about to say something barbed, are meant to be caustic. And some are a form of defiance, a reflex when he feels he is being challenged.At a news conference on the eve of last year’s Masters Tournament, reporters were treated to the last of those looks — a grinning but pugnacious Woods. When asked if he could win that week, roughly a year after a horrific car crash nearly cost him his right leg, Woods answered curtly: “I wouldn’t show up to an event unless I think I can win it.”The smile turned to a smirk.It is now a year later. Two days before his 25th Masters, Woods, 47, has learned a new kind of smile, that of the dignified aging champion who is all too aware of his limited physical capabilities and an ever narrowing window to win a 16th major championship. He still yearns for that victory and has lost no fight for the cause, but several times on Tuesday Woods sounded as if he was trying to gracefully acquiesce to a fate he may have never before contemplated.“The ability and endurance of what my leg will do going forward will never be the same,” he said. “I can’t prepare and can’t play as many tournaments as I like. But that’s my future, and that’s OK. I’m OK with that.”Woods admitted that when he now comes to Augusta National, he wonders if it will be the last time as a competitor. “I don’t know how many more I have in me,” he said.Most telling, after a nine-hole practice round Tuesday with his longtime buddy, Fred Couples, 63, Woods joked that he was not far from joining Couples on the 50-and-over PGA Tour Champions circuit, where competitors ride in golf carts and skip the miles of walking that send pain shooting up Woods’s right leg.Tiger Woods, Fred Couples and Justin Thomas walk the second fairway on Tuesday.With a laughing smile, Woods said: “I’ve got three more years from where I’ll get the little buggy and be out there with Fred. But until then, no buggy.”Later in his news conference, while addressing a proposed rule that may inhibit how far the ball played by professionals will fly, he was asked how the new dictum might affect him. The new rule would not be imposed until 2026.Woods snickered playfully: “By the time it takes effect, I may be long gone. As I said, I may be in the buggy and off we go.”Woods repeatedly explained Tuesday that his right leg, surgically rebuilt in the hours after his high-speed, tumbling car wreck outside Los Angeles in February 2021, aches even more than it did last year in competition, when he sometimes needed to use one of his irons like a cane to walk from shot to shot. At the P.G.A. Championship last May, Woods nearly collapsed into a practice area bunker when he stumbled and lost his balance. He saved himself by using one of his clubs as a support. But not long afterward, after shooting the highest one-round score of his 22 P.G.A. Championship appearances, Woods withdrew from the event.During his practice round on Tuesday, Woods limped noticeably, especially when ascending Augusta National’s many hills. Walking downhill was no easier. He slowed as if he was worried about his leg buckling and winced periodically.Woods, with his surgically repaired right leg, struggles walking hilly terrain over four rounds.“I can hit a lot of shots but the difficulty for me is going to be the walking,” he conceded. “I wish it could be easier.”There was only one moment Tuesday when Woods showed a version of his old bravado.When asked if some of the favorites at this year’s Masters, like Woods’s good friends Rory McIlroy and Justin Thomas, still view him as a threat to win this week, Woods mostly demurred. Woods is known for tutoring McIlroy and Thomas, neither of whom have won the Masters, in the nuances of the devilish Augusta National layout.“Well, I don’t know — threat or not — I just think it’s understanding, picking some guys’ brains and figuring out what they need to do to win this tournament,” he said.Woods said he was schooled similarly by Couples, Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus.“That’s what this tournament allows us to do, to pass on knowledge and gain knowledge from the past and apply it,” he said.But the original question lingered. Woods paused.“Whether I’m a threat to them or not, who knows?” Woods said with maybe the slightest impish expression. “People probably didn’t think I was a threat in 2019 either, but it kind of turned out OK.”Woods is known for tutoring Rory McIlroy, left, on the intricacies of winning at Augusta National.In 2019, 11 years after his last major championship victory, Woods won his fifth Masters title.It is a memory, along with so many others in Woods’s nearly 30 years as a public figure, that has kept sports fans flocking to watch him play. It was no different late Tuesday morning as Woods, who spent a long stretch as the world’s most famous athlete, played the final hole of his practice round.The ninth green at Augusta National, on a hilltop in front of the sprawling clubhouse, was surrounded by only a smattering of fans as Woods hit his last tee shot of the day 460 yards away. But suddenly, like passengers disembarking from a vast caravan of buses, a horde of fans appeared from around a bend in the course and began to clamber up the steep hill from the ninth fairway to the putting surface.Within minutes, the crowd enveloping the green was a dozen deep. Applause erupted when Woods’s second shot from about 160 yards landed safely about 15 feet from the hole. As Woods walked, or limped, toward the green, people pushed against the ropes restraining the gallery in an effort, it seemed, just to be closer to him. Adults held children on their shoulders so they could see above the throng, while others stood on their tiptoes.“The ability and endurance of what my leg will do going forward will never be the same,” Woods said on Tuesday.Once reaching the green, Woods was cheered but as soon as he began to practice his putting from various spots, the congregation fell silent. Woods’s putter making contact with his golf ball could be heard in the quiet from 75 feet away.Finally, when finished, Woods doffed his hat and raised it above his head as an ovation erupted all around him.He smiled. More

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      2023 Masters: Rory McIlroy Looks to Make Up Ground as First Round Begins

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      Plus, N.C.A.A. champions will be invited to play the Masters, and Larry Mize and Sandy Lyle are preparing to say farewell to the tournament.AUGUSTA, Ga. — In the last five years, Rory McIlroy has spent 27 weeks ranked as the world’s best men’s golfer. He has earned nine PGA Tour victories, including at the Tour Championship and the Players Championship. He was on a Ryder Cup-winning team. In the final round of last year’s Masters Tournament, he carded an eight-under-par 64.But the last time he shot par or better in a Masters first round? April 5, 2018.2019: 73.2020: 75.2021: 76.2022: 73.At least the trend line is improving? It stands to reason that if McIlroy is to become the sixth modern player to achieve the career Grand Slam, he is very likely going to have to refigure out Thursdays at Augusta National Golf Club. (When he made his Masters debut in 2009, he shot a first-round par 72.)“It’s been tentative starts, not putting my foot on the gas early enough,” McIlroy said this week. “I’ve had a couple of bad nine holes that have sort of thrown me out of the tournament at times. So it’s sort of just like I’ve got all the ingredients to make the pie. It’s just putting all those ingredients in and setting the oven to the right temperature and letting it all sort of come to fruition. But I know that I’ve got everything there.”McIlroy is keenly aware that Augusta National, where he has lately played more than 80 holes of practice, is “a very difficult course to chase on.”“You start to fire at pins and short-siding yourself and you’re missing in the wrong spots, it’s hard to make up a lot of ground,” he said.Dottie Pepper, the CBS commentator and a two-time winner of women’s major championships, said she thought McIlroy had made some of the shifts necessary to contend, like switching putters and drivers. But Thursday, she said, may well reveal if it will be enough.“He has played himself out of the tournament year after year on Thursday, and all of a sudden, gets it in gear and it’s a gear too late,” she said. If he can sort out the first round, she predicted, “it could be a pretty spectacular movie come Saturday and Sunday.”McIlroy, who will play with Sam Burns and Tom Kim for the first two rounds, is scheduled to tee off at 1:48 p.m. Eastern time on Thursday.A new pathway into the Masters: the N.C.A.A. titleGordon Sargent, the reigning Division I men’s individual champion, was invited to this year’s field before Augusta National announced that N.C.A.A. title winners would be automatically invited next year.Andrew Redington/Getty ImagesAugusta National announced the entry criteria for the 2024 Masters, and although the standards did not change much for professionals, America’s male college golfers have a new incentive to win the N.C.A.A.’s Division I individual title: It now comes with a Masters invitation.“That is a major amateur championship, and I thought it was time that we acknowledged it,” Fred S. Ridley, Augusta National’s chairman, said of the N.C.A.A. competition. Gordon Sargent, a sophomore from Vanderbilt University who is the reigning Division I champion, is in the 88-man field this week, having received an invitation from tournament organizers before the new policy was announced.“It really goes back to our roots, and that is that Bobby Jones was the greatest amateur of all time,” Ridley said, speaking broadly about the place of amateurs at Augusta National. “He believed in the importance of amateurs in the Masters. I had the personal experience of enjoying that on three different occasions, and I can tell you that it changed my life.”Past N.C.A.A. individual champions include Bryson DeChambeau, Luke Donald, Max Homa, Phil Mickelson, Curtis Strange and Tiger Woods.Sargent, who is from Birmingham, Ala., has reveled in the experience, even if he has been mistaken around Augusta National for, say, a participant in the youth Drive, Chip and Putt competition.“I’m walking around, and no one is with me,” Sargent said. “I don’t even know if I had my badge with me — I think I probably still had it in the car or something. I was like, ‘Can I have player dining?’ They’re like, I don’t know, player?”He eventually made it inside.“It was pretty funny,” he said. “They’re like, ‘Where are your parents? Like, did they send you by yourself?’ I was like, ‘No, they’re coming in. I can travel by myself sometimes.’”Ridley also said Wednesday that the winner of the N.C.A.A.’s individual women’s championship will be invited to play in the Augusta National Women’s Amateur. Stanford’s Rose Zhang, the reigning Division I champion, won that tournament over the weekend.Two past champions are ending their Augusta National careers.Larry Mize, the 1987 Masters victor, is the only Augusta, Ga., native to win the tournament.David Cannon/Getty ImagesRidley, ever diplomatic, did not identify Larry Mize as a reason Greg Norman was not invited to this year’s Masters. But it was Mize who hit a brilliant chip — from 140 feet away — at No. 11 in 1987, making Norman a Masters runner-up for a second straight year.Mize, 64, has played every Masters since, and this one will be his last. It will be also be the final Masters for Sandy Lyle, 65, who won in 1988.“Club head speed lowers down without you even trying sometimes, and then the course is getting longer and I’m getting shorter,” Lyle said. “Not a good combination. The young ones are so good these days that I can’t really compete against that.”Mize, the only Augusta native ever to win the Masters, has spent part of the week doling out counsel to newcomers.“Trust your talent, believe in it, and just let it go,” said Mize, who added, “You’ve got to respect this golf course, but you can’t fear it. You can’t play in fear out there, or it’s going to be a long week.”Mize, Lyle suggested, struggled to get through his remarks at Tuesday’s private dinner for past champions. He had figured Mize would be at ease. He was not.“He clammed up like a clam shell,” Lyle said. “He just stood up there and had a glass of water and another glass of water.” As it turns out, Lyle said, “He’s tough enough to win a Masters, but when it comes to that kind of emotional thing, we’ve all got feelings.” More

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      The Major Players Behind LIV Golf: From Trump to the Crown Prince

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      Diagram of the major investors, fixers and political allies and patrons that are connected to LIV Golf. Public Investment Fund Trump World Performance54 LIV Golfers PLUS 45 OTHERS CONSULTANTS McKinsey & Company Public Investment Fund Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan White & Case M. Klein & Company Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Majed al-Sorour Newcastle […] More

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      For a Humbled Bryson DeChambeau, Augusta National Looms Long

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      The major champion used scientific research to engineer prodigious drives, but enters the Masters knowing a return to the top of the leaderboards will take workshopping, too.AUGUSTA, Ga. — It was only two years ago that Bryson DeChambeau arrived at the Masters Tournament as the reigning U.S. Open champion, having earned that title by bludgeoning Winged Foot Golf Club in New York with prodigious 350-yard drives to win by six strokes. He was the new face of golf and promised to shape the sport in his image, which at the time was a musclebound 240-pounder who had gained 45 pounds and swung so hard it almost hurt to watch.DeChambeau, a physics major in college at Southern Methodist, preached that he had used scientific research to construct a more powerful swing and would remake the paradigm of the modern golfer: Someday 400-yard drives would be routine and render many traditional courses obsolete. He predicted that his imposing length off the tee would make the timeless Augusta National Golf Club play like a par 67 rather than its par 72 on the scorecard.His brash, swashbuckling style energized golf and the fervent, cheering galleries that followed him dwarfed those of every other golfer (Tiger Woods was injured). His fan group also skewed noticeably younger, a demographic shift welcomed by the stewards of the game. DeChambeau reveled in the role of pied piper and pledged that his golf revolution was in a nascent stage.“It won’t stop; there’s just no way it will stop,” DeChambeau said.DeChambeau practicing during the 2021 Masters, when he finished tied for 46th place.Doug Mills/The New York TimesOn Wednesday, in a final practice session before his fifth consecutive Masters, DeChambeau sauntered up the eighth fairway alone. Trailing him by 50 yards was his caddie; he had no playing partners. There did not appear to be a single fan accompanying him. As he approached a grandstand with about 1,000 seats overlooking the eighth green, there were 21 people witnessing his arrival. No one offered applause.It was as if those looking down at him were not sure who he was, which might be understandable since DeChambeau is now one to two shirt sizes smaller and maybe 30 pounds lighter — possibly more. Late last year, he admitted he lost 20 pounds in one month alone by eschewing his former protein shake, overeating diet.Whatever the cause, and the golf community has multiple theories, in the last two years DeChambeau has become a shell of his former self in more ways than one. At the 2021 Masters, he finished tied for 46th with three rounds of 75 or higher. In 2022, he missed the cut with an eight-over par 80 in the second round. So much for Augusta playing like a par 67. At the 2021 U.S. Open, he led with nine holes remaining and then collapsed as he shot eight over par to finish the tournament.He tied for eighth in last year’s British Open but other than that his highest finish in a major championship since his runaway victory at the 2020 U.S. Open has been a tie for 26th.Asked if he could win this week, DeChambeau answered: “I don’t come here to finish second, but I will say that I’ve got a lot of work to do before I can get there.”Doug Mills/The New York TimesBefore joining the LIV Golf circuit last June, he had missed the cut in four of his five PGA Tour events. In LIV competitions since, he has never finished higher than 10th. Wrist surgery contributed to his woes, as did a bout of vertigo later corrected with a sinus surgery. In November, his father, Jon, who had taught his son to play golf, died at 63.But earlier this week, a grinning DeChambeau arrived at Augusta National and professed himself healthier than he has been in years. He advised anyone trying to get stronger to see a doctor for a blood test that would measure food sensitivity because DeChambeau believes he was eating foods that caused inflammation and injury.The highs and lows of his golf game, he said, have taught him that “the only thing consistent in life is inconsistency.” It is the kind of quizzical thing DeChambeau has been saying since he stamped himself as a rising star in the sport as the N.C.A.A. Division I individual champion and U.S. Amateur champion in 2015.As for shortening Augusta National to a par 67 because of his length off the tee — and then shooting eight-over par in his last Masters round — DeChambeau did not admit to any contrition for the comment.“I don’t think I regret anything,” he said, adding: “Because of that statement people think I don’t have respect for the course. Are you kidding me?”He continued: “With the distance I was hitting it, I thought there was a possibility. I learn from all of my mistakes.”DeChambeau walked to the first tee during a practice round at this year’s Masters.Doug Mills/The New York TimesHe has clearly tempered his expectations. Asked if he could win this week, he answered: “I don’t come here to finish second, but I will say that I’ve got a lot of work to do before I can get there.”When DeChambeau had completed his practice round after nine holes, he departed the last hole in silence, despite the green being surrounded by a few hundred fans. He stopped at one point when a few fans asked for his autograph. One in the group was Matthew Fehr, 16, of Alamo, Calif., who wanted DeChambeau to sign the cover of Golf Magazine from March 2021.Fehr collects athletes’ autographs and has had DeChambeau sign for him three times before, all during the height of the golfer’s popularity.Asked to assess what he thought had gone wrong for DeChambeau in the last few years, Fehr said: “It was cool to see him hit the ball that far and he definitely got the fans’ attention. But I don’t think what he was doing — the workout regime and the diet — was sustainable. Or healthy.”Fehr added: “You know, in athletics there are checks and balances.”DeChambeau’s Wednesday practice round drew little fanfare.Doug Mills/The New York Times More

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      An Ever-Changing Masters Course Changes Again

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      The course at Augusta National is like a living entity, growing and shifting regularly. The risky 13th hole, for example, is now 35 yards longer and even riskier.The golfer Brendon Todd takes comfort in the memories of practice rounds he played at Augusta National Golf Club with José Maria Olazábal, who won the Masters Tournament in 1994 and 1999.The course was shorter when Olazábal was dominant, and the difference between the longest hitters and everyone else wasn’t that large, Todd said Olazábal told him.“He said everyone hit the ball the same distance, and it was shorter back then,” said Todd, who has played in three Masters tournaments. “It was about accuracy. It was a second-shot golf course. That’s still the case today.”But there’s a big difference: The course is about 600 yards longer than it was 30 years ago and is now at 7,545 yards. And the big hitters absolutely bomb the ball today, which has the United States Golf Association considering changing how far golf balls fly. Todd, who ranks 203rd on driving distance on the PGA Tour this season, is not one of them.“On the hardest holes — 1, 5, 17, 18 — the big hitters hit driver and 8-iron,” Todd said. “I hit driver and a 5- or 6-iron. That’s not coming down soft enough on the greens.”The Masters lives in our imaginations as the only major venue that never changes. It’s an annual rite of spring to see azaleas bloom and pimento-cheese sandwiches in patrons’ hands, and anyone lucky enough to be invited to play — or even score a badge to watch — treats their time going around Augusta National with reverence.This is the course that Dr. Alister MacKenzie, among the best Golden Age architects, and Bobby Jones, the great amateur champion, created to host an invitational tournament that would bring together the best golfers.All of that is true, but the course itself is like a living entity, growing, shifting and changing regularly. It looks little today like it did when the first tournament was played in 1934.No fewer than 10 architects have made changes to the course, and even more players and designers have consulted on modifications. These have included Perry Maxwell, credited with significant early changes; Jack Nicklaus, the six-time champion; and Tom Fazio, the current architect.This year, all eyes are on the 35-yard-longer 13th hole, which over the years has had daring Sunday charges, like Phil Mickelson threading a shot through a stand of pine trees and on to the green as he mounted a charge to win his third Masters in 2010, as well as plenty of ignominious failures as balls dropped into Rae’s Creek in front of the green.The par-5 hole may be too long for such excitement this year, at least for a majority of the field, which doesn’t drive the ball as far and accurately as Rory McIlroy.“The length is a big thing,” said Matthew McClean, who received an invitation to play the Masters because he won the 2022 United States Mid-Amateur Golf Championship. “It’s long. The most underestimated thing about Augusta is how hard it is off the tee.”McClean, an accomplished player from Northern Ireland, said he hit his drives around 290 to 300 yards on average. And that isn’t enough. “There’s a myth that you can just hammer a driver around the course,” he said. “That’s not true. It’s as demanding a golf course as I’ve played anywhere.”The 13th hole has been lengthened to 545 yards. (It was 480 yards in the first playing of the tournament.) That doesn’t seem that long for the best players in the world, but it’s the angle of the hole that’s tricky. It bends around to the left with danger for the player who hits it too far to that side, but there is also trouble too far right.That angle and the added distance this year may have players going for something less than the heroic shot that Mickelson made in 2010, preferring instead to hit something short of the famous creek and then pitching it over.That’s strategic golf, and how Zach Johnson played Augusta’s par 5s en route to his Masters victory in 2007. His strategy was to hit wedges into every par 5 on the course. It was good enough for a two-shot victory over Tiger Woods, but it wasn’t the most exciting tournament in memory.Woods practiced on the 11th hole earlier this week. The course at Augusta National is about 600 yards longer than it was 30 years ago and is now at 7,545 yards.Doug Mills/The New York Times“I don’t think it’s better for the tournament,” said Jose Campra, a veteran caddie who has worked at the Masters for Ángel Cabrera, a past champion, and twice for Emiliano Grillo.“We’re going to see only 5 percent of the players going for the green on 13. The rest are going to lay up,” he said, meaning they will have the ball land short of the creek so they can hit over it with their next shot.That may be smart playing, but there’s also a feeling that it could reduce the excitement. Sundays at the Masters are known, after all, for the roars that ripple across the course, with every charge or failure.“There’s going to be less risk-reward,” Campra said. “Before, we’d see a lot of guys hit it into the water on 13. That was excitement on Sunday. You used to have a lot of guys take it over the trees on 13 and go for it in two. But not a lot anymore because they can’t cover the distance.”Bernhard Langer, a two-time Masters champion, called it his favorite hole.“One of my luckiest golf shots in my career was on 13,” he said. “It was Saturday in 1985, and I was trying to hook my tee shot around the corner. It went kind of straight and ended up on the right edge of the fairway. I didn’t have a good lie. But I was 6 behind. I asked my caddie, ‘What do you think?’ He said 3-wood, but look at that lie. I said I know it’s not easy to get a 3-wood up and over Rae’s Creek.”But Langer gave it a try. It didn’t look promising at first. “I hit it a little thin. It never got more than four feet off the ground. I said, no way it’s getting over. Back then, there used to be a little mound. It bounced over the creek onto the green. I made about a 60-footer for an eagle. I birdied the next hole and 15. I was only 2 behind going into Sunday.”That would be Langer’s first Masters victory. But one thing he also recalled: He was never overpowering the course.“When I used to be paired with Tiger, people said Tiger is intimidating, but I never felt that,” he said. “He was playing his game. I was playing my game. He out drove me by a huge number. I know I can’t hit it 325 yards.”Many shorter hitters this week know that playing their own game is the key.“Our game is our game, and our strengths are our strengths,” said Todd, who did not make it into this year’s tournament.In 2021, when he made the cut and finished tied for 46th, he said he stuck to his strengths.“I hit more fairways,” Todd said. “I put my long clubs in the center of the greens. I played the par 5s well with my wedges and made some birdies.”“When we’re fortunate to play a course like Augusta, its practice and experience,” he added. “At the Masters, there are 20 to 25 guys who have played the last eight to 10 majors, and they have an experienced edge on you. That’s why you see the same class of players who do well.” More

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      The 5 Players to Watch at the Masters

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      An impressive Scottie Scheffler is in good position to repeat, and Tiger Woods is capable of making another run.The best players in the world will assemble again this week at Augusta National Golf Club for the first of the year’s four major championships.Will a marquee name come through and add to his legacy? Or will an unheralded player emerge? It’s happened before at the Masters Tournament and will likely happen again.Here are five players to watch.Scottie SchefflerScheffler, 26, the defending champion and No. 1 player in the world, is on quite a roll.He has ended up in the top four in four of his last five starts, including two victories. The one occasion he didn’t record a high finish was in February when he tied for 12th at the Genesis Invitational in Pacific Palisades, Calif.His performance in last month’s Players Championship was especially impressive. He seized a two-stroke advantage with a seven-under 65 on Saturday. On Sunday, Scheffler made five consecutive birdies starting at the eighth hole to pretty much put the tournament away.“I knew the conditions were going to get really hard late,” he said, “and I did a really good job of staying patient and not trying to force things.”Scheffler was in position for another win two weeks ago at the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play in Texas before he fell to Sam Burns. If he were to prevail again at Augusta, he would become the first consecutive champion since Tiger Woods in 2002.Tiger WoodsRyan Kang/Associated PressTiger WoodsSpeaking of Woods, how can he possibly not be someone to keep a close eye on?As he’s made clear, from here on we’re likely to see him at only the four major championships and perhaps another tournament here and there. Which is similar to the type of limited playing schedule Ben Hogan maintained after his car accident in 1949. Woods, 47, has played in only one event, the Genesis Invitational. He tied for 45th.It might be easy to assume Woods won’t be a factor this week.It might also be a mistake.In 2019, he surprised the golfing world by winning his fifth green jacket, second to the six won by Jack Nicklaus. And if there is anyone who knows Augusta National, it would be Woods.One of the keys will be how the leg he injured in a car accident in 2021 holds up. He started last year’s Masters with a more than respectable 71 before ending up in a tie for 47th.However he fares, it will be fascinating to watch.Rory McIlroyMike Mulholland/Getty ImagesRory McIlroyEvery year, it becomes more difficult to comprehend how McIlroy, one of the most talented players in the game, has failed to pick up a major title since the 2014 P.G.A. Championship.The Irish star was 25 when he prevailed that year by a stroke over Phil Mickelson. The victory gave him four majors.He is now 33.It looked like the drought might end in last year’s British Open.Heading into the final round, he was tied with Viktor Hovland, both up by four over Cameron Smith. Except McIlroy recorded only two birdies on Sunday, while Smith had eight in firing a 64. McIlroy, who could manage no better than a 70, finished third, two shots back.A victory at Augusta would make him the sixth player to capture the career grand slam (winning all four majors) the others being Ben Hogan, Tiger Woods, Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player and Gene Sarazen. He would also atone for what happened in the final round of the 2011 Masters. Up by four strokes entering the day, he fell apart with an 80.With his talent, McIlroy is destined to win another major sooner or later.Jordan SpiethDustin Safranek/USA Today Sports, via ReutersJordan SpiethSpieth, 29, is another star who has experienced a drought in the majors that wasn’t expected.Go back to the summer of 2017 when Spieth, 23 at the time, rallied to win the British Open. That gave him three majors.He’s still stuck at three.Each round seems to provide an assortment of errant shots and magical recoveries. How he will fare from day to day, from shot to shot, remains a mystery.Spieth has played some of his finest golf at Augusta National. Since he captured the title in 2015 with a record-tying score of 18-under 270, he has finished three times in the top three (2016, 2018 and 2021).He will also have the calendar working in his favor. On Easter Sunday in 2021, Spieth won the Texas Open. On Easter Sunday last year, he won the RBC Heritage in South Carolina.The final round of the Masters this year falls on Easter.Jason DayRichard Heathcote/Getty ImagesJason DayDay, from Australia, is looking more and more like his old self, and now he’s coming back to a course where he has enjoyed success.A former No. 1 player in the world, Day, 35, has finished in the top 10 in five of his last six starts. At the match play event, he defeated four opponents before Scheffler rallied to knock him out in the quarterfinals.Still, it was another encouraging week.“It was a great step in the right direction,” Day said. “It opens my eyes to the fact that I have a few things I need to work on, short-game-wise, putting-wise.”Day has been plagued by health issues over the years, and he has won one major, the P.G.A. Championship, in 2015. At the Masters, he tied for second in 2011 and finished third two years later.He is trying to become the second player from his country — the other was the 2013 champion, Adam Scott — to win at Augusta National. More

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      Trevor Immelman, From Champion to the TV Booth

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      He won the Masters in 2008 and is now the lead golf analyst for CBS.Trevor Immelman didn’t appear to be on his game when he arrived at Augusta National Golf Club in April 2008. He’d just missed the cut at a tournament in Houston and in eight starts that year on the PGA Tour, had recorded only one top 20.No matter. He won the Masters Tournament by three strokes over Tiger Woods for his second tour victory. His first came at the Cialis Western Open in 2006.Immelman of South Africa, who has had many injuries, is no longer an active player. He has replaced Nick Faldo to become the lead analyst for CBS which will cover the Masters that begins on Thursday.Immelman, 43, reflected recently on his win in 2008 and role in the booth.The following conversation has been edited and condensed.When you think of that week, what comes to mind?In a lot of ways, it still feels like it was just yesterday. That obviously was an incredible week for my family and I, life changing really.Where did the magic suddenly come from?I won a huge tournament in South Africa at the end of 2007, and all of a sudden I started having some breathing issues. I had a tumor on my diaphragm. I had to have surgery. Thankfully, the tumor was benign. It took three months before I could start swinging again. I made an extremely slow start in ’08, but at the Houston Open, I only missed the cut by one shot and something clicked for me there. I went to Augusta feeling a little better about things.What did it feel like on Sunday to walk down the fairway at 18?It was the first time all week that I came out of this bubble or the zone or whatever you want to call it, and I started to recognize friends and family members and hear all the cheers. I’d watched all my heroes make that walk and win that tournament, and now for that to actually be happening to me was so mega-, mega-surreal.From left, Brian Anderson, Trevor Immelman and Charles Barkley on set at Pelican Golf Club in Belleair, Fla., last year.Mike Ehrmann/Getty ImagesWho did you hear from afterward that might have surprised you?Yogi Berra, how about that? I had played with him at the Pro-Am at the Arnold Palmer Invitational, so him and I had kept in touch. He gave me a ring, which was awesome.Was it tough to give up being a player?When I played and competed in a bunch of Masters and on tours all over the world, I gave it absolutely everything I could. To the point where I broke my body to pieces. So I can put my head on the pillow at night and be comfortable that I got as much out of my talent that I could. It also isn’t painful because I really enjoy this new chapter.So it was really your body breaking down, not your game?They go hand in hand. I blew out my wrist a couple of years after I won the Masters. I had to get a few surgeries on it and was just never quite the same.As of the second week of March, who are the favorites for Augusta?It’s quite open. It’s not like when I used to play, when it was 90 percent chance Tiger Woods was going to win and the rest of the field had a 10 percent chance. We’ve got 10 guys I believe are coming in there as favorites.Is there an international player we haven’t heard of who is a star on the horizon?His name is S.H. Kim. He’s 24. I got to spend some time with him this year. He is a stud. Has enough power to work the ball both ways, solid short game, and I would be extremely surprised if he doesn’t make the [2024] Presidents Cup team [the international competition held every two years].What is the toughest part of being lead analyst?Being able to take a side and have an opinion when the moment is right. There will be times when something polarizing happens and, as lead analyst, you need to be able to comment on what you think is right. You can’t always ride the fence. More

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      2023 Masters: Golf Balls and Groupings

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      The talk at the Masters Tournament is about possible changes to the ball, the week’s stormy forecast and the par-3 course’s face-lift.AUGUSTA, Ga. — Even at this year’s Masters Tournament, there are debates beyond LIV Golf, and there may not be one more inflamed than the conflagration over the future of the golf ball.Last month, worn down by gaudy statistics, the R&A and the U.S. Golf Association made a proposal: Within a few years, elite players should use a ball that does not fly quite so far.It did not sit well.“Let us be athletic,” Bubba Watson, a two-time Masters winner, said in an interview on the day of the announcement. “Let us try to come up with new ways to hit the ball better, straighter, farther.”Justin Thomas, the winner of two P.G.A. Championships, was even more pointed about the idea, which supporters estimated would cut the tee shots of top golfers by about 15 yards.“They’re basing it off the top 0.1 percent of all golfers. You know what I mean?” he said. “I don’t know how many of y’all consistently play golf in here, but I promise none of you have come in from the golf course and said, you know, I’m hitting it so far and straight today that golf’s just not even fun anymore.”But it was not until Tuesday that the world heard from Tiger Woods, one of Thomas’s closest friends in golf.“The guys are going to become more athletic,” Woods said. “Everyone is going to get bigger, stronger, faster as the generations go on.”A change “should have happened a long time ago,” Woods said. A few moments later, he added: “The amateurs should be able to have fun and still hit the golf ball far, but we can be regulated about how far we hit it.”Part of Woods’s concern traces to the limits of courses. Augusta National Golf Club had the resources and enough space to add 35 yards to the 13th hole. Not every course — not even every great course — does. Besides, Woods suggested, an altered ball might make for a better, more sophisticated sport.This year’s 13th hole was lengthened by 35 yards.Doug Mills/The New York Times“On tour, it’s exciting to see Rory McIlroy hit it 340 yards on every hole,” Woods said. “But does it challenge us and separate the guys who can really hit the ball in the middle of the face and control their shots? I think if you roll the ball back a little bit, you’ll see that the better ball-strikers will have more of an advantage over the guys who miss it a little bit.”If the governing bodies proceed with the change — a decision is still many months away — the burden will shift to golf ball manufacturers to come up with products for professionals that comply with the rule, which would generally ban balls that travel more than 317 yards when struck at 127 miles per hour.The companies are already registering worries but thinking through how they will react.“We’re going to be looking at it and researching it and understanding what we would do and how we would respond to it,” Dan Murphy, the president and chief executive of Bridgestone Golf, said in an interview by the Augusta National clubhouse Tuesday afternoon. “I don’t think we have a choice.”Like many other manufacturers, Murphy worries about the risk of confusing consumers with a new variety of equipment options. But Bridgestone expects that Woods, who uses its products, will play a role in designing any new equipment, helping the company to refine aerodynamics, trajectory, feel and spin.“He has a longstanding catalog of the golf ball: He’s seen it change from balata to the solid-core technology in the early 2000s that he played so well with, so from that standpoint, we would definitely rely on him to give us feedback,” said Adam Rehberg, a Bridgestone official who works on research and design. “We still have to make sure the ball can do everything they need.”If, of course, they ultimately need it.The groupings are out. Plan accordingly.The LIV players Phil Mickelson, left, Harold Varner III, middle, and Talor Gooch, will be in separate groups at the Masters.Doug Mills/The New York TimesTournament play will begin on Thursday at 8 a.m. Eastern time, when Mike Weir, the 2003 Masters champion, and Kevin Na, a LIV Golf team captain, will tee off at No. 1. But most of the other players Thursday and Friday will be in groups of three. Here are the most eye-catching groups (All times Eastern):9:36 a.m.: Mackenzie Hughes, Shane Lowry and Thomas Pieters (12:48 p.m. Friday)10:18 a.m.: Viktor Hovland, Xander Schauffele and Tiger Woods (1:24 p.m. Friday)10:42 a.m.: Jon Rahm, Justin Thomas and Cameron Young (1:48 p.m. Friday)10:54 a.m.: Sungjae Im, Hideki Matsuyama and Cameron Smith (2 p.m. Friday)11:54 a.m.: Brooks Koepka, Danny Willett and Gary Woodland (8:48 a.m. Friday)12:24 p.m.: Tom Hoge, Si Woo Kim and Phil Mickelson (9:12 a.m. Friday)1:12 p.m.: Corey Conners, Dustin Johnson and Justin Rose (10:06 a.m. Friday)1:24 p.m.: Matt Fitzpatrick, Collin Morikawa and Will Zalatoris (10:18 a.m. Friday)1:36 p.m.: Sam Bennett, Max Homa and Scottie Scheffler (10:30 a.m. Friday)1:48 p.m.: Sam Burns, Tom Kim and Rory McIlroy (10:42 a.m. Friday)2 p.m.: Tony Finau, Tommy Fleetwood and Jordan Spieth (10:54 a.m. Friday).ESPN will broadcast the Thursday and Friday rounds beginning at 3 p.m. The Masters Tournament’s website will also stream coverage from Augusta National.The weather is looking like a big problem.The weather forecast for the tournament, especially Saturday, was not promising.Doug Mills/The New York TimesIf you are planning to watch the tournament all day Saturday, it might be time to consider a backup plan now that the forecast has gone from bad to worse.Thursday, Augusta National’s official forecast says, has a 40 percent chance of afternoon thunderstorms. Friday will bring a 70 percent chance of precipitation, including isolated thunderstorms.Then there is Saturday: “Cloudy, colder and breezy with a 90 percent chance of rain. Rain could be heavy at times.” And winds could gust up to 25 miles per hour.Also, the predicted high is 52 degrees.Spring!The par-3 course got a face-lift.Jon Rahm during the par-3 event last year. No player has won the par-3 contest and a green jacket in the same year.Doug Mills/The New York TimesNo. 13 on Augusta National’s primary course has gotten most of the attention this week as players have sized up a hole that is 35 yards longer this year. (Asked on Monday what he made of the hole, Fred Couples replied: “Well, if I were 30, I’d probably be excited about it. At 63, I think it’s an incredible hole. I won’t go for it.”)But on Wednesday afternoon, the nine-hole, par-3 course, tucked away in a corner of Augusta National, will take center stage. The course’s informal Wednesday contest, first held in 1960, is a Masters ritual and popular with players and fans alike. The course is playing differently this year, though, after some off-season changes, including a rerouting of the first five holes and new putting surfaces. Augusta National said the refurbished greens, which now have a different kind of bentgrass, will be a “testing ground,” perhaps foreshadowing changes to the primary course.Augusta National also said it had installed a new irrigation system and expanded the complex for restrooms and sales of concessions and merchandise.“It was unbelievable,” Watson said in an interview last month after he saw the redesigned area.“How did they do it in 150 days?” Watson, who now plays on the LIV Golf circuit, asked later. “I don’t know. It’s money and manpower, that’s how they do it.”On that much, LIV and PGA Tour players might agree.They might also agree that anyone who wants to win the 2023 Masters should perhaps try to finish second on Wednesday: No par-3 contest victor has gone on to win the green jacket in the same year. More