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    Masters 2024: Five Players to Watch

    Among them are golfers who have won the event before and have a good chance to do it again.No golfer has repeated as the champion of the Masters Tournament, which begins on Thursday at Augusta National Golf Club, since Tiger Woods successfully defended his crown in 2002.Such is the challenge facing Spain’s Jon Rahm, who closed with a 69 last year to secure his second major title. He also won the 2021 United States Open.Rahm, who signed with LIV Golf in late 2023, will be one of the favorites.Here are five other players to watch:Scottie SchefflerThe strong favorite will be Scheffler, who is so precise from tee to green. When he is making putts, as he’s been doing lately, he seems unbeatable.Ranked No. 1 in the world, Scheffler turned in a six-under 66 in the final round to capture the Arnold Palmer Invitational last month. One week later, he shot an eight-under 64 to rally to win his second consecutive Players Championship, which no player had done since the tournament — considered the unofficial fifth major — began in 1974.The true test of his greatness, however, will depend on how he fares in the official majors. Scheffler, 27, who tied for second in March at the Texas Children’s Houston Open, has one major title, the Masters in 2022.Jon Ferrey/Liv Golf/LIVGO, via Associated PressBrooks KoepkaKoepka, 33, made a run at the green jacket last year before faltering with a final-round 75 to tie for second, four strokes behind Rahm.The next month, he took the P.G.A. Championship, his fifth major. One more and he’ll match the total of Phil Mickelson, Lee Trevino and Nick Faldo.Koepka said his inability to close the deal at Augusta National last year helped pave the way for his win at the P.G.A.“I think failure is how you learn,” he told reporters at the P.G.A. “You get better from it. You realize what mistakes you’ve made.”Doug Defelice/LIVGO, via Associated PressPhil MickelsonWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Bernhard Langer, a Masters Stalwart for 40 Years, Sits This One Out

    He first played in the tournament in 1982 and has won it twice, but a pickleball injury, of all things, has him sidelined.Bernhard Langer was set to play in his final Masters Tournament this week. He first played there in 1982, when he was cut, and he has missed only the 2011 Masters, because of a thumb injury, since he won his first in 1985.This year’s event was supposed to be a valedictory for a player, who, at 66, had also won the tournament in 1993 and contended in the final round as recently as 2020, when he finished tied for 29th. That put him a stroke ahead of Bryson DeChambeau, the reigning United States Open champion at the time, who consistently out-drove Langer by about 100 yards all week.Instead, the perennially fit Langer was felled by something that has likely taken down some of his Florida neighbors who aren’t two-time Masters champions: a pickleball injury.It could have been worse, he said in an interview in March. A neighbor who is a foot and ankle surgeon ran over when he saw Langer drop to the ground and sent Langer for an M.R.I. He had torn his Achilles’ tendon, and the doctor got him into a stabilizing boot so he wouldn’t injure his foot further.“I started rehab three days after surgery,” he said.It’s a tough way for a golf great to go down. But the more remarkable feat might be that Langer lasted this long at this level. While aging rockers like the Rolling Stones can just keep replaying their hits, golfers have to continue producing exceptional shots against players a third their age.Langer, right, received a Masters green jacket from Ben Crenshaw after winning the tournament for the first time in 1985.John Iacono/Sports Illustrated, via Getty ImagesLanger won the Masters a second time in 1993.Phil Sheldon/Popperfoto, via Getty ImagesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    What Did Jon Rahm Choose for the Masters Dinner Menu?

    The winner of the most hallowed event in professional golf gets to design the menu (and pay) for the next year’s champions dinner. Jon Rahm, the 2023 winner, supplied a recipe from his grandmother.The winner of the Masters Tournament gets a green jacket, an elegantly engraved trophy and a lifetime invitation to play one of the most revered events in professional golf.He also has the chance to plan a dinner the next spring for other Masters winners (and to pick up the check for one of the most exclusive evenings in sports).“How rare is it to get everybody like that in a room where it’s just us?” Scottie Scheffler said hours before his dinner last year with 32 fellow Masters champions and Fred S. Ridley, the chairman of Augusta National Golf Club, the site of the tournament.“There’s nobody else,” Scheffler continued. “There’s the chairman and then there’s us.”And at a tournament where the concessions are legendary, the pressure is forever on the new champion to pick a menu that befits the moment. Tiger Woods offered up cheeseburgers and milkshakes after his debut Masters victory in 1997, but over the years built menus that included sushi, porterhouse steaks and chocolate truffle cake. Sandy Lyle went with haggis after his 1988 win. Vijay Singh’s selection of Thai food thrilled some players and flabbergasted others.Cheeseburger sliders, made to Scheffler’s specifications, were also on the menu at the dinner in 2023.Scheffler brainstormed his menu with his wife and his agent, starting with a list of the golfer’s favorite foods.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Tiger Woods Introduces His New Brand: Sun Day Red

    Mr. Woods is trading in the Nike swoosh he wore for decades for the tiger logo of Sun Day Red, which will be a stand-alone unit within TaylorMade Golf.For even those who have only a passing interest in golf, one of the sport’s most memorable images is of Tiger Woods playing his way to another major tournament victory while wearing a red polo shirt with a white Nike swoosh.That image is officially in the past, however. In January, Mr. Woods announced the end of his 27-year deal with Nike, which had made him hundreds of millions of dollars. The partnership was marked by memorable ads and, of course, the red Nike shirts that Mr. Woods wore during many final rounds on Sundays.When Mr. Woods announced the ending of his partnership with Nike, he said there would “certainly be another chapter.” On Monday, he and his new brand sponsor, TaylorMade Golf, made clear that the next chapter would again include a red polo shirt. It will be stitched with a tiger in the center, the logo for his new brand under TaylorMade: Sun Day Red.Sun Day Red is marketed as a “lifestyle brand” for both sports fans and non-athletes and will include apparel — even cashmere sweaters — and shoes, David Abeles, chief executive of TaylorMade, said in an interview. (Mr. Woods switched to FootJoy shoes from Nike after his car crash in 2021.)How much of a role design will play in that apparel was not entirely clear, but Mr. Abeles said that “the design language of the products is completely different” from products Mr. Woods wore in his last sponsorship deal. Initial promotional images showed a new logo — a tiger with 15 stripes to mark the number of major championships Mr. Woods has won; a black, long-sleeve T-shirt with the brand’s name, Sun Day Red, on it; and its version of the red polo, which is on the bloodier end of the red spectrum and includes black buttons, suggesting attention to detail. (To be fair, there’s only so much anyone can do with a polo.)Mr. Woods’s affinity for red stems from his mother, who is from Thailand, where the color has significance.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    PGA Tour Raises $1.5 Billion From Group of U.S. Investors

    The move, which involves the Fenway Sports Group, raises questions about whether a deal to combine forces with Saudi Arabia’s sovereign fund is still necessary.The PGA Tour announced on Wednesday that it had reached a deal to raise at least $1.5 billion from a group of U.S. investors, a move that raises new questions about whether a proposed alliance with a rival tour backed by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund will come to fruition.The influx of money into the PGA Tour, which could end up being as much as $3 billion, is led by the Fenway Sports Group, the parent company of the Boston Red Sox and Liverpool Football Club. The tour is simultaneously negotiating a partnership with its well-funded competitor, LIV Golf.That deal, which was announced in June, was effectively an acknowledgment by the PGA Tour that it did not have enough money to compete with the hundreds of millions of dollars the Saudi fund was prepared to put in the sport. A number of prominent players had already left the PGA Tour for the LIV tour.The PGA Tour and the Saudi fund initially set a Dec. 31 deadline to work out details and conclude their alliance. That deadline has since been extended, and the partnership between the two tours has not yet been completed. The question now is whether the deal with U.S. investors changes the PGA Tour’s calculus.The tour’s commissioner, Jay Monahan, said Wednesday on a call with PGA Tour players before the official announcement that the tour “does remain in active and frequent dialogue” with representatives for the Saudi wealth fund. He added that the U.S. investors were “aware and supportive” of its negotiations with the fund, and that he was in Saudi Arabia a few weeks ago to conduct due diligence on the proposed alliance with executives supporting the U.S. investor group.The Saudi fund has made clear that it will continue to compete with the PGA Tour through LIV Golf if there is no alliance. In December, the Saudi-backed tour poached Jon Rahm, the world’s third-ranked player.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

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    Jack Burke Jr., Who Won 2 Major Golf Titles in a Season, Dies at 100

    A top professional in the postwar years, he won the Masters and the P.G.A. championships in 1956. At his death he was the oldest living champion of both.Jack Burke Jr., a top player on the P.G.A. tour in the postwar years who won two major golf championships in one season, then became a sought-after instructor to some of the game’s greatest stars, died on Friday in Houston. He was 100 and the oldest living winner of the Masters and P.G.A. championships.A representative of the Texas Sports Hall of Fame, which inducted him in 1978, confirmed the death.Burke’s banner year was 1956, when he won both the Masters and P.G.A. titles and was named the P.G.A.’s golfer of the year.His Masters victory surprised almost everyone.Only weeks earlier, having gone winless since the Inverness open in Ohio in 1953, Burke, who was 33, had announced that he was considering retiring. And going into the final round at Augusta National Golf Club, he was eight strokes behind the Masters leader, Ken Venturi, and had not drawn much attention.All eyes had been on Venturi, who at 24 was vying to become the first amateur to win the Masters. But as Venturi faltered, Burke crept up the leaderboard, passing eight players, and won by a stroke.He had received some meteorological help.“I had a downhill putt on the 17th hole that was lightning quick, and it was made even faster because the 40-mile-per-hour wind had blown sand out onto the green,” Burke told Golf Digest in 2004. “I just touched that putt, and I immediately thought, ‘Oh, no, I didn’t get it halfway there.’ Then the wind grabbed that thing and kept blowing it down the hill, until it plunked dead in the middle of the hole. It was a miracle — the best break of my career.”The golfer, and previous Masters winner, Carey Middlecoff helped Burke slip on the traditional green jacket after Burke’s 1956 victory. At right was Bobby Jones, the founder of the Masters.Associated PressThat June, Burke won the P.G.A. championship, defeating Ted Kroll, at the Blue Hill Country Club in Canton, Mass., in match-play format, which is based on holes won in a head-to-head contest and not the number of strokes on a scorecard.All told, Burke won 16 tournaments on the Professional Golfers’ Association of America tour, including four in four weeks in 1952.The son of a Houston golf club pro, Burke turned professional at 17 and joined the tour at 23, hailed as one of the most promising golfers of his generation.In 1949, Burke, by then living in Kiamesha Lake, N.Y., in Sullivan County, recorded his first professional win, in the Metropolitan Open, on his home course, the Metropolis Country Club, in White Plains, defeating the veteran Gene Sarazen. The victory came 24 years to the day after Burke’s father defeated Sarazen in a tournament, as Sarazen ruefully but good-naturedly pointed out to Jack Jr.In 1952, after his four straight tour victories and a second-place finish at the Masters, behind Sam Snead, Burke was profiled by Collier’s magazine as “Golf’s New Hot-Shot.” At 5-foot-9 and 170 pounds, he could hit 265 yards off the tee and was an excellent putter. His boyish good looks only added to his appeal.“His curly faintly auburn hair, blue eyes and occasional shy smile have made him the darling of the feminine links addicts,” the magazine wrote, identifying Burke as “one of golf’s most eligible bachelors.”In 1957 Burke joined his mentor, Jimmy Demaret, the first three-time Masters champion, in founding the Champions Golf Club in Houston. Demaret had been an assistant pro under Burke’s father since Jack Jr. was 10.Burke and Demaret instituted a membership policy — still in force — under which only golfers with a handicap of 14 or lower are admitted. “I liken us to Stanford University, or Yale or Harvard,” Burke told Golf Digest. “They don’t accept D students academically, and we don’t accept people with a D average in golf.”The club hosted the 1969 United States Open and the 2020 U.S. Women’s Open Championship, among other tournaments.Burke in 2004 at the Champions Golf Club in Houston. He founded the club in 1957 with his mentor Jimmy Demaret, a former golf champion.Darren Carroll/Getty ImagesBurke went on to earn distinction as a longtime instructor of Phil Mickelson, Hal Sutton, Steve Elkington and other professionals. In his 70s, Arnold Palmer dropped by for a lesson.Jack Nicklaus once said of Burke, “I can’t tell you how many times we were playing golf and he’d say, ‘Jack, how are you going to play from that position?’”John Joseph Burke Jr. was born on Jan. 29, 1923, in Fort Worth, the eldest of eight siblings, one of whom died young. He grew up in Houston, where his father, who had tied for second in the 1920 U.S. Open, was the pro at the River Oaks Country Club.Jack Jr. first played golf at age 6. At 12, he shot a 69 on a tough par-71 course. At 16, he qualified for the U.S. Open. But at 17, at the insistence of his mother, he entered Rice Institute (now Rice University) in Houston. He left before he completed his freshman year, however, and became the head pro at the Galveston Country Club.When World War II broke out, Burke joined the Marine Corps and taught combat conditioning, including judo. He joined the P.G.A. tour after the war (it officially became the PGA Tour in 1968), moved to New York State and also taught golf at clubs in New Jersey and New York City.He first gained wide attention in 1951, when he recorded two commanding victories in that year’s Ryder Cup competition. That led to his selection to four more Ryder Cup events in the 1950s, in which he compiled a 7-1 match record against his European competition. He was twice Ryder Cup captain, losing in 1957 and winning in 1973.In 1952, he won the Vardon Trophy, given to the tour leader in scoring average. (His was 70.54.) When Burke was 81, Hall Sutton, the 2004 United States Ryder Cup captain, named him an assistant captain.Burke was elected to the World Golf Hall of Fame in 2000. In 2003, he was voted the recipient of the PGA Tour’s Lifetime Achievement Award and the United States Golf Association’s Bob Jones Award. In 2007, he received the P.G.A. Distinguished Service Award.Burke married Ielene Lang in 1952. She died in the mid-1980s. He had turned 60 when he met Robin Moran, a freshman golfer at the University of Texas, in 1984 on the putting green at the Champions Golf Club, where her father had sent her for a golf lesson, according to the P.G.A. historian Bob Denney. The couple married in 1987. She was a finalist in the 1997 United States women’s amateur championship and was also inducted into the Texas Golf Hall of Fame. She survives him.Burke had a daughter with his second wife and five children with his first, including a son, John J. Burke III, who died in 2017. Complete information on his survivors was not immediately available.Burke joined elite company by winning two majors in a single season, but by his own choice he would never have a shot at a grand slam, as it is understood today, by winning all four, either in a single season or in a career. He missed the cut at the 1956 U.S. Open, at Oak Hill Country Club, outside Rochester, and he never played in the British Open.Frank Litsky, a longtime Times sportswriter, died in 2018. William McDonald and Sofia Poznansky contributed reporting. More

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    At the Hero Dubai Desert Classic, Rory McIlroy and Patrick Reed Provide Drama

    Last year’s event had a classic battle between Rory McIlroy and Patrick Reed, players on opposite sides of the LIV Golf debate.Rory McIlroy and Patrick Reed have a long history of dueling when it matters most. The rivalry has produced some epic golf matches, the most surprising of which may have been last year’s Hero Dubai Desert Classic, being played again starting on Thursday on the DP World Tour in the United Arab Emirates.At the 2016 Ryder Cup, held at Hazeltine National Golf Club in Minnesota, McIlroy and Reed were also pitted against each other on the final day of singles matches.The pair traded incredible shots on the front nine, but it was the interplay between them — finger wagging, shushing, cupping ears to rile up the crowd — that many remember. But in a sign of sportsmanship, the two fist-bumped walking off one green. Reed won the match on the 18th hole.Two years later at the Masters Tournament, it was Reed and McIlroy battling again. It’s the one major that McIlroy still needs to win to complete the career grand slam. (He has won the United States Open, the British Open and, twice, the P.G.A. Championship.)Reed had led the tournament since the halfway mark, and in the final round McIlroy was three shots back. Reed won by one shot, six ahead of McIlroy.Their rivalry had highly anticipated showdowns that were fierce and competitive.Then came LIV Golf, and the sport splintered into two rival groups: the ones who went to the Saudi Arabia-backed league and those who stayed loyal to the established professional golf tours, the PGA and DP World Tours.McIlroy became a player spokesman for the PGA Tour, while Reed went to LIV and became part of the 4Aces GC, a team captained by Dustin Johnson.Reed also began suing players and commentators on the PGA Tour who were critical of his decision to leave. In McIlroy’s case, he received a subpoena on Christmas Eve 2022 when he was at home with his family.At last year’s Hero Dubai Desert Classic, McIlroy wasn’t interested in chatting with Reed on the practice range. (Reed flicked a tee at McIlroy after Reed said McIlroy refused to acknowledge him on the driving range.)What was surprising was the intensity of the tournament, which came down to a duel between Reed and McIlroy.Reed’s decision to join LIV Golf made for some tense moments during last year’s Hero Dubai Desert Classic.Luke Walker/Getty ImagesLike its counterpart, the Sentry on the PGA Tour, the Hero is usually a collegial entry into the DP World Tour’s season. Dubai has created a family resort around the courses.As the week advanced, McIlroy and Reed were circling each other in the tournament, and it was clear that the competition had taken on a bigger significance for McIlroy than a regular victory.McIlroy had become the leading PGA Tour player voicing his anger against the players who had gone to LIV. In addition to Reed, McIlroy clashed with Greg Norman, the former world No. 1 who is LIV’s chief executive.“I think Greg needs to go,” McIlroy said before the Hero. “I think he just needs to exit stage left.”After the first three rounds of last year’s Hero, it looked like McIlroy was going to coast to victory. In the fourth round, with a four shot deficit, Reed got off to a hot start. At one point on the back nine he was briefly in the lead. McIlroy drew even after a birdie on the 17th hole.Stepping up to the tee of the 18th hole, McIlroy needed a birdie to win. Hitting his third shot close, he watched the ball roll into the hole before letting out a roar. Reed had mounted a final round charge, but finished one behind McIlroy.“Mentally, today was probably one of the toughest rounds I have ever had to play because it would be really easy to let your emotions get in the way,” McIlroy said at a news conference. “I just had to really focus on myself and forget who was up there on the leaderboard.”He added: “This is probably sweeter than it should be.”Rory McIlroy, left, and Patrick Reed established a rivalry during the 2016 Ryder Cup when the two played against each other on the final day of singles matches.Andrew Redington/Getty ImagesThe victory had the heightened feel of their Ryder Cup duel. While LIV golfers had been stripped of their PGA Tour membership for joining the rival league, they were allowed to play while a court in England mulled whether the DP World Tour could ban them.A year later, McIlroy is striking a different tone about LIV and its defectors. The shift came after his Ryder Cup teammate Jon Rahm joined LIV Golf at the end of 2023.“Ultimately, you can say what you want and do what you want, but at the end of the day you’re not going to be able to change peoples’ minds,” McIlroy said on the “Stick to Football” podcast earlier this month. He continued, “I wouldn’t say I’ve lost the fight against LIV, but I’ve just accepted the fact that this is part of our sport now.”He said that he was concerned about what the continued division in professional golf would mean for the sport and that he hoped Rahm would still be able to compete in the Ryder Cup. He added that he had been too judgmental of the men leaving to go to LIV.“At the end of the day, we’re professional golfers and we play to make a living and make money, so I understand it,” he said. “But I think it’s just created this division that will hopefully stop soon.”McIlroy’s manager, Sean O’Flaherty, said McIlroy was preparing for the Hero and did not have anything additional to add beyond what he said on the podcast. Reed declined to comment through his LIV representatives.Reed won the Masters Tournament in 2018.David Cannon/Getty ImagesWhile one tournament does not dictate the tenor of a season, what made last year’s Hero interesting to watch was the battle between McIlroy and Reed coming down to the final hole. McIlroy is worried that such competitive battles will become rarer — confined to the majors — and hurt interest in the regular tour stops that rely on big names to draw fans.With many stars and fan favorites gone to LIV, there is less opportunity outside of the four majors for top players to compete. LIV, on the other hand, guarantees that its 48 players will be at every event.“I think what LIV and the Saudis have exposed is that you’re asking for millions of dollars to sponsor these events, and you’re not able to guarantee to the sponsors that the players are going to show up,” McIlroy said on the podcast. “I can’t believe the PGA Tour has done so well for so long.”Others agree. “I think if golf isn’t careful you get to the point where people say, I’m not that fired up to watch the Phoenix Open because Phil Mickelson, Brooks Koepka, Bryson DeChambeau and Rahm are not there,” said Hughes Norton, the agent who negotiated Tiger Wood’s first deal with Nike and the author of the coming book, “Rainmaker: Superagent Hughes Norton and the Money-Grab Explosion of Golf From Tiger to LIV and Beyond.”Already, longtime sponsors, including Honda and Wells Fargo, have pulled out of PGA Tour tournaments. And other sponsors are questioning the increased costs if their tournament is one of the eight signature events, which offer higher purses and guarantee that more elite players attend, but at a cost of an additional $7 million on top of the $13 million sponsor fee, Norton said.“Maybe Wells Fargo said there are six big names who used to come to our events and now they’re not there,” he said. “Sponsors are restless now.”If that’s the case, the sport needs more battles like last year’s Hero showdown. More

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    Hero Dubai Desert Classic: Players to Watch

    Here are five golfers to keep an eye on at this first Rolex Series tournament of the year.The DP World Tour’s Hero Dubai Desert Classic, which begins on Thursday at the Emirates Golf Club in the United Arab Emirates, has delivered big-name champions over the past 35 years, including Tiger Woods, Seve Ballesteros, Ernie Els, Fred Couples, Colin Montgomerie, Sergio Garcia and Rory McIlroy.Will another marquee player walk off with the trophy this time around? Or will someone less heralded emerge from the pack to make an early statement in 2024?Here are five noteworthy golfers:Brian Harman of the United States plays his shot from the 17th tee during the first round of the Hero World Challenge at Albany Golf Course last November in Nassau.Mike Ehrmann/Getty ImagesBrian HarmanWe’ll find out in the coming months whether Harman’s surprising victory in last year’s British Open, winning by six strokes at Royal Liverpool, was a fluke or if he’s able to prove that he truly is one of the game’s top players.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More