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      European Tour May Punish LIV Golfers, Arbitrators Rule

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      The decision by a panel in London was an early test for the Saudi Arabia-backed circuit, which is also facing legal battles in the United States.AUGUSTA, Ga. — Golf’s European tour may punish players who defected to the rival Saudi-financed LIV Golf series, an arbitration panel in London ruled in a decision released on Thursday, the first day of the Masters Tournament.With litigation in the United States possibly years from a conclusion, the panel’s decision about the European series, the DP World Tour, was the subject of immense anticipation and anxiety among players and executives. All sides saw it as a crucial test of whether long-established tours could easily discipline players who joined LIV, the league bankrolled with billions of dollars from Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund.The ruling in Europe will have no effect on the Masters, where 18 LIV players are in the field. But it was a blow to a rebel league that had hoped the days of tournament play would deliver a springboard to greater credibility, not renewed discussion about its appeal and risk to big-name pros.The decision is also likely to shape the European roster for the Ryder Cup, the wildly popular U.S.-vs.-Europe competition that will be held in Italy this fall. To be eligible for the European team, players must be members of the DP World Tour.The case before the arbitrators in London involved a narrow issue: the conflicting events policy of the DP World Tour, formerly known as the European Tour, which bars players from participating in certain tournaments without approval. In their ruling, announced after a five-day hearing in February, the arbitrators concluded that rebel players had committed “serious breaches” of the tour’s rules.The arbitrators found that the violations “increased the likelihood that commercial partners would be tempted to terminate or limit relationships with the tour.” Citing “the scale and importance of the potential harm” to the tour, the panel said that Keith Pelley, the tour’s chief executive, had “acted entirely reasonably” when he turned down the players’ requests to appear at LIV events.In a statement hours before the start of the Masters, Pelley embraced the ruling.“We are delighted that the panel recognized we have a responsibility to our full membership to do this and also determined that the process we followed was fair and proportionate,” Pelley said.LIV did not immediately comment on the decision.Even though the case dealt only with a specific tour policy, many sports lawyers predicted that its outcome could shape ambitions to create alternatives to marquee leagues, tours and federations. A victory for the tour, that thinking went, would lend fresh support to the kinds of rules leading sports organizers have created to protect their television rights agreements and market power. A ruling for the players might have encouraged athletes — and not just in golf — to weigh more seriously overtures from start-up leagues and competitions offering richer paydays.The subject has bubbled up repeatedly in recent years, with particularly fraught cases involving soccer, speedskating and swimming, and could become more common as athletes assert greater autonomy and as wealthy Persian Gulf states look to invest more heavily in sports. The women’s golf world, for example, has been rife with speculation that Saudi Arabia will eventually underwrite a women’s league similar to LIV, a competition that has fractured the men’s game.That split became conspicuous last June at a course near London, when longtime tour players like Ian Poulter, Charl Schwartzel and Lee Westwood appeared at LIV’s first event. The tournament offered early glimpses at just how much money golfers stood to make if they shunned traditional tours in favor of the Saudi-backed circuit: Schwartzel won $4.75 million at the three-day event, thanks to his individual and team performances. He had earned close to 17.7 million euros, or more than $19 million, over his tour career, where his first win was in 2004.Tour officials, wary of allowing individual golfers to undercut their multimillion-dollar television contracts and sponsorship arrangements, responded with suspensions and fines. Poulter, though, was among the players who won a stay of the punishments, pending the arbitrators’ ruling. This week’s decision ultimately covered 12 players — four others had abandoned their appeals — who competed in the LIV event in Britain or a subsequent one in the United States, a group that included Poulter, Westwood, Martin Kaymer, Graeme McDowell and Patrick Reed. Schwartzel and Sergio García were two of the players who had withdrawn from the case.García, Reed and Schwartzel, all of whom are past Masters winners, are among the LIV players competing this week in Augusta.LIV’s skeptics routinely see the circuit, with its 54-hole, no-cut tournaments, as promoting a diluted version of golf and as a way for Saudi Arabia to put distance between itself and its human rights record. LIV executives insist they are only trying to electrify and repopularize a sport they judge stagnant, and the league’s players, many of whom signed contracts that guaranteed them tens of millions of dollars, see themselves as independent contractors who should be free to compete when and where they choose.“There is no difference whether I’m on the PGA Tour or on LIV: I’ve always played two tours,” Reed said in a January interview at a DP World Tour event in Dubai, where he was wearing a LIV hat on a driving range. “So all these guys saying that you can’t basically double-dip, you can’t — What’s that cake phrase they love to use? Make your own cake and eat it, or something like that? — well, Rory, myself, all these guys have played on multiple tours.” (Rory McIlroy, a star of the PGA Tour and DP World Tour, has been among the most outspoken opponents of LIV.)In their decision, the arbitrators said pointedly that the independent contractor argument was “overplayed.”“Individual players have to accept some limitation on their freedoms inherent in tour membership,” the panel said. No player, the arbitrators noted, “suggested that he had given up his independence by signing up to onerous (albeit remunerative) obligations to LIV.”The tour, the arbitrators ruled, had not broken laws governing competition or the restraint of trade.“It is no part of competition law to require incumbents to offer no resistance — they are entitled to react and retaliate, even if dominant,” the panel added.The ruling by the arbitrators is unlikely to have a direct effect on the legal battles in the United States, where LIV and the PGA Tour are mired in bitter and expanding litigation. The American dispute will not go to trial before next year.The British newspaper The Times had reported on Tuesday that the arbitrators had ruled in the DP World Tour’s favor, triggering a wave of chatter around Augusta National’s grounds. With the text of the ruling then still unreleased, McIlroy largely deferred comment but said, “If that is the outcome, then that certainly changes the dynamic of everything.”If LIV players resign from the tour, their prospects of making the Ryder Cup team will vanish under the eligibility rules. Sticking around might not guarantee a place on the roster, either.“I can only do what I can do, and that is to play the tournaments I can play, try to play them the best way possible, and then everything else is out of my hands,” García said on Tuesday. “So the decisions if we can get picked or will get picked or anything like that, it’s not going to come down to me.”Instead, he said, his Ryder Cup fate could be settled by whether the European captain, Luke Donald, “thinks that I’m good enough. We’ll see.” More

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      A New Twist for the Tradition-Bound Masters: The LIV Golf Era

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      LIV, Saudi Arabia’s breakaway league, split men’s professional golf. Now, the drama is coming to one of the sport’s most hallowed stages.AUGUSTA, Ga. — The mystery started in earnest last spring and lasted until autumn’s twilight. But Phil Mickelson — among the most famous frontmen for LIV Golf, the league bankrolled by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund — insists that he believed he would be allowed to play the 2023 Masters Tournament, which opens Thursday.Never mind any discomfort, or how on-course rivalries had transformed into long-distance furies tinged by politics, power, pride and money. No, Mickelson reasoned, tradition would prevail at Augusta National Golf Club, surely among sports’ safest wagers.“The history of this tournament, the history of the majors, is about bringing the best players together, and it really needs to rise above any type of golf ecosystem disruption,” Mickelson, a three-time Masters winner, said in an interview last month.“I wasn’t really worried,” said Mickelson, who spent the 2022 Masters in a self-imposed sporting exile after he effectively downplayed Saudi Arabia’s human rights abuses. But, he allowed, “there was talk” of exclusion from one of golf’s most revered events.Augusta National extinguished the talk on Dec. 20: If a golfer qualified for the Masters through one of its familiar pathways, like being a past champion, his 2023 invitation would be in the mail.The club’s choice will infuse its grounds through at least Sunday, when the tournament is scheduled to conclude, weather permitting. All of the customary narratives that surround a major tournament are bubbling: Will Scottie Scheffler become the first repeat winner in more than two decades? Might Rory McIlroy finally complete the career Grand Slam? Can Jon Rahm regain his dominant winter form? And, as ever, what will Tiger Woods do?But an undercurrent of ambition, curiosity and gentility-cloaked discord is present, too.Dustin Johnson, Mickelson and Harold Varner III, all LIV golf athletes, on the 18th green during a practice round on Tuesday.Doug Mills/The New York TimesFor LIV, the competition will be a breakthrough if one of its players dons the winner’s green jacket. For the PGA Tour, the Masters is an opportunity to showcase that its 72-hole approach to an ancient game is still king. And for Augusta National, the tournament is an opportunity to depict itself as skeptically above golf’s chaotic fray.“At the Champions Dinner, I would not have known that anything was going on in the world of professional golf other than the norm,” Fred S. Ridley, Augusta National’s chairman, said Wednesday, the day after the traditional gathering of past Masters winners.He added: “So I think, and I’m hopeful, that this week might get people thinking in a little bit different direction and things will change.”It was virtually certain that this week would not descend into open brawling, and it has not. Some players have complained about a news media hyperfocus on any potential tensions — and acknowledged that they, too, had wondered about the vibe and contemplated the stakes for their tours.Cameron Smith, at No. 6 the highest-ranked LIV player, said PGA Tour players had greeted him with hugs and handshakes. Asked what, exactly, he had anticipated, he replied: “I wasn’t really sure, to be honest.”He seemed more certain that LIV could use a strong showing on the leaderboards around Augusta National’s hallowed stage.“I think it’s just important for LIV guys to be up there because I think we need to be up there,” he said. “I think there’s a lot of chatter about these guys don’t play real golf; these guys don’t play real golf courses. For sure, I’ll be the first one to say the fields aren’t as strong. I’m the first one to say that, but we’ve still got a lot of guys up there that can play some really serious golf.”Cameron Smith, LIV’s highest-ranked player, said PGA Tour golfers had greeted him with hugs and handshakes.Doug Mills/The New York TimesMcIlroy, seemingly approaching sainthood in the eyes of PGA Tour executives for his steadfast defense of their circuit, said the Masters was “way bigger” than golf’s big spat and that he relished the opportunity to go up against 18 LIV players who are among the world’s finest golfers. Being around them again, he suggested, can build rapport, though he acknowledged restored proximity was not a guarantee of perpetual harmony.“It’s a very nuanced situation and there’s different dynamics,” McIlroy said. Referring to Brooks Koepka and Dustin Johnson, the LIV stars and major winners, he added: “You know, it’s OK to get on with Brooks and D.J. and maybe not get on with some other guys that went to LIV, right?”For its part, Augusta National, whose private membership roster is believed to include at least two former secretaries of state, has sought to tamp down theatrics.Groupings for Thursday and Friday are about the most anodyne possible, at least in the PGA Tour vs. LIV context. Woods and Bryson DeChambeau, who recently suggested that Woods had all but excommunicated him, will not have a reunion at the first tee. Fred Couples, a PGA Tour loyalist who called LIV’s Sergio Garcia a “clown” and Mickelson a “nutbag,” is scheduled to play alongside Russell Henley and Alex Noren. McIlroy is grouped with Sam Burns and Tom Kim.And Ridley said that Augusta National had not invited Greg Norman, the LIV commissioner, to the club, where the leaders of the PGA Tour and DP World Tour have held court in recent days.“The primary issue and the driver there is that I want the focus this week to be on the Masters competition,” Ridley said. He said he believed Norman had attended the tournament twice in the last decade, once as a radio commentator.Ridley also sidestepped a query about whether Augusta National had become complicit in “sportswashing” Saudi Arabia’s image.“I certainly have a general understanding of the term,” Ridley said. “I think, you know, it’s for others to decide exactly what that means. These were personal decisions of these players, which I, you know, at a high level, don’t necessarily agree with.”“I want the focus this week to be on the Masters competition,” Fred S. Ridley, Augusta National’s chairman, said.Doug Mills/The New York TimesWith tournament play scheduled to begin Thursday morning, the week’s emphasis is rapidly shifting toward the competition itself. The event’s American television broadcasters appear unlikely to dwell on off-course subjects unless they must.“We’re not going to put our heads in the sand,” said Sean McManus, the chairman of CBS Sports, which will broadcast the third and fourth rounds on Saturday and Sunday. “Having said that, unless it really affects the story that’s taking place on the golf course, we’re not going to go out of our way to cover it, and I’m not sure there’s anything that we could add to the story.”ESPN, which will air the tournament’s first two rounds, has suggested it is even less interested in golf’s geopolitical soap opera. Curtis Strange, the two-time U.S. Open champion who is now a commentator, said he didn’t “see us mentioning the Roman numerals at all.”“We have to give respect to the Masters Tournament,” he said. “The only way I could ever see anything coming up — and not even mentioning LIV — but some of these players haven’t played a lot of competitive golf. So how sharp can they be?”LIV golfers have said that they will be prepared for the rigors of the Masters, even though they have been playing 54-hole events, instead of 72, at courses that some doubt will have them ready for Augusta’s challenges.That dynamic will make this year’s tournament more of a proving ground than usual. But there is always next year: When Augusta National released its Masters entry criteria for 2024 on Wednesday, there were no changes that immediately threatened LIV players.Mickelson’s bet was still proving safe. More

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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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      The Masters Golf 2023: UK tee times, TV channel, live stream, betting odds for Augusta

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      THE countdown to the Masters is almost over as the famous Augusta tournament returns to our screens TOMORROW.And the world’s top golfers are ready to get in full swing as the first major tournament of the year commences.
      Scottie Scheffler holds the championship trophy after winning the 86th MastersCredit: Reuters
      The Masters betting: Get the best tips, odds, and betting offers ahead of the first major at Augusta
      Scottie Sheffler claimed the Green Jacket last year and pocketed a tidy $2.7 million.
      Tensions may be higher than ever after a contentious year for the sport. Since its formation last year, the rebel Saudi-backed LIV Golf League has continued to sign more players away from the classic PGA Tour.
      With the likes of past Masters champions Dustin Johnson and Phil Mickelson joining the lucrative LIV breakaway tour, the world of golf has seen significant controversy since the last Augusta tournament.
      Read More Golf
      But let’s hope all 88 players can leave it behind them as they take on the picturesque US course in hopes of getting their hands on the sport’s most iconic fashion statement – the Green Jacket.
      So what can we expect from the 87th Masters? Find out all you need to know.
      What date is The Masters 2022?

      The Masters starts TOMORROW – Thursday, April 6 and ends on Sunday, April 9, 2023.
      It will take place at Augusta National Golf Club in Georgia.
      The event consists of four day’s play, with the final one considered one of the biggest days in the golf season.

      What is the Masters groups and tee times?
      Below are all the groups and tee times (BST) for the first round of the Masters which takes place TOMORROW.
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      Tiger Woods gets underway mid-afternoon, whilst Rory McIlroy will have to wait a while before his ninth shot at completing a career grand slam by winning the Masters.
      Masters First Round tee off times:

      1pm – Kevin Na, Mike Weir
      1.12pm – Vijay Singh, Scott Stallings, Matthew McClean (a)
      1.24pm – Talor Gooch, Jason Kokrak, Sandy Lyle
      1.36pm – Fred Couples, Russell Henley, Alexander Noren
      1:48pm – Kevin Kisner, Adrian Meronk, Louis Oosthuizen
      2pm – Min-Woo Lee, Larry Mize, Harrison Crowe (a)
      2.12pm – Sergio Garcia, Kazuki Higa, Keith Mitchell
      2.24pm – Patrick Reed, Adam Svensson, Sahith Theegala
      2.36pm – Mackenzie Hughes, Shane Lowry, Thomas Pieters
      2.48pm – Seamus Power, Bubba Watson, Mateo Fernandez (a)
      3.06pm – Abraham Ancer, Keegan Bradley, Chris Kirk
      3.18pm – Viktor Hovland, Xander Schauffele, Tiger Woods
      3.30pm – Patrick Cantlay, Kurt Kitayama, Adam Scott
      3.42pm – Jon Rahm, Justin Thomas, Cameron Young
      3.54pm – Sung-Jae Im, Hideki Matsuyama, Cameron Smith
      4.06pm – Cameron Champ, Jose Maria Olazabal
      4.18pm – Taylor Moore, Charl Schwartzel, Aldrich Potgieter (a)
      4.30pm – Bryson DeChambeau, Francesco Molinari, J. T. Poston
      4.42pm – Bernhard Langer, Guillermo Mito Pereira, Ben Carr (a)
      4.54pm – Brooks Koepka, Danny Willett, Gary Woodland
      5.12pm – Kyoung-Hoon Lee, Sepp Straka, Harold Varner III
      5.24pm – Tom Hoge, Si-Woo Kim, Phil Mickelson
      5.36pm – Harris English, Ryan Fox, Billy Horschel
      5.48pm – Jason Day, Zach Johnson, Gordon Sargent (a)
      6pm – Brian Harman, Tyrrell Hatton, Joaquin Niemann
      6.12pm – Corey Conners, Dustin Johnson, Justin Rose
      6.24pm – Matthew Fitzpatrick, Collin Morikawa, Will Zalatoris
      6.36pm – Max Homa, Sam Bennett (a), Scottie Scheffler
      6.48pm – Sam Burns, Joo-Hyung Kim, Rory McIlroy
      7pm – Tony Finau, Tommy Fleetwood, Jordan Spieth

      Play is due to start at 2pm UK time on Friday and at 4pm on Saturday and Sunday.
      What TV channel and live stream is Masters 2023 on in the UK?

      All of the coverage from the 87th Masters will be shown live on Sky Sports Golf.
      Alternatively, you can keep up to date with all four days at Augusta by following SunSport’s live blog.
      Coverage starts from 2pm on Thursday, April 6.

      Sky Sports customers can live stream all the action through the NOW app – available to download for free on mobiles and tablets.
      What is the latest odds for the Masters 2023 winner?

      Scottie Scheffler – 5/1
      Rory Mcilroy – 5/1
      Jon Rahm – 15/2
      Jordan Spieth – 12/1
      Patrick Cantlay – 12/1
      Justin Thomas 14/1
      Tony Finau 16/1
      Dustin Johnson 18/1
      Xander Schauffele 18/1
      Cameron Smith 18/1

      *Odds courtesy of Betfair and are correct at the time of publication. 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