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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

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      LIV Players Excluded From World Golf Rankings For Now Or Forever?

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      The Official World Golf Ranking is a dividing line between LIV Golf and the sport’s establishment. Since the metric helps determine access to major tournaments, the argument is hardly academic.AUGUSTA, Ga. — Since he stepped into a tee box near London last June, Dustin Johnson has earned at least $36 million in prize money, the most of any golfer in the world.He has also seen his standing in the Official World Golf Ranking plunge, from No. 15 to No. 69.Less than three years after his Masters Tournament victory, Johnson is hardly playing poorly. But his collapse in the ranking — one he says he no longer bothers to monitor — is a calculable consequence of his choice to leave the PGA Tour for LIV Golf, the league bankrolled by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund that debuted last year.LIV has gleefully rocked men’s golf and reveled in challenging some of the old order. The circuit, though, is finding that its independent streak can go only so far, and it is seeking at least some favor and special dispensations from the industry’s most hidebound gatekeepers.Those allowances have not come yet. LIV asked to be included in the ranking system about nine months ago, but executives are still weighing its application, and players like Johnson are slipping in the formula-based standings since they are appearing in few, if any, events that award ranking points. In golf, ranking is not merely a matter of ego; for many players, it affects the values of sponsorship deals and serves as a crucial gateway for entry to major tournaments such as the Masters, which will begin Thursday at Augusta National Golf Club in Georgia.“They need to do something to figure it out because, obviously, we have great players playing over here, and we’re not getting any points for events, and we should be,” said Johnson, who plays on the LIV circuit with the past major champions Brooks Koepka, Phil Mickelson and Cameron Smith, who, at No. 6, is the highest-ranked LIV player.“They just need to figure out a system that’s fair for everyone,” Johnson, who spent 135 weeks at the No. 1, said in an interview last month, when he figured his play these days warranted a position around No. 5.A potential affiliation between LIV and the O.W.G.R., which a handful of elite tours and governing bodies control, is being debated privately. But whenever a resolution comes, its ripple effects could shape LIV’s allure to players and the majesty of the Masters and the other major men’s tournaments: the British Open, the P.G.A. Championship and the U.S. Open.LIV and its supporters contend that if the league’s players are routinely excluded from major tournaments because of a spat over rankings, the reputations of golf’s pre-eminent tests will erode and, in turn, public interest in the competitions will fade. The Saudi league’s critics, though, are skeptical that LIV’s 54-hole, no-cut tournaments should be readily compared to the 72-hole events that are commonplace on established circuits like the PGA Tour.Players earn ranking points each time they compete in eligible events over a rolling two-year period. So as the months have progressed and LIV golfers have appeared in fewer sanctioned competitions, their banked points have declined, and they have slid down the list.Bryson DeChambeau, the 2020 U.S. Open winner, arrived at last year’s Masters at No. 19. He has fallen to No. 155. Koepka, a four-time major tournament winner who prevailed at LIV’s event in Florida over the weekend, missed the Masters cut last spring but was No. 16 afterward. A former world No. 1, Koepka is now No. 118. Patrick Reed, the 2018 Masters champion, played Augusta last year ranked 31st; he now stands at No. 70.“I think a lot of people are against them having world ranking points,” Jon Rahm, the current third-ranked player and an occasionally fearsome critic of the formula, said late last year. “I’m not necessarily against it, but there should be adjustments,” maybe, he suggested, by prorating the available points for 54-hole events.“I think a lot of people are against them having world ranking points,” Jon Rahm said about LIV’s players.Mark Baker/Associated PressBut Rahm, a PGA Tour star, added of LIV: “They do have some incredible players. To say that Dustin wasn’t one of the best players this year would be a mistake.”Bickering over golf rankings is not quite as old as the sport itself, but it hardly started with LIV’s founding.The system that became the O.W.G.R. debuted in 1986 as the Sony Ranking. Ostensibly created to sort the planet’s best golfers — the PGA Tour money list had been regarded as the most sensible measure of a player’s fortunes — the ranking was initially seen in some quarters as a glossy way for a powerful agent to elevate the profiles of his firm’s clients. There was even a derisive nickname for the system: the “Phony Ranking.”.css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve em{font-style:italic;}.css-1hvpcve strong{font-weight:bold;}.css-1hvpcve a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}What we consider before using anonymous sources. Do the sources know the information? What’s their motivation for telling us? Have they proved reliable in the past? Can we corroborate the information? Even with these questions satisfied, The Times uses anonymous sources as a last resort. The reporter and at least one editor know the identity of the source.Learn more about our process.Views eventually softened, and now there is little mistaking the ranking’s widespread, if sometimes begrudging, acceptance, or its links to the golf establishment. Its governing board includes the leaders of the P.G.A. of America, the R&A, the U.S. Golf Association and some of the world’s most elite tours.The O.W.G.R. has said almost nothing publicly about LIV’s application. By the end of last year, though, the ranking’s technical committee had completed a review of LIV’s application, according to three people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the confidential process. The milestone shifted the application to another committee, this one including representatives of the major tournaments, to render a verdict.The technical committee concluded that the new circuit easily cleared some of the standards for inclusion, such as sponsorship from a tour that may propose new members (in this case, the Asian Tour) and a commitment to abide by golf’s playing rules. But the panel, according to people involved in the process, flagged what some members regarded as serious shortcomings in LIV’s model, which some thought made it a “closed shop.”Officials fretted over the absence of an open qualifying school — tournaments that can allow players to join a circuit — before the start of LIV seasons, although league officials have argued that their “promotions” event suffices. And beyond the 54-hole nature of LIV tournaments, there were widespread worries about the league’s reliance on 48-player fields, which are far smaller than typical for professional circuits, and concerns that LIV golfers’ ownership stakes around the league could affect performances. Even now, skeptics note, LIV has not been around long enough to participate in the system.But LIV executives and players have focused on a particular lifeline: that the ranking’s most senior leaders have absolute discretion over admissions, including the authority to set aside any eligibility guideline.The major tournaments that use the rankings as an entry method have similar powers and are not obligated to employ the formula in the future, but no organizer has even hinted at plans to abandon the ranking. Unless Augusta National, for instance, alters its protocol, many of the 18 LIV players in the Masters field this year could be left out as soon as 2024.A handful face far less risk. In Augusta, many golfers and executives anticipate that past Masters winners will maintain their traditional lifetime privileges to play the tournament. But less renowned LIV players know that this turn at Augusta National could be their last — unless, for example, they finish in the top 12 this year.“It amps up the pressure,” said Harold Varner III, who made his Masters debut last year but said he had accepted the possibility of being left out of future major fields. (“My goal over all through all of this was, what was best for golf — and getting paid,” he said.)“It amps up the pressure,” Harold Varner III said of potentially being excluded from future major tournaments.Doug Mills/The New York TimesEven players who have proven capable of winning majors have confessed to fears that they could eventually be left out of some of golf’s most venerated events.“Augusta is one of the places where you want to play every year,” said Smith, who, if the rules remain unchanged, will qualify for the Masters through at least 2027 by virtue of his British Open win last July but currently has no guarantees beyond that. “Until these rankings get sorted, it’s definitely going to be in the back of my mind for sure.”He has, though, often resisted the urge to lash out in personal terms, even as his ambitions of reaching No. 1 have darkened for now.“I made my bed, and I’m happy to sleep in it,” Smith, who was reportedly promised at least $100 million in guaranteed money if he joined LIV, said recently on an Arizona patio. “But at the same time, I think there’s an argument for coming to a golf tournament and knowing who you have to beat.”If Smith, or one of his LIV colleagues, wins at Augusta in the coming days, his ranking will surely soar. The Masters, after all, is an eligible tournament. More

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      2023 Masters: Fred Couples Talks About Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy

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      Jordan Spieth is looking for his first major victory since 2017, and the weather forecast for the Masters Tournament is becoming less encouraging.AUGUSTA, Ga. — One of the pleasures of the Masters Tournament can be finding Fred Couples, the 1992 winner, in an expansive mood.And so it was on a particularly brisk Monday, after he had played part of the course with Tom Kim, Rory McIlroy and Tiger Woods. Few players have had as many close looks at Woods in recent years: The men routinely play practice rounds together, with Couples filling a role approximating that of court jester. And even if his analyses sometimes prove off the mark, they can be telling glimpses of Woods’s potential.“He’s strong enough to hit it a mile,” Couples said of Woods. “He’s not hitting it as far as Rory — I don’t think many people are — but he’s hitting it really strong and solid, and he looks good.”Woods has played only four rounds of tournament golf this year, logging an average driving distance of 306.3 yards, about 20 yards behind McIlroy. But the challenge for Woods, as ever these days after the car wreck that nearly cost him a leg in February 2021, is walking 72 holes over four days of competition. Asked Monday whether Woods was moving differently from the way he had around this time last year, Couples replied, “Probably not.”“The leg — I guess this is what it is,” he continued. “I don’t know how much better it’s ever going to get.”Woods and Couples talk as they walk along the 14th fairway.Doug Mills/The New York TimesBut Couples did not talk exclusively about Woods. In McIlroy, who is seeking a victory at Augusta to complete a career Grand Slam, he sees a player with all of the potential in the world to capture a green jacket.“Is it surprising he’s never won this?” he said. “Of course it is, the way he plays and the way he putts and how high he hits it and how far he hits it. But it’s not that easy.”And not long after he had drawn headlines for bashing LIV players — Phil Mickelson was a “nut bag” and Sergio García a “clown” — Couples said he had merely wanted them to avoid criticizing the PGA Tour.“They don’t bother me,” he said. “They really don’t. They’re golfers. I’m a golfer. I respect them all. On my show, I’ve told everyone Sergio is one of the top 10 players I’ve ever seen hit a ball, but if he’s going to make comments about the tour that I play, I’m going to make a comment back — and if it’s offensive, I apologize, but they’re on another tour. Go play and have a good time.”Jabs aside, he was not bothered by their invitations to the Masters: “I think they deserve to be here.”— Blinder‘It’s definitely not going to be on any nutritionist’s plan.’Scottie Scheffler, the defending Masters champion and the world No. 1.Doug Mills/The New York TimesNearly all of the living Masters winners (as well as Fred S. Ridley, Augusta National’s chairman) are expected to convene Tuesday evening for their annual dinner. Scottie Scheffler, the reigning champion, picked the menu and will pick up the tab.The appetizers include cheeseburger sliders and firecracker shrimp. A tortilla soup will be on offer, and guests can pick between a Texas rib-eye steak — Scheffler, after all, is essentially a product of Dallas — and blackened redfish. Side items include macaroni and cheese, jalapeño creamed corn and brussels sprouts, and the dessert will be chocolate-chip skillet cookies topped with milk-and-cookies ice cream.The menu’s development began with a conversation among Scheffler; his wife, Meredith; and Blake Smith, his agent. The trio kicked around Scheffler’s favorite foods and narrowed the list before consulting with an Augusta National chef to nail down the menu.“It’s definitely not going to be on any nutritionist’s plan,” Scheffler said last month. “But we’re going to have fun. We’re going to eat some good food.”The menu should appeal to plenty of former winners, a traditional bunch that has sometimes been alarmed by selections like haggis (Sandy Lyle) and kidney pie (Nick Faldo). Some were skeptical in 2001, when they arrived to a Vijay Singh-commissioned menu of Thai delicacies.“I’m sure Charlie Coody didn’t try anything,” Tommy Aaron, the 1973 winner, recalled of the 1971 victor. “I had never had Thai food, and it was fantastic.”But the dinners, Aaron said a few years ago, always feature one practice: “They pour that wine like it’s going out of style.”— BlinderEvery day is like Sunday.Jordan Spieth, a PGA Tour golfer who won the Masters in 2015.Doug Mills/The New York TimesFirst-time visitors at the Masters tournament are always obvious. For starters, they tend to walk slowly with their eyes wide. As famed as Augusta National Golf Club is, to a newcomer parading around the grounds, the landscape is a bevy of surprises that no television broadcast — however technologically advanced and exhaustingly thorough — can grasp.For example, every Masters first-timer is stunned that the vertical drop from the 10th tee to the 10th green is a stunning, and difficult to traverse, 85 feet. It’s one of many discoveries. And as Jordan Spieth, the 2015 Masters champion, said on Monday, even veteran players know that there may be another revelation awaiting them each time they arrive at the site of the tournament.Players fret and worry that their games may not be ready for the exacting test that awaits.Taking note of a packed practice range on Monday, Spieth waved a hand toward the scene and said: “Have you ever seen this many people practicing this hard on a Monday? Typically, you take Monday off.”Annual tweaks to the course, like the substantial lengthening of the 13th hole this year, only add to the tension. As Spieth added: “You know, you’re just anxious. More anxious than nervous.”Asked if the mental preparation for the tee shot on the pivotal first hole tended to change considerably from Thursday’s welcoming opening round to Sunday’s tense final, Spieth shook his head side to side. “I don’t feel that it changes,” he answered.He continued: “It’s one of the only places it doesn’t change for me, regardless of the position I’m in. It feels like it’s a Sunday — a first tee shot in contention each day.”— PenningtonCameron Smith arrived with trepidation.Cameron Smith, a LIV golfer and the 2022 British Open champion.Andrew Redington/Getty ImagesIt’s not just golf fans and reporters who have been wondering how the stalwarts of the PGA Tour and the renegade LIV golfers would get along when having to mingle at the Masters tournament for the first time this week. Cameron Smith, who bolted for the Saudi-backed LIV circuit a month after winning last year’s British Open, conceded on Monday that he had approached the Augusta National Golf Club practice area with trepidation.“I really wasn’t sure what to expect walking onto the range, but it was good to see some familiar faces and a lot of smiles,” Smith said with a wide grin. “It was just a really nice experience.”But Smith, who is hardly known for pointed remarks, also insisted that the 18 LIV golfers in the 88-player 2023 Masters field were intent on having a visible presence at the top of the leaderboard when at the tournament’s conclusion. And, he said, the LIV cohort is aware of the shade that has been thrown its way by its one-time colleagues on the PGA Tour.“It’s just important for LIV guys to be up there, because I think we need to be up there,” Smith said on Monday. Referring to the occasional derisive comments directed at the LIV circuit by PGA Tour players, officials or members of the golf media, he added: “I think there’s a lot of chatter about how 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. But we’ve still got a lot of guys up there that can play some really serious golf.“I think we just need a good, strong finish.”Smith was also asked about whether the LIV golfers had discussed having a joint celebration on the 18th green if one of them were to win this year’s Masters, which was suggested recently by Greg Norman, the LIV Golf Commissioner.“There definitely hasn’t been a conversation with me — I definitely got left out of that one,” he said, laughing. “I guess we’ll see how the week unfolds. For sure, I’d love to see one of us guys get up to the top of the leaderboard and really give it a nice shot.”Lastly, Smith, whose world golf ranking has slipped to sixth from second at the end of the 2022, reiterated that he had no regrets about joining LIV Golf.“I’ve made my bed, and I’m very, very happy where I am,” he said.— PenningtonKeep an eye on the weather.There’s a good chance for rain at Augusta National on the weekend.Doug Mills/The New York TimesYes, it is early in the week. Yes, weather forecasts can change. But no, the outlook for this week is not great. The team assembling forecasts for Augusta National has pegged the chances of rain at 60 percent or higher on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.“Shower and thunderstorm chances increase Thursday afternoon as a weak frontal boundary approaches,” the tournament said in one of its official forecasts on Monday. “The front is expected to stall to the south Friday into Saturday with a northeast wind pushing much colder air into Georgia. Waves of upper-level energy moving along the front are forecast to produce periods of rain that could be heavy at times through Sunday.”All of that scientific speak could make this Masters a delight for Rory McIlroy, who has sometimes thrived in abysmal weather at major tournaments, and a nightmare for the organizers.The Masters last had a Monday finish in 1983, when Seve Ballesteros won his second green jacket. That year, the second round — the Friday round — did not end until 8:30 a.m. on Sunday.But Augusta National is accustomed to dealing with poor weather more recently. If a round is upended in the coming days because of inclement conditions, this will be the fifth consecutive year in which tournament organizers have had to grapple so explicitly with meteorological misfortune.— Blinder More

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      Bubba Watson Knows People Are Mad. He Loves LIV Golf Anyway.

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      MARANA, Ariz. — A decade ago, Bubba Watson returned to Augusta National Golf Club as the Masters Tournament’s reigning winner. Back then, he seemed to be known as much as the champion who had cried as the one who had beaten Louis Oosthuizen in a playoff.He tied for 50th in 2013, and then he won another green jacket in 2014. Now, after leaving the PGA Tour last year for LIV Golf, the circuit bankrolled by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund to persistent questions about the kingdom’s intentions and its human rights record, Watson is the captain of the only LIV team that will have all four of its members competing this week in Augusta, Ga. Tournament play for the Masters, the year’s first men’s golf major, will begin on Thursday. It will be Watson’s first major since he played in last year’s P.G.A. Championship and then had knee surgery.In an interview last month near Tucson, Ariz., Watson, 44, reflected on Augusta National, the turbulence surrounding LIV and what he is expecting at Tuesday’s dinner for past Masters winners.This interview has been edited for length and clarity.There was no guarantee LIV players would be invited to play this year’s Masters. Did the possibility of exclusion weigh on you?It entered my mind because people asked questions. It never entered my mind like I thought they wouldn’t let past champions play. Their club is built on history, right? When you think about history, that’s one of the things they sell to the masses. They tell you past champions can play here until they call it quits. They honor the past, and so I thought for sure I was going to be able to play.Now, you start having doubts when you see stories and people are asking you more questions. But in my house, I thought for sure we’d be able to play.Have you played Augusta since your meniscus surgery?I was just there. What was interesting was No. 13, the new tee box. It’s amazing to me how they can make it look like it’s been there for 100 years. If you know 13, they had that stone wall, and they took it apart like a jigsaw puzzle and put it back together — they just moved it back.I was so focused on 13, I didn’t even think about 11: It’s been moved back, but shifted over. That helps me out tremendously being left-handed and wanting to cut the ball. I can swing for the fences, and the fairway’s a little bit wider.Thirteen, I thought was very hard. It was into the wind when I played it. I hit it around 310, and I still had 230, 231 to the flag. I played two rounds, and so I think I had 226 and 231, and I hit 3-iron and a 4-iron, so it was a real golf hole.Watson hits from the trap on the second hole during second round play at the Masters in 2019.Doug Mills/The New York TimesAugusta is one of golf’s tougher walks. How did your knee hold up?I’m 100 percent. There’s no swelling, there’s no pain. But if I play bad, I’ll say it was the knee.This will be your 15th Masters, and you’ve missed the cut just once. Beyond Augusta, you’ve played 42 major tournaments and missed 19 cuts. What is it about Augusta that works for you?As a kid, this is the one you always look at, this is the one you always see. You watch this course every single year, so no matter how old you are, it’s the same venue every time, so you get to practice and prepare. They don’t trick up the course with high rough, thin fairways; it’s just weather that’s really going to dictate how tough it is.Seeing it year after year, wanting to play there, knowing that I can hit hooks and cuts around trees, through trees because there’s not this crazy high rough. You can play out of the pine straw, you can play out of the semi-cut rough. It’s something that we know and we can hold in the back of our minds: miss it here, miss it over here. When you transfer courses year after year, you don’t ever have time to see that. That’s what makes the Masters the Masters. You’ve seen it for so many years. You know shots. You remember shots. Even if you’re not playing, you remember this, this, this and that.But does it being at the same place risk complacency?You can never rest easy with it. There’s something new every year. There’s conditions, there’s tee box changes, there’s adding a tree, taking away a tree. There’s always something going on there.But it doesn’t matter how old you are, how young you are. When you go down Magnolia Lane, you’re a kid in a candy shop. It’s like it’s the first time you’ve been there.When you get to No. 10, do you think about the playoff shot every time you’re there?It depends on who I’m playing with. People will ask, even when the tournament is going on. The caddies tell me that people still ask when amateurs come and play throughout the year. They still want to see where I hit the shot from because it’s fresh on people’s minds.Ted Scott, who was on your bag for your two victories, is now Scottie Scheffler’s caddie. How does someone like him help decipher Augusta when the pressure is greatest?He’s a great green-reader. He understands the game, but a great caddie is a great reliever of stress. It’s so hard to be on that leaderboard every week, but when you’re there, you’ve got to have a guy on the bag — and Teddy is that guy — who can relieve stress, who can make you focus on something else. Or he’s got to learn your system and what makes you tick and then he’s got to focus on that.Watson talked with his caddie Ted Scott on the ninth green during the Masters in 2020.Patrick Smith/Getty ImagesThe biggest key to a caddie is how you calm someone down. Bad moment, tough moment, pressure-packed moment, whatever that is, they’ve got to be able to calm you down and get you dialed back in to where you’re supposed to be. Green-reading is nice. Getting the yardages correct is nice and the wind is nice, but it’s really when you’re under pressure. If you’re like a Scottie Scheffler or one of these big-name players who are going to be there a lot, he’s got to be able to get you locked in and focused on the right things. That’s what Teddy does so well.When you won in 2014, a runner-up was a Masters rookie named Jordan Spieth. In two of the last three years, we’ve seen Masters rookies finish second. Is Fuzzy Zoeller’s 1979 victory-in-debut one of those things that people will get close to but not actually achieve again?It’s definitely going to happen. History is meant to be broken. You never thought Aaron Judge was going to do what he did, right?I think what holds some of the guys back — I know it holds me back — is thinking about where you’re at. Am I ready for this? And then you lose what got you there. You’re over a putt and thinking about winning instead of thinking about the putt, or you’re over a shot and you’re not thinking about the shot and you’re thinking about the big atmosphere that you’re in.The veteran golfers are like, “I’m not failing no more. I’m going to focus.”You first hosted the dinner for past champions a decade ago. What kind of vibe are you expecting at this year’s gathering?It’s great every year, and the celebration of Scottie is obviously about the Masters, but he’s been playing so well, winning all these tournaments, I think it will be a blast. And having new blood in the locker room, it’s always interesting. People will throw out stories.I think the vibe is going to be great. I’ve talked to Scottie a couple of times. I can’t wait.So you’re expecting a normal vibe at Augusta for the week?You said Champions Dinner!Let’s go more broadly: Do you expect a normal vibe at Augusta?No, and the reason why — the sad part — is we’ve got to get clicks, man. They’re going to ask tough, hard questions, questions that mean nothing about the Masters, and that’s the sad thing. We need to focus on the Masters.If you’re on that organization, I’m on this organization, we’re going to be friends. Like, I’m not upset with you. I love the PGA Tour. I think [Commissioner] Jay Monahan has done phenomenal. I chose a route that’s best for me and my family and more fun for me and my family. A team atmosphere is what I wanted to do.It’s the questions that I think will draw the cloud or the smoke. But in the Champions Locker Room, we’re all champions. We’re happy we get to go to that dinner every year. We’re all going to be wearing a green jacket.Phil Mickelson and Watson are both past Masters champions that left the PGA Tour to play for LIV Golf.Kevin C. Cox/Getty ImagesDid anyone tied to Augusta National pressure you not to join LIV?Not one person. I’ve talked to many members. They had plenty of opportunity to say stuff to me, and I think they just know that I’m a different seed.If there wasn’t a team element to LIV, would you be here?I would not be. This league has been thrown around for many years, and team is what we all strive to do. You have high school team, you have college team, and then pros, you’re on your own.Was there a moment in your career when you realized, “If there’s a team format I could play on regularly, I’d jump on that instantly?”You don’t think about it. But here’s the follow-up to this: As a kid, I never dreamed of the Olympics, and now I’m an Olympian. Things evolve, things change. In 2012, 2013, I never thought about a league with a team atmosphere.I asked former President Trump last year whether he had entertained any second thoughts about hosting LIV events given the noise surrounding the series and Saudi Arabia’s human rights record. Did you ever have any hesitations, any misgivings about joining LIV?Always.I prayerfully do every decision in my life, and we think about it. There are very few that I do right away. It was think about it and see what it’s like. My close friends, my close family, they know what I’m about. They know that I want to help.So, yeah, it was a hard decision because of the backlash. Is the backlash warranted? Maybe not to a certain level, but we all have questions and want to have answers. It was a tough decision, but at the end of the day, I’m so thankful I made that decision: more time with my family, more time with trying to grow a business — this is awesome, this is a fun thing — and then the three boys and the people around them and their caddies, I get to try to help them.You’ve said you don’t read the newspapers, don’t pay attention to what is said in the press. Do you hear people who are skeptical or critical of your choice?I try not to watch Golf Channel because of things said. They say things that are more negative than positive, and I want positive things in my life. But then Scottie Scheffler and Teddy get keeping on the leaderboard, so I’ve had to pull for them, right? We went to Bible study together! I have to watch it.“I prayerfully do every decision in my life,” Watson said.Ash Ponders for The New York TimesBut I try to get off of it. Going to the ESPN app and they’ll say stuff about golf and you want to click on it, but you just see the headline and the headline is like, “World is coming to an end in the game of golf.”You were in the spotlight for a long time on the PGA Tour. Does the spotlight on LIV feel different?Outside the U.S., LIV is loved. It’s a great atmosphere. Look at how many major champions there are, look at how many Masters champions, and people want to see us.In the U.S., it’s being blocked from negative press. Unfairly? 100 percent.Who is the best player in the world right now?Scottie Scheffler.Cameron Smith, Dustin Johnson, they’re definitely up there, don’t get me wrong. There are other guys in our league who are up there, but right now, Scottie Scheffler just keeps doing it.Anything else?The one that really upsets me — I’m going to talk to Jay Monahan, I still text with Jay Monahan — but the PNC, the parent-junior event. That’s the only thing: It’s a part of the tour but not really, so that’s the one thing, going back on this, I wish me and Caleb could play in it.Just give me one wish. That would be my wish.More than a third green jacket?I think I have a better chance of winning the green jacket right now than I do playing that. I’m in the field. I’m not in the other field.Watson with his son, Caleb, at the pro-am ahead of a LIV Golf event in Marana, Ariz. last month.Idris Erba/Liv Golf/LIVGO, via Associated Press More

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      2023 Masters: Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson Are Back

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      Players set out for official practice rounds ahead of the first men’s golf major of the year although more than a few have tested the course recently.AUGUSTA, Ga. — Augusta National Golf Club will be thick with spectators Monday, as one player after another sets out for official practice rounds before the Masters Tournament, the year’s first men’s golf major.But plenty of them have tested the course recently, making special jaunts to Georgia to size up the grounds in advance of the crowds, cameras and ropes — practice rounds for the practice rounds, if you will.They have the potential to inspire confidence: Rory McIlroy made the trek and played 54 holes, and in one round, he apparently recorded an otherworldly 19 putts across 18 holes.“Look,” he said recently, “I had two good days.”More critically, the rounds before the clamor give players chances to take the measure of changes to the course under less stressful conditions. The 13th hole, for instance, will play 35 yards longer this year, so Scottie Scheffler, the 2022 champion, has been sketching how his strategy might change.“I used to hit 3-wood there because I can sling hook a 3-wood,” Scheffler said last month. “I can’t sling hook a driver on purpose. The ball just doesn’t spin enough. I can do it on accident, but I can’t quite sling it on purpose because I like to fade my driver more off the tee, and so when it comes to that tee shot and hitting a hard hook with the driver, it’s not really a shot that I’ll try just because it’s not worth the risk for me.”Scottie Scheffler, the 2022 Masters champion, waited to greet winners of the Drive, Chip and Putt competition on Sunday.Doug Mills/The New York TimesScheffler, appearing far more comfortable than he usually is before reporters, went deeper into overthinking No. 13.“That hole was one where I’d hit the same shot I hit on 10,” he said. “The 3-wood, it has enough spin where the ball can actually stay in the air. With the driver, when I hook it, the ball doesn’t have enough spin to where it can stay in the air and hook that much. It kind of nose-dives. But the 3-wood, I can sit up there and it will just be like a boomerang. But that’s really the biggest change for me. Now I’ll just hit driver kind of out toward the corner and try and use more of the contouring to get the ball that way versus before.”And for players making their Masters debuts, the spins through Augusta National can be a chance to stamp out at least some jitters.“I got the bug out,” Tom Kim, the 20-year-old PGA Tour player, said. “Once I get there, I can kind of just play.”Not that the veterans shun practice. Tiger Woods, ahead of his 25th Masters, was around the course on Sunday afternoon, striking balls and practicing his putting. He has not played a tournament round since February, when he tied for 45th at the Genesis Invitational. But everyone knew that he was largely using Riviera Country Club as a laboratory to prepare for the Masters.He essentially said as much himself: “After this event, we’ll analyze it and see what we need to do to get ready for Augusta.” He finished 47th here last year.Remember Phil Mickelson? He’s back, too.Phil Mickelson at the second tee during a LIV Golf event at Orange County National last week.Reinhold Matay/USA Today Sports, via ReutersPhil Mickelson’s Masters hiatus lasted only a year.Mickelson, a three-time winner at Augusta National, skipped the 2022 competition amid the international uproar that began after he acknowledged Saudi Arabia’s “horrible record on human rights” but said he was open to aiding LIV Golf, its emerging league, because it could force the PGA Tour to change its economic structure.“They execute people over there for being gay,” he told the journalist Alan Shipnuck. “Knowing all of this, why would I even consider it? Because this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to reshape how the PGA Tour operates.”Mickelson soon after defected to LIV, which Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund bankrolls. He played in two major tournaments last year, missing the cuts at the U.S. Open and the British Open.Now, he will try his hand at the major course that has been more favorable to him than any other.“I don’t have any expectations,” he said in a brief interview last month in Arizona. “I’m grateful we get to play because we were told — or there was talk — a year ago that you might not be able to play the majors. And now we can play the Masters; we can play in all of the majors.”Pressed, though, on whether he is anticipating this week to carry the feel of the other Masters he has entered, he replied, “I do, yeah.”At the 2021 Masters, not long before his P.G.A. Championship victory made him the oldest major winner, he finished in a tie for 21st.From Winter Garden, Fla., to Augusta, Ga.Brooks Koepka won the LIV Golf Orlando event at Orange County National on Sunday.Doug Defelice/Liv Golf, via LIVGO, via Associated PressThe PGA Tour players who are most likely to contend at Augusta National were off last week, when the circuit spun through T.P.C. San Antonio for the Texas Open. LIV golfers had no such respite: They played a tournament in Winter Garden, Fla., near Orlando, over the weekend, when Brooks Koepka emerged as the class of the field.Whether the schedule will make a difference at the Masters is anyone’s guess, or simply in the eye of the beholder.Bubba Watson, who won at Augusta National in 2012 and 2014, said LIV’s calendar had thwarted the approach he had employed for years: arriving on Friday; attending the Augusta National Women’s Amateur on Saturday before practice on the driving range; and usually logging a round on Sunday afternoon.Ordinarily, he said, he avoided playing the week before a major so he could take a mental break before facing the challenges of elite competition. But maybe, he confessed, a pre-Masters tuneup would prove helpful: “Maybe I need to gear up for it and see where I need to work or where I don’t need to work.”Other LIV players insisted that their schedule was compatible with their customary preparations.Mickelson, for example, stuck with his custom of visiting Augusta for part of the week preceding the Masters. If anything, he said, LIV’s three-day format offered him the option of more practice time in Georgia.And take Dustin Johnson, a two-time major winner. He last played a tournament the week before the Masters in pandemic-disrupted 2020, when he tied for second at the Houston Open and then stormed into Augusta, posted the lowest score in Masters history and claimed his first green jacket. Although Orange County National Golf Center is hardly Augusta National — Johnson earned his PGA Tour card when he played a qualifying school event there in 2007 — he said that any competition is good to have before a Masters.“That’s really good preparation,” Johnson said in an interview. “Any time you’re playing going into a major, it’s always good to get some rounds under you.”Zhang wins the Augusta National Women’s Amateur.Rose Zhang after winning the Augusta National Women’s Amateur tournament in a playoff on Saturday.Doug Mills/The New York TimesHow breathtaking was Rose Zhang’s play across the first 36 holes of the Augusta National Women’s Amateur? She shot four over par in Saturday’s final round and still won the tournament.It was not easy — she had to outlast Jenny Bae, whose Saturday scorecard had her two under on the day, in a sudden-death playoff, as well as a weather delay — but a grip change during the round allowed Zhang to unlock her swing just in time.“When things matter the most and you have a big lead but the job’s not done, it definitely puts a lot of things into perspective,” Zhang, 19, said. “I tried to stay as composed as possible, but at the same time, I was a little tight the first couple holes. I just felt like my swing wasn’t comfortable, and I really just tried to stay in the moment. I figured out a little trigger point in my golf swing, and from then on, it was kind of smooth sailing, grinding from there.”Zhang had arrived for Saturday’s final round, played at Augusta National, with a formidable cushion built up during the competition’s first two days at nearby Champions Retreat. Her first-round score there, a six-under-par 66, was a tournament record. The new standard lasted until the end of Zhang’s second round, when she signed for a 65.“I really, really do love this golf course,” she said of Augusta National. “Sometimes, it’s just interesting that I never really get my A-game when I’m out here. When I was out at Champions, it felt so easy to me. Everything just came to me. I was making putts. I was hitting greens.”Zhang teed off on the 13th hole during the final round of play.Doug Mills/The New York TimesA single mistake at Augusta National, though, “is magnified,” she said.“I think that just being able to kind of get back on track, that was my biggest feat” on Saturday, Zhang said. “I was able to have the outcome that I wanted while staying in the moment.”With her victory at Augusta National, Zhang, a Stanford sophomore, has achieved what amounts to a career Grand Slam for women’s amateur golf; she had won the U.S. Women’s Amateur, the U.S. Girls’ Junior and an individual N.C.A.A. championship. Another Stanford golfer recorded a similar feat.You’ve probably heard of him, since his name is Tiger Woods.Wise withdraws: ‘I need to take some time away.’Aaron Wise, the PGA Tour’s 2018 rookie of the year, will miss this year’s Masters.Douglas P. Defelice/Getty ImagesAaron Wise, the PGA Tour’s 2018 rookie of the year, has withdrawn from this year’s Masters.“Golf is just as much a mental game as it is one of physical skill, and the mental piece of it has been a struggle for me recently,” Wise, 26, wrote in an Instagram story on Friday. “I don’t take the significance of playing at Augusta lightly, but know that I need to take some time away to focus on my mental health so I can get back to competing at a level I am proud of.”Wise has appeared in seven tour events so far in 2023, with his best finish a tie for 18th at the Tournament of Champions in January. Since then, he has missed four cuts and did not advance beyond his group at the match play event in Texas last month. He competed in one previous Masters, taking 17th place in 2019. More

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      LIV Golf Talks a Big Game to the Global Elite. Now Come the Majors.

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      Despite setbacks, LIV’s executives insist the Saudi-backed league is soaring. For many fans, the rhetoric is less important than results at events like the Masters Tournament.MIAMI BEACH — On Thursday afternoon, one week before the Masters Tournament, Greg Norman sat not at a golf course, but in a building populated that day by billionaires, royals and former prime ministers.He had a case to make: that LIV Golf, the insurgent circuit that he has built with a 10-figure pot of money from Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, has made itself into a muscular, undaunted rival to the PGA Tour.Norman might have been too sanguine at times — in court documents, LIV’s own lawyers said the league had been relegated to a “secondary” television network and that it had faced revenues of “virtually zero” — but it may matter only so much. For many casual fans, LIV’s legitimacy, if the league lasts, is most likely to be settled at places like Augusta National Golf Club, not at meetings of the global elite or in a thicket of antitrust case filings.LIV players have competed in major tournaments since their defections from the PGA Tour with varied results: Bryson DeChambeau and Dustin Johnson finished in the top 10 at last July’s British Open, where Brooks Koepka and Phil Mickelson missed the cut. This year, though, offers a more formidable test because it will be the first time some of the Saudi-backed league’s golfers will play the full cycle of the Masters, the P.G.A. Championship, the U.S. Open and the British Open, after months of reveling in a slimmer competition schedule.If one of the players can break through and claim a green jacket or a claret jug or one of golf’s other great prizes, LIV will have achieved its mightiest measure of vindication to date.A major championship would not solve LIV’s myriad troubles, including executive upheaval, exclusion from the Official World Golf Ranking and a product often drowned out by a PGA Tour loath to acknowledge that it has maybe taken a few recent cues from a new rival. Such a victory would certainly not extinguish the perception among critics that the league is tarnished by its association with Saudi Arabia.But it could enchant fans and encourage at least some of them to keep tabs on a league that has, so far, largely been marked by bravado. It could intensify the pressure on the organizers of the major tournaments to find ways to keep LIV golfers more easily in the qualifying mix, and it would curb the notion that 54-hole tournaments are no way to prepare for golf’s most pressurized tests.“Anytime you win the Masters or the Open, that’s usually a pretty big statement,” Koepka, who won two P.G.A. Championships and two U.S. Opens before he switched to LIV, said ahead of the circuit’s pre-Masters competition near Orlando, Fla. Even PGA Tour stalwarts have begrudgingly acknowledged that a LIV victory in a major, especially an early one like the Masters, would unleash a shower of athletic attention on a league that has frequently drawn more headlines for its finances.Cameron Smith, who won the 2022 British Open, may have the best chance of being LIV Golf’s first major winner.Mike Ehrmann/Getty ImagesThe league’s best chance may come in Cameron Smith, whose thrilling Sunday showing at last year’s British Open earned him his first major title less than two months before he moved to LIV. But Johnson, who won the 2020 Masters with the lowest score in the event’s history, lurks. LIV will have five other past Masters champions in Augusta and an array of past major winners, such as Koepka and DeChambeau, looking to prove that they can contend again.“At least for myself, it’s going to be business as usual going out and playing,” said Patrick Reed, who won the 2018 Masters. “Would I like to have LIV be up at the top? Of course. But really at the end of the day, it’s all of us going in there and just trying to play the best golf we can and be ready for the four biggest weeks of the year.”Mickelson, who has six major tournament victories over his long career, the most of any LIV golfer, recently shrugged off the chatter about whether the league’s players will be prepared as “tongue in cheek.” Johnson has done much the same.“Doesn’t make a bit of difference, no sir, not to me,” he said in an interview last month. “It’s golf. You play how many ever days you can.”The results will bear out whether that talking point has any staying power, the evidence available for anyone to evaluate. LIV may not require an outright victory at Augusta, where PGA Tour stars such as Scottie Scheffler, Rory McIlroy and Jon Rahm are arriving after months of generally excellent outings. But if the league’s players are well clear of the top of the leaderboard, the snickers will grow as much as some of the golfers’ bank accounts have.LIV executives and Saudi officials have known for years that for a league to prove viable, it would have to include the biggest names in golf. LIV has attracted some, but relevancy is fleeting, and the majors represent the league’s best opportunity to dazzle people into interest in a new product. But if players such as Smith and Johnson are unable to recreate their past magic sooner than later, the league’s prospects could diminish into a circuit of also-rans.Yasir al-Rumayyan, left, the governor of the Public Investment Fund in Saudi Arabia, with Majed Al Sorour, then the chief executive of Golf Saudi, and Norman at the Bedminster Invitational in Bedminster, N.J., in 2022.Seth Wenig/Associated PressNorman did not mention that possibility during his appearance on Thursday in Florida. Instead, he talked of administrative and operational “headwinds,” which he blamed on the PGA Tour, such as the challenge of securing vendors and sponsors.But Norman’s presence on the stage in Miami Beach was somewhat remarkable, following months of a lower profile after he provoked broad condemnations for statements that downplayed Saudi Arabia’s record of human rights abuses. (In perhaps the gravest conflagration, he appeared to diminish the gravity of the murder of the Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, saying, “Look, we’ve all made mistakes.”)Norman’s appearance on Thursday carried the imprimatur of Yasir al-Rumayyan, the wealth fund’s governor who took the stage hours before Norman declared that “our partnership and our investor is 100 percent sustainable — we are not going to go anywhere.”LIV’s star turn at the event in Florida could be seen as a vote of confidence in Norman, who has defied months of speculation that his ouster as LIV’s commissioner was imminent. It was also a signal that Saudi Arabia’s interest in global sports has not vanished amid plentiful turbulence, not least in an American court system that has dealt the kingdom a series of blows.Al-Rumayyan, who in addition to being LIV’s patron and the chairman of the English soccer team Newcastle United, said nothing in public about whether he intends to steer the wealth fund toward new sports investments. Before the audience of tastemakers and sought-after investors, though, Norman appeared to suggest that some in the Saudi orbit regard LIV much like a test drive.“We know as we look at our platform and our business model, that can be replicated in other sports as well,” said Norman, a three-time runner-up at Augusta National. “Our first proof point is proving out what we’re doing.”For the people who ultimately dictate a product’s significance — fans, not investors — the majors would be a good place to start. More

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      PGA Tour-LIV Golf Rivalry Could Make for a Tense Masters Dinner

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      Players from the competing tours will be shoulder to shoulder at the traditional Champions Dinner. Feelings about that are mixed.This might get awkward.Forget the menu of cheeseburgers, firecracker shrimp, rib-eyes and redfish. This year’s Masters Champions Dinner on Tuesday night will have PGA Tour players meeting face-to-face with six former colleagues who have defected to LIV Golf, the Saudi-financed league.The LIV golfers Phil Mickelson, Dustin Johnson, Bubba Watson, Patrick Reed, Sergio Garcia and Charl Schwartzel will be close together for drinks and dinner with Tiger Woods, Justin Thomas and Jordan Spieth, all outspoken critics of the former PGA players who left for LIV Golf.There have already been heated public exchanges between the players. And while some players downplay the interaction at the dinner, others say it’s impossible to ignore the rift.Scottie Scheffler, who won the Masters Tournament last year and is hosting the traditional event at which past Masters winners are invited, recently joked that Watson should have a separate table. Watson took the comment in stride.“Hey, as long as I’m at the Champions Dinner, I’m fine,” Watson said at a recent news conference. “I’ll sit wherever he tells me. It’s fine. As long as I’m allowed back, I’ll sit wherever he wants me to. I’ll sit outside and just stare in the window.”As the winner of last year’s Masters, Scottie Scheffler is allowed to choose the menu for the Champions Dinner.Doug Mills/The New York TimesScheffler later put the evening in perspective.“With Augusta National being such a special place and with the history of the game and whatnot,” he said. “I think we can put all our stuff aside and just get together for a fun meal, all in a room together and just kind of celebrate the game of golf and Augusta National and just hang out.”Johnson, the 2020 Masters champion, said recently that he didn’t expect any problems at the dinner.“I heard what was said about possible tension at the dinner, but there will not be any tension from me.” he said. “Besides, I still have a great relationship with all my fellow Masters champions,”The two-time winner José Olazábal of Spain told the golf writer Bernie McGuire that “if Bubba Watson asks me to pass the salt or whatever, I will be happy to pass him whatever Bubba or any other of the fellow Masters winners wish for.“Each one of us who sit down at the Champions Dinner are in the room that night as we have won at Augusta National and, as I said, I respect each and everyone in the room as they are fellow Masters winners, and also what they have achieved in their careers,” Olazábal said.Patrick Reed, who won the Masters in 2018 and now plays for LIV Golf, said the dinner should focus on Scheffler, not the ongoing drama.“The thing is, the Champions Dinner has nothing to do with myself or any other person in that room except for Scottie Scheffler,” Reed told Golf Digest. “That’s his dinner. My experiences during those dinners have been amazing. We’re always talking about past experiences at Augusta, how the other guys have won the [Masters], what obstacles they had to overcome, the shots they pulled off in their experiences.”The 1960 Masters Champions Dinner.Augusta NationalSergio Garcia, another LIV Golf player who won the Masters in 2017, said he didn’t expect any problems.“I’m going to feel fine,” Garcia said in March. “I don’t have any problems with anyone, and I try not to make a big deal out of it. I’m going to be there because I earned it, because I deserve it, and I’m going to enjoy it. I hope the rest of the guys do the same.”Tom Clavin, who wrote “One for the Ages: Jack Nicklaus and the 1986 Masters,” said in an interview that the dinner would be interesting because it mixes young LIV golfers with the elder statesmen.“It is fascinating that the Champions Dinner must be the first time since the schism that several of the prime players are breaking bread together,” Clavin said. “But there’s also the generational aspect. At other tourneys there is nothing like the presence of older players like at the Masters. Imagine [Ben] Crenshaw sitting next to a young LIV player, or [Jack] Nicklaus and Mickelson. Yet Masters tradition also demands civility. I would love to be a fly on that wall.”Phil Mickelson, second from left, is one of the former Masters winners who have joined LIV Golf.Chris Thelen/The Augusta Chronicle, via Associated PressAt a recent LIV event in Tucson, Ariz., Mickelson, the three-time Masters champion, did not address the dinner specifically, but spoke about reuniting with friends from the PGA Tour.“No expectations,” he said. “We are grateful to just be able to play and compete and be a part of it. A lot of the people there that are playing and competing in the Masters are friends for decades, and I’m looking forward to seeing them again.”During a news conference at the Genesis Invitational in Los Angeles in February, Tiger Woods was asked what his demeanor would be at the dinner and if the dinner would be uncomfortable.“That’s a great question because I don’t know because I haven’t been around them,” Woods said about the LIV Golf players. “I don’t know what that reaction’s going to be. I know that some of our friendships have certainly taken a different path, but we’ll see when all that transpires.”Woods agreed that any spat shouldn’t take away from honoring Scheffler.“The Champions Dinner is going to be obviously something that’s talked about,” Woods said. “We as a whole need to honor Scottie, Scottie’s the winner, it’s his dinner. So making sure that Scottie gets honored correctly but also realizing the nature of what has transpired and the people that have left, just where our situations are either legally, emotionally. There’s a lot there.” More