Scheffler, Scottie (1996- )

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      The 5 Players to Watch at the Masters

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

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      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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      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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      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

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      Forged After a Tumultuous Era, World Golf Championships Fade in Another

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      A match play event in Texas may be the last W.G.C. event, ending an international competition that preceded golf’s high-rolling present.AUSTIN, Texas — It was not all that long ago — Tom Kim, after all, is only 20 years old — but before Kim emerged as one of the PGA Tour’s wunderkinds-in-progress, he would watch the World Golf Championships.“For sure, 100 percent,” Kim cheerfully reminisced as he clacked along this week at Austin Country Club, the site of the championships’ match play event. “There was W.G.C. in China. There was Firestone before. You had Doral. You had this.”Had, because once one man wins on Sunday, the championships appear poised to fade away. An elite competition forged, in part, because of another era’s tumult has become a casualty of this one’s.“Everything runs its course and has its time,” said Adam Scott, who has twice won W.G.C. events. Barring a resuscitation, which seems improbable given the PGA Tour’s business strategy these days, the W.G.C.’s time was 24 years.The W.G.C. circuit was decaying before LIV Golf, the Greg Norman-fronted league that is cumulatively showering players with hundreds of millions of dollars from Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, cleaved men’s professional golf last year. Two W.G.C. events vanished after their 2021 iterations, and a third, always staged in China, has not been contested since 2019 because of the coronavirus pandemic.And as the PGA Tour has redesigned its model to diminish LIV’s appeal, even the Texas capital’s beloved match play competition has become vulnerable to contractual bickering and shifting priorities.“We’ve had great events and great champions, but the business evolves and it adapts,” Jay Monahan, the PGA Tour commissioner, said this month, when the tour reinforced its decision to wager its future on “designated events” that should command elite fields and, in some cases beginning next year, be no-cut tournaments capped at 80 players or less. (LIV, whose tournaments always have 48-man fields and no cuts, responded with a wry tweet: “Imitation is the greatest form of flattery. Congratulations PGA Tour. Welcome to the future.”)With a $20 million purse, doubled in size from five years ago, the match play competition that began on Wednesday is a designated event under the 2023 model. Next year, though, it will not be on the calendar at all, winnowing the W.G.C. to one competition. And Monahan has said it would be “difficult to foresee” when his circuit’s schedule might again include the HSBC Champions, the W.G.C. event in China that will be the last remaining event formally existing in the series.The Chinese tournament’s website has had few updates in recent years, and an inquiry with the event’s organizers went unanswered. HSBC, the British banking powerhouse that is the tournament’s title sponsor, declined to comment.But the PGA Tour’s freshly calibrated distance from the Shanghai competition is fueling what looks to be an unceremonious end for the W.G.C., which were announced to immense fanfare in 1997, when the tour and its allies were smarting over Norman’s failed quest to start a global circuit for the sport’s finest players. The events, which debuted in 1999 with a match play event that sent some of the game’s best home after the first day, were intended to entice and reward the elite without challenging the prestige of the four major tournaments, as well as to give men’s professional golf a greater global footprint.It worked for a spell, and five continents hosted W.G.C. events, many of which Tiger Woods dominated. With the exception of the Chinese tournament, though, the circuit had lately been played in North America.“The ‘world’ part of the World Golf Championships wasn’t really in there,” Rory McIlroy, the four-time major tournament winner whose W.G.C. résumé includes a victory in the 2015 match play event, mused in an interview by the practice putting green.McIlroy, among the architects of the tour’s reimagining as Norman’s unfinished ambitions proved more fruitful this time around, said he had also worried that the W.G.C. events had come to lack “any real meaning,” even as they had been “lovely to be a part of, nice to play in and nice to win.” The tour’s emphasis on select tournaments, many executives and top players like McIlroy believe, will lend more consequence to its season and make it a more appealing, decipherable and concentrated product that can fend off the assault by a LIV circuit bent on simplifying — its critics say diluting — professional golf.“Your casual golf fan knows the majors, the Ryder Cup and maybe the events that are close to their hometown,” said McIlroy, who is among the players devising a new weeknight golf competition that is expected to start next year. “I get it: Professional golf is a very saturated market with a ton of stuff going on, and people have limited time to watch what they want to watch.”The Austin tournament’s end will, at least for now, reduce match play opportunities on the circuits that have been aligned with the W.G.C. Though the Austin event — which has three days of group-stage play, followed by single-elimination rounds — has a field of only 64 players, less than half of the size of last year’s British Open, it has been larger and more accessible than other signature match play tournaments.Rickie Fowler hits from the rough during the first round of W.G.C. match play.Eric Gay/Associated PressBut given the format’s popularity, it will linger, if a little less, on the international golf scene. The Presidents Cup, Ryder Cup and Solheim Cup will remain fixtures — the Solheim will be contested in Spain in September, with the Ryder decided soon after in Italy — and more modest events, such as the International Crown women’s tournament that will be played in May, still dot the calendar.Some players this week appeared more mournful than others about the erosion of the W.G.C. and the decline of match play. Scott said he hoped the tour’s new system would be able to accommodate the next generation of ready-for-stardom players from around the world, as the W.G.C. did, even as he said he was not insistent that match play be a staple.“We don’t play much match play, so the kind of logic in me questions its place in pro golf, but also we’ve got to entertain as well, and if people like to see it and sponsors want to see it, yep, I’m up for it,” Scott said.He grinned.“Maybe we should have some more, get a bit more head-to-head and see if guys like each other so much after,” he offered mischievously. “The year of match play!”The PGA Tour has not ruled out a return to the format, though it would assuredly be limited. LIV could also eventually try to tap into interest. At an event in Arizona last week, Phil Mickelson, a LIV team captain, said that match play was “certainly something that we are discussing as a possibility for the season-ending event.”But the W.G.C. appear effectively finished. Kim, the youngest player this week, was delighted that he had arrived just in time.“I played once before it all goes away,” said Kim, who has six top-10 finishes in his early tour career and expressed confidence in the circuit’s direction. “I played once in my life.”He wandered off to practice. A round against Scottie Scheffler, the reigning match play champion and the No. 1 player in the Official World Golf Ranking, loomed soon enough. More

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      A Triple-Bogey Start Vanquished, Rory McIlroy Captures the FedEx Cup

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      McIlroy edged out Scottie Scheffler, who had held the lead in Atlanta for almost the entire Tour Championship. Sungjae Im and Scheffler finished tied for second, a stroke behind.ATLANTA — On Thursday, his scorecard a shambles after only two holes at the Tour Championship, Rory McIlroy did not find himself thinking about golf’s comeback magicians or his fellow major champions.Instead, he considered the example of a 20-year-old player, Joohyung Kim, also known as Tom Kim, who won the Wyndham Championship in Greensboro, N.C., this month.“He started with a quad and ended up going on to win the golf tournament,” McIlroy, who had opened his Tour Championship with a triple-bogey and a bogey, said then. “It is possible.”So McIlroy proved it himself. Three days after he produced an instant debacle at East Lake Golf Club and six weeks after he faltered at the British Open, McIlroy orchestrated the largest final-round comeback in the history of the Tour Championship and defeated Scottie Scheffler by a stroke on Sunday. Although McIlroy’s win did not end his eight-year drought in major tournaments, he earned $18 million, claimed his third FedEx Cup, a record, and allowed the PGA Tour to close a turbulent season by crowning a beloved stalwart as its champion.“I just felt so close all year,” McIlroy said after his victory in Atlanta, where Scheffler started with the tournament lead Thursday and held it until Sunday evening. “I had a couple wins, but I was just waiting for something. Maybe this was it. I got a little lucky with Scottie not playing his best golf today, and I took advantage of that with my good play.”But, McIlroy added, “I went up against the best player in the world today and I took him down, and that’s got to mean something.”Even though McIlroy trailed Scheffler by six strokes at the beginning of the fourth round, the final two holes of his third round — played on Sunday morning because of Saturday’s weather in Atlanta — suggested he was in fighting form: He birdied both.McIlroy started the final round with a bogey, but he made birdie on No. 3 to bring his score even. Starting with the fifth hole, he stitched together three consecutive birdies that would undergird a 32 on the front nine. Scheffler, McIlroy’s partner in the final pairing, had three bogeys in the first half of the fourth round, which he finished with a three-over-par 73.For as sure-footed as McIlroy so often seemed Sunday, and for as wobbly as Scheffler sometimes was, McIlroy did not assume sole command of the leaderboard until the final putts at No. 16.He might as well have on No. 15, though.Thirty-one feet from the pin, McIlroy tapped the ball and then stood like a statue, his putter barely aloft as the ball broke to the left. Then it swung toward the hole, McIlroy stepping back — and willing, praying, something — a few steps before it rolled into the cup. McIlroy raised his right fist in jubilation as the crowd thundered its approval.Scheffler made a bogey on the next hole and, at last, surrendered the solo lead.“I really fought hard today; Rory just played a really good round of golf,” Scheffler said. “He made some key putts there at the end, and he definitely deserved to win.”Scheffler finished in a tie for second with Sungjae Im. Xander Schauffele was two strokes behind them, and Max Homa and Justin Thomas finished tied for fifth, trailing McIlroy by four strokes.In McIlroy, 33, the PGA Tour got a FedEx Cup winner who has been one of its fiercest loyalists during the year’s upheaval over LIV Golf, the new series that has lured top players with hundreds of millions of dollars from Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund.The dramatics over LIV were hardly absent from Atlanta — McIlroy was paired Thursday and Friday with Cameron Smith, the British Open winner who has not publicly denied a British news media report that he intends to defect as soon as this week. But McIlroy’s win was a boon for an entrenched order that has lately been besieged.“Everyone on tour has had to deal with a lot; even the guys that have went to LIV have had to deal with a lot,” McIlroy said before adding, a few moments later: “This is the best place in the world to play golf. It’s the most competitive. It’s got the best players. It’s got the deepest fields. I don’t know why you’d want to play anywhere else.”He could have been forgiven, of course, for thinking otherwise Thursday in the rain in Atlanta. But Sunday, he said his mind had “automatically” wandered to Kim’s resurrection in Greensboro.“I could have easily thought the other way and thought: ‘I’ve got no chance now. What am I doing here?’” McIlroy said Sunday, when he shot a 66. “But I just sort of, I guess, proved that I was in a really good mind-set for the week, and I didn’t let it get to me too much and just stuck my head down and got to work.”By a lone stroke, it was enough. More

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      At U.S. Open, Matt Fitzpatrick Wins His First Major Championship

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      Will Zalatoris and Scottie Scheffler, who tied for second, made it interesting down the stretch at the Country Club, but Fitzpatrick held on to finish at six under par.BROOKLINE, Mass. — This year’s U.S. Open began as the setting for an unprecedented showdown between golfers who had remained loyal to the established PGA Tour and a breakaway pack of ex-colleagues who recently joined the new, rebel Saudi-backed LIV Golf series. But the anticipated confrontation at the Country Club outside Boston fizzled in the first round on Thursday when golfers from both camps got along without friction.The LIV Golf-aligned players also faded from contention early.By Sunday, the ongoing split in men’s professional golf was hardly settled, but it was overshadowed by a riveting final-round shootout among three of the sport’s best young players: Matt Fitzpatrick, 27, of England, and the 25-year-old Americans Will Zalatoris and Scottie Scheffler.In the end, Fitzpatrick, who won the U.S. Amateur at the Country Club nine years ago, survived the crucible, claiming his first win at a major golf championship and on the PGA Tour with a fourth-round 68 that made him six under par for the tournament. Fitzpatrick earned $3.15 million for the victory.Zalatoris and Scheffler finished one stroke back.The pivotal moment, as is common at major championships, arrived as Fitzpatrick stood on the final tee of the 72-hole, four-day tournament while leading by one stroke. Known for his meticulous precision — he has for many years charted the finite details and the outcome of every shot he hits in competition — Fitzpatrick had missed only two fairways to that point in his round.But his 3-wood on the 444-yard, par-4 18th hole was ripped left and landed in the center of a yawning bunker just off the fairway. His ball was 156 yards from the hole, which was positioned on a plateaued green protected in the front by a cavernous bunker that has ruined many a golfer’s round for decades.As Fitzpatrick later said, he had been struggling to hit competent shots out of fairway bunkers all year.“It’s the one place I didn’t want to be — No. 1 on that list,” Fitzpatrick said.Fitzpatrick drawing a crowd on the 15th hole during the final round.Jared C. Tilton/Getty ImagesBut Fitzpatrick, who tied for fifth at last month’s P.G.A. Championship and tied for 14th at this year’s Masters Tournament, has a wealth of elite golf experience. Moreover, he felt comfortable all week since he had only happy memories of competing at the Country Club because of his 2013 victory in the U.S. Amateur.“I’m a fast player, and when I look back, it just all happened so fast,” he said of his second shot at the 18th. “It was like just kind of let natural ability take over.”He pulled a 9-iron from his bag and imagined he was a junior player again.“I thought: try to hit it close,” Fitzpatrick said, smiling.The shot soared over the perilous high lip of the bunker he was in and above the crest of the vast bunker guarding the 18th green.“It was amazing to watch,” said Fitzpatrick, who knew at that instant that he would almost certainly make a par, which he did with two cautious putts.Zalatoris, Fitzpatrick’s playing partner, had a 14-foot birdie putt at No. 18 that would have set up a playoff. But the putt drifted less than an inch to the left of the hole.The victory, which was Fitzpatrick’s first on American soil (he has won seven international events), could be a breakthrough for a quiet and popular player in the close-knit circuit of pro golfers. In the past year, Fitzpatrick, now No. 10 in the men’s world golf rankings, has worked tirelessly off the course to increase the speed of his swing, which leads to greater distance, and usually to lower scores. Quiet and unassuming, Fitzpatrick also has an easy smile that hides a fierce competitive streak.Late Sunday night, Fitzpatrick admitted as much.“Although it doesn’t come across, because I like to be quite reserved, I just love beating everyone,” he said. “It’s as simple as that. Just love winning. I want to beat everyone.”While Saturday’s third round was played in gusting winds that made the greens firm and fast — and produced only seven rounds under par — Sunday’s conditions were benign in comparison.As a result, the field could be more aggressive, especially if a tee shot landed on the fairway.Zalatoris began the day tied for the lead with Fitzpatrick at four under par but faltered early when he three-putted from 67 feet below the second hole for a bogey. Then, on the next hole, he sent his second shot into a greenside bunker, which led to a second successive bogey. But Zalatoris rarely appeared rattled. He steadied himself with three consecutive pars and at the par-3, 158-yard sixth hole, he drilled his tee shot 2 feet from the flag for an easy birdie. Zalatoris’s approach shot to the par-4 seventh green from 164 yards skipped onto the green and rolled just an inch left of the hole. His tap-in birdie brought him back to four under par for the tournament. When Zalatoris sank a 17-foot birdie putt on the ninth hole, he made the turn at five under par, just one stroke behind Fitzpatrick.Will Zalatoris, on the third tee, finished second at a major tournament for the third time in the last two years.Aaron Doster/USA Today Sports, via ReutersAfter a steady par on the 10th hole, Zalatoris played it smart and safe on the downhill par-3 11th hole, which was playing just 108 yards on Sunday (with a dastardly difficult back left hole location). Zalatoris left his tee shot below the hole and rolled in an 18-foot putt for birdie to move to six under par, which gave him the tournament lead at the time. But a missed fairway off the 12th tee led to a layup short of the green and ultimately a bogey.After watching Zalatoris fall back to five under par, Fitzpatrick attacked. Standing over a 48-foot putt for birdie on the 13th hole, he rolled a snaking, left-to-right putt slowly but confidently into the hole to tie Zalatoris.Like everyone at the top of the leaderboard on Sunday, Fitzpatrick’s round had its inconsistencies. He started strong with three pars and two birdies in his opening five holes. But his tee shot on the par-3 sixth hole was excessively long, sailing 66 feet past the hole, which led to a bogey. Fitzpatrick rallied with a comfortable birdie on the par-5 eighth but like many on Sunday he could not sustain the positive momentum. He stumbled on the 10th hole when a lengthy second shot was short of the green and led to another bogey. Then the tiny 11th tormented Fitzpatrick as a 7-foot par putt skidded past the hole for a second successive bogey.Scheffler appeared to take a commanding lead in the tournament on Saturday with a sparkling front nine, but then gave it all back with a string of bogeys on the back nine. On Sunday, Scheffler carved up the front nine again, with four birdies in his first six holes.But Scheffler’s putting stroke deserted him on the back nine when he bogeyed the 10th and 11th holes when he needed three putts to get his ball in the hole on both greens. That dropped him to four under par for the tournament. Scheffler stayed in the battle though with five successive pars from the 12th through the 16th holes. More

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      Zalatoris, Fitzpatrick Share U.S. Open Lead Heading Into Final Round

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      Tied for the tournament lead entering Sunday, Will Zalatoris will get another shot at his first major win after surviving a perilous third round.BROOKLINE, Mass. — The U.S. Open usually waits until the final day of its 72-hole crucible to toy with the world’s best golfers. But perhaps in tribute to the venerable history of this year’s host, vexing conditions — blustery winds, thick rough and fast greens — began to crush the wills and sap the souls of the players 24 hours early at the Country Club outside Boston.With an under-par score a rarity, the top of Saturday’s third round leaderboard was overhauled frequently. In the end, a handful of this year’s hottest golfers remained in contention, joined by some lesser-known names to set up what figures to be an entertaining final-round slugfest against a golf course that one of the co-leaders, Will Zalatoris, called “an absolute beast.”Zalatoris’s determined round of 67, the lowest on Saturday, left him four-under par for the championship, tied with Matthew Fitzpatrick of England, who shot a two-under par 68. Jon Rahm, the defending U.S. Open champion, squandered a late lead in the round to fall one stroke behind Zalatoris and Fitzpatrick.Rahm had rallied from a stumbling start in his first 13 holes to make three birdies from the 14th to the 17th holes. That moved him to five-under par for the championship.But Rahm’s drive from the 18th tee dribbled into a bunker on the left side of the fairway. Rahm’s first attempt to clear the bunker’s high lip failed, and his ball rolled back into the sand. His next shot landed in the easy-to-find 18th hole front bunker. The combination of mistakes brought a messy end to Rahm’s round: a double bogey that dropped him into third place.Afterward, Rahm said he misjudged how deep his golf ball had been in the sand, in part because it was getting dark.“I had a 9-iron in hand, that’s plenty to get over that lip,” he said. “Maybe I was trying to get too cute — looking for another birdie.“But it doesn’t really matter much,” Rahm added. “I’m content where I am and happy with how I played.”Three golfers were tied for fourth at two-under par, including Keegan Bradley, a Vermont native who was roundly cheered by the New England crowd as he walked up the 18th fairway on Saturday. Adam Hadwin of Canada, ranked 105th in the men’s world golf rankings, shot an even par 70 to tie Bradley. Scottie Scheffler, the reigning Masters champion, joined the group after a chaotic, inconsistent round.Zalatoris was one of the few who rarely struggled Saturday, with four birdies and only one bogey. Even when he badly sliced his last tee shot of the day 35 yards to the right of the 18th fairway, he landed in a corridor between a grandstand and another temporary structure.Though 224 yards away from the hole, he had enough of an opening to lace a precise long iron into the famed, mammoth bunker that protects the 18th green. From there, Zalatoris splashed a spinning, gutsy shot from the sand and then sank a six-foot par-saving putt.Although Zalatoris is just 25, he is playing in his ninth major golf championship and has already contended for a legacy-defining title multiple times. Last month, he lost the P.G.A. Championship playoff against Justin Thomas, and he finished second at the 2021 Masters Tournament. He also finished tied for sixth at this year’s Masters and at the 2020 U.S. Open.The narrow defeats in majors have not demoralized Zalatoris.“I know I’m going to get one,” he said after this year’s P.G.A. Championship. “It’s just a matter of time.”But Zalatoris knows the battle against the Country Club’s devilish, decades-old challenges will not be won, only survived.A Quick Guide to the LIV Golf SeriesCard 1 of 6A new series. More