AUGUSTA, Ga. (AP) — Rory McIlroy had the green jacket on his shoulders and an enormous weight off his back when he looked ahead to the 90th edition of the Masters with a question and a coy smile.
“What are we going to talk about next year?” he said.
Next year has arrived. The Masters begins on Thursday, April 9, and McIlroy will be spared the questions that dogged him for nearly 15 years whether he could ever conquer Augusta National.
Now that burden falls to those who have felt they had one arm in the coveted jacket, a list that includes Justin Rose and Bryson DeChambeau, Xander Schauffele and Brooks Koepka.
To understand how badly they and everyone else wants to be a Masters champion is to see McIlroy drop to his knees on the 18th green when he rolled in that 3-foot birdie putt on the first playoff to beat Rose, chest heaving with emotion, an exhale nearly as strong as the wind.
There was as much joy as relief.
Augusta National enthralls and torments, all part of the drama that unfolds over four days on a stage that delivers some of the finest theater in golf.
“Augusta checks off that mental box because of history, knowing the holes coming and knowing what guys have done,” Schauffele said.
Schauffele speaks from experience. The two-time major champion has had two close calls at the Masters — a runner-up to Tiger Woods in 2019, and the last man to challenge Hideki Matsuyama in 2021 until an 8-iron he thought was perfect found water left of the par-3 16th.
The Masters won’t include five-time champion Woods for the second year in a row.
He was involved in another car crash on March 27. He was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence and entered a not guilty plea. He said he would take an indefinite leave to get treatment, and a Martin County, Florida, judge granted a motion for Woods to leave the country to get the help he needs.
By all accounts, the Masters would seem to be the easiest of the majors to win. Not only does it have the smallest field — fewer than 100 players for the last 60 years — but it includes six amateurs and seven Masters champions now eligible for the senior circuit. Nearly one-quarter of the field is playing for the first time, and no Masters rookie has won since the late Fuzzy Zoeller in 1979.
But the history is rich. The appeal of being a Masters champion — a lifetime invitation — is strong.
“Golf is such a mental sport, it really ticks that box in terms of being hard to win,” Schauffele said. “You have a one-shot lead going into 18 at Augusta, those trees have gotten a lot bigger and that window has gotten a lot smaller.”
Some of these newcomers add to the intrigue. Three of them — Chris Gotterup, Ben Griffin and Jacob Bridgeman — are among the top 20 in the world ranking.
Gotterup is the only PGA Tour player to have won twice before the Masters. Casey Jarvis of South Africa, another Masters newcomer, won back-to-back weeks on the European tour (Kenya Open, South African Open). DeChambeau at LIV Golf is the only other two-time winner this year.
Gotterup took a scouting trip in early March.
“That’s the one … course where not having played I know every hole there,” he said. “Everyone watches the Masters and knows Augusta National.”
Golf fans will have waited 263 days since Scottie Scheffler won the British Open at Royal Portrush last summer until the first tee shot Thursday at the Masters, and the anticipation is as great as ever.
McIlroy, who became the sixth player to capture the career Grand Slam with his Masters victory, now sets out to join Woods, Nick Faldo and Jack Nicklaus as the only back-to-back winners.
He won twice going into the Masters last year, and now has played six times — including a withdrawal on the weekend at Bay Hill with muscle spasms in his back — with only two chances at winning. But this is a different Masters, one without suffocation expectations.
He picked the menu for the Masters Club dinner. He has his parking spot in the champions’ lot and a locker upstairs in the Augusta National clubhouse for Masters champions only.
“It’s all going to be about enjoying my week,” he said. “The thing is, I know I get to go back to the Masters Tournament for the rest of my life. And that’s quite a freeing feeling.”
He and Scheffler, the top two players in the world, each took off three weeks leading to the Masters. Adam Scott in 2013 is the last player to win after being away from competition that long.
Scheffler’s break was not by design. He withdrew from the Houston Open to return home to Dallas for the impending birth of his second child. Scheffler is the betting favorite at every tournament he plays, a product of having won 23 times worldwide the last four years, and being No. 1 in the world for nearly three years straight. Woods is the only other player with such sustained dominance.
His form has taken a slight dip, at least by his standards — two straight finishes out of the top 20 after 18 straight top 10s. But then, Scheffler also has won the Masters twice in the last four years, both times walking up to the 18th green leading by at least four shots.
The hottest player in golf is one rarely seen — DeChambeau, who played in the final group with McIlroy last year and is coming off back-to-back wins in playoffs on LIV Golf, one in Singapore, the other in South Africa.
DeChambeau and Jon Rahm, the 2023 Masters champion, figure to be the strongest hopes for the Saudi-funded league, which has 11 players in the field. Rahm also has a score to settle from last year, when he contended in only one major at the PGA Championship before fading late.
Rahm also has reason to be brooding over his endless conflict on the European tour, refusing to pay fines for playing LIV Golf events. At stake is his eligibility for the Ryder Cup next year. For now, his focus is challenging for another green jacket. He knows the feeling as well as anyone.
“I hope I win,” Rahm said at his most recent LIV event in South Africa. “I’m going to try my best and hope I can get a second green jacket. That’s the goal.”
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