A Jacket for three serious candidates, some ‘dissidents’ and a Tiger

He The Augusta Masters reached its 87th edition. This is the first major tournament of the 2022-23 season and the second event to offer 600 FedExCup points to the winner. In 2022, scottie scheffler got the first grand slam of his career. It was his fourth win of the season with a three-stroke victory Rory McIlroy. Scheffler earned the Jack Nicklaus PGA Tour Player of the Year award, while McIlroy captured his third career FedExCup title. Both came to this Masters as world number 1 and 2 in OWGR.

Scheffler has two wins this season, including The Players Championship. Three players have successfully defended their title at Augusta: Jack Nicklaus (1966), Nick Faldo (1990) and Tiger Woods (2002). Scheffler is one of three title defenders on tour this season, with a win at the Phoenix Open and top-five finishes at the Arnold Palmer Invitational (T4) and the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play (4th). The only player to win the TPC and Masters in the same year is Tiger Woods (2001). Tiger is also the last player to successfully defend multiple titles in the same season: four times in 2007.

Three-time FedExCup champion Rory McIlroy is looking to become the sixth player to complete a career Grand Slam with a victory at Augusta, join Tiger Woods, Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player, Ben Hogan and Gene Sarazen. McIlroy is the only player to finish in the top 10 in all four of the 2022 majors (2nd/Masters, 8th/PGA Championship, T5/US Open, 3rd/British Open). 9 years have passed since the last British ‘major’. Rory won the US Open in 2011, the PGA in 2012 and the British and PGA in 2014..

Scheffler enters the 2022 Masters as the leader of the FedExCup standings with three victories on the season, a ranking now held by Jon Rahm in 2023, in what will be the seventh tournament of the season for the Basque. Since his Masters debut in 2017, Rahm has collected four top-10 finishes, tied with Rory McIlroy and Cameron Smith, and has finished no worse than T27 (2017, 2022).

Rahm’s victories this season came at the Sentry Tournament of Champions, The American Express and The Genesis Invitational. He had to retire due to illness at The Players (he gave up world number 1 to Scheffler there) and missed the group stage at the WGC Match Play.

Tiger Woods, an 82-time PGA Tour winner and five-time Masters champion (1997, 2001, 2002, 2005 and 2019), made his second appearance of the season and first since the Genesis Invitational, where he finished the T45. Woods has played four tournaments since his car accident in February 2021, including three majors in 2022 (47th/Masters, retired after the 3rd round at the PGA Championship and missed the cut at the British).

With a win, Woods would break a tie at sam snead for the most PGA Tour wins in history (83) and is tied with Jack Nicklaus for most Masters wins (6). Woods has made 22 consecutive cuts at the Masters (1997-2022) and would tie Fred Couples (1983-2007) and Gary Player (1959-1982) for the longest streak in tournament history if he plays now Masters weekend. Augusta National.

We have already discussed Golf’s Big Three and the Tiger. You also need to put in the bag of favorites for this week the holder of Green Jacket in 2020 Dustin Johnsonin Australian reigning British Open champion Cameron Smithand in double US Open and PGA champion in the last decade and won LIV in Orlando this weekend, Brooks Koepka. All three are no longer part of the American circuit and instead the despised Arab Super League.

In Augusta this week two other Spaniards compete last: Sergio García, champion in 2017 and who is playing his 24th Masters here, and the double winner in 1994 and 1999 Txema Olazabal.