Autumn in Augusta. No ropes, no patrons. How will the unfamiliar 2020 Masters environment impact the top contenders?
AUGUSTA — There are no ropes. That’s what jumped out first. No fans, either, of course, but we knew that. And that’s why Augusta National doesn’t need ropes around each hole, but the club is all about exclusivity, about who sets the rules and who doesn’t, and seeing the course during Masters week with no ropes … well, it’s like if somebody said, “Ah, hell, we’re in a pandemic, pull out your cellphone at Amen Corner and take a selfie, then run up to 13 for the fun of it. What do we care?” This is going to be a strange week.
The 2019 Masters felt surreal: early tee times on Sunday to avoid afternoon showers, and Tiger Woods’s getting off from what looked like his career deathbed to win it. This will be a whole other level of surreal. There are no fans, but players are still expected to call them “patrons,” as Bryson DeChambeau did Tuesday. DeChambeau will be hitting short irons on his second shot of at least three of the four par-5s, but we are still calling them “par-5s”—as a nod to history, one supposes. Strange, all of it. But it will also be a big bag of fun.
The course itself will look … well, not as strange as you might think. It’s autumn, sure, but it’s autumn in Georgia, not Illinois. Trees are mostly green. Azaleas won’t be in bloom like they are in April, but Augusta National has the course in prime shape, like usual. There will be subtle differences in turf conditions, but players deal with different conditions every week. Most viewers wouldn’t really notice on TV.
This is the third major without fans. So players are used to that, too. Jordan Spieth said Tuesday that what felt weird to him was last week’s PGA Tour stop, in Houston, because some fans were allowed to attend, and he is used to having nobody out there now. Well, he’ll get used to it again.
Who will win? The first and only rule of picking the winners of a golf tournament is that nobody knows who will win a golf tournament. This isn’t Rafael Nadal in Paris or Joey Chestnut on Coney Island. There are so many prime candidates and accompanying storylines that it would feel wrong to zero in on one, anyway. Herewith, a breakdown.
The Favorites: Bryson DeChambeau, Dustin Johnson, Justin Thomas
DeChambeau is the talk of golf. He is so strong, so long and so much different than everybody else. He called himself “a super unique individual” Tuesday, and let’s face it: He is absolutely right. Everybody out here has taken notice, and whether or not they like DeChambeau’s science-nerd-works-out routine, they understand he is a different beast. Tiger Woods said Tuesday that nobody has ever done what DeChambeau is doing. Tiger Woods.
DeChambeau tried a 48-inch driver this week—the conventional length is 45.5 inches, and a longer driver should fly farther but be harder to control. “It looks really promising right now,” he said. He did not expect to feel so good about it so soon. But one of DeChambeau’s gifts is that if he believes something is right, he can and will use it on the course—even in the Masters and even if he hasn’t really done it before—and he will do so effectively. He sure sounded like he plans to put the bigger stick in play. He could win this thing by six shots.
And yet … it’s still golf. As great as he has played, DeChambeau has won twice in 2020: At the Rocket Mortgage Classic in Detroit and the U.S. Open at Winged Foot. This will require a whole bunch of shots he didn’t have to hit at either place. So we are going to name him one of three favorites (still praise!) instead of the overwhelming single favorite.
Johnson is No. 1 in the world (as he often is), the FedEx Cup Champion, a regular contender at golf’s biggest events. It is wild to think he has won only one major. He has finished in the top 10 in his last four Masters. His game is made for Augusta National.
Thomas played really well here last year; he just didn’t putt as well as he would like. He is a much more complete player than he was when he rose to No. 1 in the world two years ago. He has the length, creativity and closer’s mentality to win this. Johnson and Thomas should be cofavorites with DeChambeau.
What Do You Mean I’m Not a Favorite?: Brooks Koepka, Patrick Reed, Jon Rahm
Reed feels perpetually unloved, perhaps because he is perpetually unloved. He revels in it. Koepka loves the slights, even if that’s more of a shtick for him at this point than actual motivation. He would surely love to put the brakes on the Bryson Hype Train, pick up his fifth major and move to within one British Open win of a career Grand Slam. He has battled knee problems this year but looked good last week, and he has shown he can contend no matter how his body feels—including at Augusta.
Rahm made a hole-in-one here on No. 16 Tuesday, while doing the traditional skip-it-across the-water-to-entertain-the-fans-we-mean-patrons bit, even though there were no fans-we-mean-patrons here. His day to win a major is coming. It could come Sunday.
Did You Say I’m Not the Favorite? Great! Don’t Mention Me At All!: Rory McIlroy.
Ah, Rors. It is tempting to try to read the mind of a man with some serious Masters demons, but there is no point—he reads his mind aloud for the class. As he said Tuesday, “It’s just a matter of getting out of my own way.”
It is easy to see this as the perfect week for McIlroy to win a green jacket for the first time and complete the career Grand Slam this week. Everybody is talking about DeChambeau, which McIlroy enjoys. He feels good about his game. The course is soft enough that he can play aggressively, as he prefers. Fatherhood has given him a perspective he didn’t have before. The lack of fans could simplify the task for him and remind him he just has to hit the shots, not bow before the ghost of Bobby Jones. It is all very easy to envision. So let’s not discuss this again.
Hello, Friends: Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, Jordan Spieth
This category is a nod to Jim Nantz, whose voice might be the only part of these Masters that feels the same. Woods, Mickelson and Spieth have won here a combined nine times, and they are in that special group of players who can contend here even when logic says they shouldn’t. For these guys, showing up to Augusta National is like walking through their homes in the dark—they just implicitly understand where everything is, which obstacles to avoid and how to get where they want to go.
Mickelson has looked dominant in his Champions Tour events this fall, but all that means is (a) he is 50 and eligible for the Champions Tour, and (b) he is the best 50-plus golfer on the planet. This is a much tougher test. Phil feeds off the fans and always has; it is very difficult to imagine him contending for four days on this course without their energy. But it is Augusta. These things happen sometimes.
Woods is, of course, the defending champion, but he has fallen from No. 6 to No. 33 in the world this year. Since winning his 82nd PGA Tour event in October 2019, he has one top-10 finish—at Torrey Pines, one of his favorite courses. He also has to tee off before 8 a.m. Thursday, which is not ideal for a man who needs three massage therapists and a Home Depot’s worth of machinery to get his body ready for a competitive round. And yet … Tiger Woods. Augusta National. If he can move, he can contend.
Then there is Spieth. He is a three-time major champion and a Masters champion, and he is, believe it or not, just two months older than DeChambeau. And yet … objectively speaking, he is less likely to win than Woods, and arguably even less likely than Mickelson. Spieth has sunk to No. 80 in the world. He hasn’t won any event since the 2017 British. Last week in Houston, he was three-under through 12 holes, then went bogey-bogey, and then managed to make double-bogey on a 110-yard hole without a penalty shot.
So there is no reason to believe he can win a major … but Spieth’s Augusta history is so rich that this feels like the most likely place for him to break through. This feels like home to him now: “I don’t really have the pinch-myself moment that I’ve had the first couple years driving up Magnolia Lane,” he said Tuesday. “Now, like today, I went through it and I’m like, ‘Huh. I didn’t enjoy that as I probably should have, as much as I should have.’ It was [just] the drive into the club. It kind of gets more normal, which I think is good.”
During his Tuesday practice round with Gary Woodland and Henrik Stenson, Spieth did what you have to do here: He practiced creativity. He tried several chipping approaches from off the 18th green into where the pins will be, to see what will work best as the greens speed up. Whatever demons he is battling might not be allowed past the gates.
“Once I get out on the property here, and get on the golf course, I feel very comfortable,” Spieth said. “I know I’ve come in here playing well, I know I’ve come in here playing poorly, and it hasn’t made much of a difference [in] certain years. So that sort of takes a little bit of that anxiousness that you might have had. I don’t want to go as far as to call it anxiety. But it allows me to be a little bit more present, a little more patient.”
Nice Guys (Finally) Finish First: Rickie Fowler, Tony Finau
Fowler is nice bordering on sweet—always thinking about people around him, which is not necessarily the mentality that wins major championships. Two years ago, Fowler finished second here and said afterward that he had proved to himself that he was ready to win a major. He has not played very well in the majors since then, and he is easily painted as more hype than substance. But if he does win, there will be a sea of applause from his fellow players. It is hard not to pull for Fowler.
Finau is in the same boat: So nice, so talented, so often in contention, not so good at closing the deal. He played in the last group with Woods and Francesco Molinari on Sunday last year. He has, amazingly, won just one PGA Tour event, but he can do this.
Young and More Than Good Enough: Xander Schauffele, Patrick Cantlay, Collin Morikawa, Matthew Wolff
Schauffele seems like the Other Guy in a lot of conversations, because he isn’t the longest, hasn’t been the hottest and isn’t the most accomplished. But he seems like a sure bet to win a major championship in the next few years. He has everything required, physically and mentally, to do it. Morikawa just won the PGA with a nearly flawless final round. Wolff is happily married to the game’s least conventional swing, and his length will help him here. Cantlay is one of the 10 best players in the world and has played very well lately. We crammed them into this category, and we haven’t even gotten to …
The Field
This is a star-filled era in golf, but think of some recent majors winners. Gary Woodland. Shane Lowry. Francesco Molinari was not considered one of the best players in the world until he very clearly was, and then he stared down Woods to win the British at Carnoustie. We’re going to look up at the leaderboard Sunday and see at least one name we didn’t expect. But McIlroy said Tuesday that when this year's British Open was cancelled, he had "serious doubts" there would be a Masters in 2020. So let’s be grateful the Masters is happening at all. It will be weird. It will be quiet. It is still the best show in golf.