Gene Frenette: 18 Masters story lines include Tiger gunning for 83 ...

GENE FRENETTE

Part of the Masters hype that cannot be ignored is how much players from LIV Golf, if at all, could seize the spotlight from their PGA Tour colleagues, but there are plenty of other story lines worth monitoring at Augusta National. 

Here are 18 reasons beyond wagging tongues and legal snipping in a tense rivalry between golf leagues -- something 2022 Open champion Cameron Smith called "rubbish" -- why the 2023 Masters could be compelling theater: 

1. Tiger tracking: Is Tiger Woods’ body healthy enough to win a sixth Masters green jacket and surpass Sam Snead with the most PGA Tour wins at 83? If there’s an ideal golf course for Woods, at age 47, to become the leader in all-time Tour wins, it’s Augusta. A victory would also make him the oldest Masters champion at 13 months older than Nicklaus when he won his last Tour event with an epic Sunday back-nine comeback in 1986. Overlooked in Nicklaus’ spectacular Masters resume is he finished 6th at age 50 and tied for 6th at age 58 (four shots back of winner Mark O’Meara) in 1998. So if Jack’s record at Augusta is any indication, this is a place for a five-time champion like Tiger to contend again in his twilight years. There are 29 golfers with better odds than Woods (+7000, per DraftKings) to win the Masters. How good would it be to see him winning one more time while ranked number 1,001 in the world? 

1.  Best bet: Not since Woods in his prime has there been a favorite looking as strong as defending champion Scottie Scheffler, who soared to No. 1 in the world last year for the first time right before winning the Masters. He seized the lead before making his second-round turn on Friday and never lost it. Given Scheffler’s results in his last four stroke-play tournaments – 1st at The Players Championship, 4th at Arnold Palmer Invitational, 12th at Genesis Open and 1st at Phoenix Open – he comes to Augusta playing with a Tiger-like ferocity. Most impressive is Scheffler’s temperament. He doesn’t seem the least bit fazed when expectations for him are highest. 

1. Grand Slam wait: A month short of his 34th birthday, Rory McIlroy has had eight opportunities at the Masters to become the sixth player to complete a career Grand Slam and fallen short. Only Ben Hogan joined this exclusive club at an older age than McIlroy is now, winning the final leg at the 1953 Open just shy of his 41st birthday. The difference is McIlroy, ranked No. 3 in the world, feels a greater burden because the Grand Slam wasn’t as big a deal 70 years ago as it is now. Until McIlroy dons a green jacket, the weight of not winning only gets heavier. 

1.  Cam comeback: Few players in the world outside of Scheffler were as hot in 2022 as Ponte Vedra Beach resident and Australian native Cameron Smith, who pulled off the rare feat of winning The Players and the Open in the same year. But the world’s highest-ranked player to leave the Tour for LIV has cooled off considerably the past couple months, failing to contend in his last four LIV events. Smith got within one shot of Scheffler early in the final round at last year’s Masters, but fell off the leaderboard with a triple bogey at the par-three 12th hole. Smith, currently No. 6 in the world and a top-10 finisher in his last three Masters appearances, is overdue to put himself back on the world map. As Smith said in his Monday press conference: “I haven’t had a bad week here in a long time.”  

1. Rahm rebound: Surprisingly, despite four top-10 finishes in his last five appearances, Jon Rahm has never really been in Sunday contention at the Masters. His game is plenty suited for the 28-year-old Spaniard to win this major multiple times. He had to withdraw from The Players due to illness, got eliminated early in the WGC-Match Play and struggled the last three rounds at the Arnold Palmer Invitational. Don’t be surprised to see a Rahm bounce-back at Augusta.        

1. Playoff drama: Since the Masters adopted a sudden-death playoff format in 1976, there have been 11 instances where extra golf was required to decide the winner. None was more memorable than Woods’ thrilling Sunday duel with Chris DiMarco in 2005, which ended with Tiger dropping a 15-foot birdie putt on the first extra hole. It’s rather stunning that no sudden-death playoff has lasted more than two holes.  It’d be a cool chapter added to Masters history to see a lengthy sudden-death playoff. 

1. Missing in action: Due to the traditional smaller field at the Masters with only 88 entries this year, many familiar names you might see at a major like Matt Kuchar and Rickie Fowler won’t be teeing it up. Kuchar is the highest-ranked player (No. 51) not eligible for the Masters. Fowler (No. 55), the 2018 runner-up, is missing for the third consecutive year. Sixty-two of the world’s top 100 players are in the field. 

1.  Good bets: For those inclined to wager and look for a high return on players under the radar, you could do worse than Will Zalatoris and Canadian Corey Conners, who is coming off a win at the Valero Texas Open. Both are listed as having the 15th-best odds to win the Masters at +3500. Zalatoris has finished in the top-8 at six of the past 10 majors. Conners’ last three Masters showings are T6, T8 and T10.  

1. DeChambeau dropoff: Whether it’s his defection to LIV or simply the ups-and-downs of playing golf, Bryson DeChambeau is nowhere near a threat to contend that he was after winning the 2020 U.S. Open and rising to a career-best No. 4 world ranking. He finished only 26th on the LIV’s inaugural golf list. In three tournaments in 2023, the nine-time Tour winner has played a collective even-par and not come close to contending. DeChambeau’s world ranking has tumbled to No. 155. 

1. Mother nature: The weather forecast calls for patrons to bring their rain gear. It’s looking like a wet Masters, which could favor longer hitters, with possibly multiple delays. The warmest forecast is for Thursday’s opening round, with high temperature of 87 degrees and only 38 percent chance of rain. The precipitation chances go way up on Friday (70 percent), Saturday (86 percent) and Sunday (76 percent). Temperatures on the weekend are expected to get no higher than mid-50s or low 60s. There hasn’t been a Monday finish at the Masters since 1983.  

1. Major non-presence: For someone who has won five Tour events in the last 22 months and is ranked No. 4 in the world, Patrick Cantlay doesn’t show up much on golf’s biggest stages. He has only three top-10 finishes in 21 majors since turning pro in 2012 and never been in Sunday contention. It just seems like an 8-time Tour winner would have better success than what Cantlay has put on display at the majors.  

1. Global expansion: For the first 50 years of the Masters, only two international players – South Africa’s Gary Player and Spain’s Seve Ballesteros – earned a green jacket and they did it a combined five times. There were only 10 foreign players in the field for Player’s last win in 1978 and 15 for Ballesteros’ final triumph in 1983. This year’s field features 40 international players from 21 different countries. Foreign players have captured 18 of the last 38 Masters. 

1. Higher risk: With Augusta National lengthening the par-five, 13th hole from 510 yards to 545 yards, look for a lot more golfers to back off going for the green with their second shots, especially in colder weekend conditions. When a bomber like Dustin Johnson says “it’s most likely it’ll be laying up all four days,” it’s a good bet the contenders will be playing that hole a lot more conservatively. 

1. Career breakthrough: Winning the Masters is hard enough on its own, so any chance a player could make this their first PGA Tour victory? It hasn’t happened since England’s Danny Willett took advantage of Jordan Spieth’s collapse to win in 2016. The best bet to pull this off might be another Englishman, Tommy Fleetwood, who owns six European Tour wins and had top-5 finishes last year at The Open and PGA Championship. Another possibility is 24-year-old Australian Min Woo Lee, who tied for 14th with Fleetwood at the 2022 Masters and T6 last month at The Players. Last year, Matthew Fitzpatrick earned his first Tour victory at the U.S. Open. 

1. On the brink: If any player in the field is due to finally win a major, it has to be Tony Finau. The 33-year-old Utah native has three of his five Tour wins in the last nine months, plus owns nine top-10 finishes at majors (three at the Masters) since 2018.  

1. Jordan’s six-year itch: Hard to believe that Spieth hasn’t won a major since the 2017 Open. As much as he’d love to get a second green jacket, Spieth would probably rather be raising the Wannamaker trophy next month at the PGA Championship to complete his Grand Slam. 

1. Lefty’s empty tank: Since stunning the golf world by winning the PGA Championship in 2021, Phil Mickelson’s game has almost fallen off a cliff. Sure, he was dominant on the Champions Tour in 2021, but the three-time Masters champion hasn’t contended at Augusta since 2015 and has no top-25 finishes in his last five LIV events. It feels like his game can no longer be trusted, even in the comfort zone of Augusta. 

1. Koepka on rebound: Greg Norman says he wants all 18 of his golfers to celebrate behind the 18th green if the Masters champion turns out to be one of his 18 LIV golfers competing at Augusta. Cameron Smith and Dustin Johnson probably give LIV its best shot, but don’t forget about Brooks Koepka. He’s coming off his second LIV win in Orlando and is healthy again. If Masters chairman Fred Ridley has to slip a green jacket on a LIV golfer, there’ll be plenty of squirming among the Augusta members and in PGA Tour offices. 

Gfrenette@jacksonville.com: (904) 359-4540