Augusta, Ga. – It’s Masters Week.
Azaleas appear, dwarves fly from shelves in the building of goods and sandwiches with egg salad are abundant. Golf World designed in Augusta National Golf Club for the 2025 Masters tournament, including Athletic.
To start a week, three of our golf writers – Brody Miller, Gabby Herzig and Hugh Kllenberger – from what they were thinking about on their way to Augusta, would miss Tiger Woods (torn Achilles), who may not be the owner of a new green jacket.
What excites you most about these masters?
Heart: In this year’s masters, stories are abundant, but for several different reasons it looks as if we could be caused by an unexpected main character to appear. It is difficult to underestimate Scottie Scheffler, but his game is coming to the top form after the beginning of this season derailed the incident with Ravioli production. Rory McILroy plays some of the best golf in the early season of his life, but Augusta National brings something that can be unpredictable. Xander Schauffele would be an automatic favorite if it wasn’t for the injured inter -and -law muscle that put it in a temporary number of balls.
LIV players come to Augusta when they played only one state tournament and overseas courses did not get quite a rival with the Alister Mackenzie test to say it nicely. The combination of bravery and uncertainty in the upper part of the male game causes expectations around these masters to feel particularly tangible. It’s a well -known phenomenon, but this year, more than others, I feel Whatever-coud-Happen Vibe.
Kllenberger: As a resident in Florida, I had the opportunity to meet many Disney adults and may or may not be related to one or two. Although it is not for me, I understand the appeal. You go through the gates, and the outside world seems to be falling on the sidelines, “magic” that intended you as your mother once was. It’s a comfortable leak. I have always argued that the Masters is a Disneyland and exchanges the goofy ears with a classic yellow logo and a turkey foot for sandwich pimento. I’m glad to be able to indulge in.
Miller: There are so many potential epic stories that could come from this week. Is McILroy playing one of the best golf of his career, finally a career of Grand Slam 11 years after his last big victory? Will Xander Schauffele get the third major in four starts? Does Jon Rahm become a multiple winner or Scheffler wins three out of four masters to achieve the national size of August God-Ter August? Or did the beginning new star, such as Ludvig åberg, put in historical books, what did we all expect?
And if it doesn’t happen, it means a new icon we didn’t plan. This is the most amazing thing about Masters. We all remember who Charl Schwartzel and Danny Willett are because they won here.
Torn Achilles Tiger Woods held it outside the Masters 2025. (Warren Little / Getty Images)
Will you miss the Tiger Woods?
Miller: Yes. Although I find myself tired at a time of attention, we have to pay every round of a golf player who is no longer a real candidate, it is a history. I don’t care if it’s trivial. He is perhaps the biggest golfer who ever plays, does it in the most famous place and see that it should never be taken for granted. Woods’ presence adds gravity and relevance that, when it is not there, is clearly missing.
(And if I want to be a selfish athlete, it is always nice when Woods draws big galleries and breaks how many people are watching other stars.)
Kllenberger: A year ago I made a point to be in 18. Green when Tiger came out down the navigation track. I watched how he finished his bike before the leaders even threw away when the patrons bathed him in admiration and praised the man of his record and not the 77 he had just shot to end up in the last field. “Just in case,” was my reason to be there, because if if the last decade has taught us something about Tiger Woods, you never know what happens next.
It is likely that the Masters will play again, but it should be under his conditions, for its reasons and without external expectations. Masters without Tiger Woods will feel unknown, but we’ll go on.
Heart: I will miss the energy in the Masters press conference hall when Woods comes out, settles on his chair and adjusts the microphone with 200 people on the edge of their seats and waits for he opens his mouth? Or a stunning increase in the number of decibels when it defies from the clubhouse to the first tee on Thursday morning? Absolutely. Woods and Augusta National are doing a dynamic duo that no player in the modern era will ever replicate – at least no player we currently know about. I will miss the spectacle that Woods provides at the Masters.
As already mentioned, there is nothing worse than a relationship that feels forced. No matter how confidently it says, Woods wasn’t in the form of winning this golf course from a car accident. I will not miss the testimony of limping on these hills, or looking at its ball enters the deepest bunkers on the plot – it is simply not fun to watch someone who controlled this game in pain. It’s not worth it.
SEPP Straka has one PGA Tour victory this season. (Jared C. Tilton / Getty Images)
Name a long shot to win
Kllenberger: The list of long shots at the Masters will always be interested, filled with second -level PGA stars and a heavy list of former champions that could theoretically pull Jack in ’86 and find the magic again.
Russell Henley begins a week plus-5000 and the moon is removed from the signature victory. Cameron Smith and Wyndham Clark are still relatively recent main champions. Keegan Bradley is a choice for chaos. Phil Micelson? Patrick reed? Oh my, that’s. Robert Macintyre has not been at Masters since 2022, but his performance was better than his CV. Now it is a different, better golfer and cattle who knows how to shape his shot in the wind is not like the craziest thing ever on the Masters.
Miller: Sepp Straka. It is one of the 10 best iron players in the world and this year it was better than ever. In January he won American Express and in this short season he already has the seven top 15 best. Add to the fact that last spring T16 finished Masters, so there is not a lot of reasons to doubt that he is able to win here. If there has been a hinge, it is that Augusta National is a place where you often need a creative short game, and the spotted player is a below average player around the greenery, but hey, that’s why it’s a long shot.
Heart: Will zapatoris. It’s not just a shot in the dark. In 2023, after the back injury, which led to the spine surgery, he had to resign from Masters, and that destroyed him. But before, zalo, compiled by Masters Resume, who felt destined to include victory soon. In 2021 he finished second and in 2022 he was tied in sixth place. A year later, his back joined and still adapted to the burden of four days of the competition, published T9. Now, with the ongoing 2025 season, you could look at the results of Zalatoris and make sure it is not in shape to win the Masters.
I would say that the world 63 played much better than scored this season, the first glaring example is its Championship. In some of the most windy conditions we saw this calendar year, Zalatoris reached the second place on Saturday in TPC Sawgrass after he went 10-UNE in his last 27 holes. Then he did four times bogey and from there it all fell apart. The only thing we see is the T30, but he did some star golf in ridiculous conditions at a huge stage in this result. In addition, a man loves Augusta National – we’ll see what he can do.
One name you are sure not to win
Miller: Bryson breathmbeau. Although it was nice to see how he played well last week in LIV Miami, Liv was quite average this season, and since the epic victory in the US Open is generally retreating. And although we should not ignore its impressive T6 last year, his overall career Masters was a ton of missed cuts and ends outside the TOP 20.
Heart: It is talking about the city, but Rory McILroy will not win Masters this year. I am as convinced as anyone that McIlroy plays one of the most complete and most disciplined golf of his career. He managed to leave the bulletproof iron shot for wind conditions and small landing spaces. Creativity and versatility in his game feel unrivaled. And McIlroy comes to Masters with the best biography of 2025 big dogs in the field: victory at Pebble Beach and players’ championship. It’s hard to beat them.
But I am convinced that we will see McILroy missed three or broken hearts with an almost lady on Sunday. I don’t think it will be something in between, and I don’t think it will be a victory.
Kllenberger: Jordan Spieth has a better chance to win Masters 2025 than Hideki Matsuyama is wild. Fierce. He has played six tournaments since his return from offseason wrist and has the two best 10s, but his performance against the signature fields (when it is in them) was almost not so encouraging. Although it does not lose moves in any of the four categories, the data golf, it does not overcome a significant part of the field in any of them.
I’d like to return Spieth at some point, but it’s a top-5 name with a top-50 game. Spieth and Masters will always have some attraction, but he lacked the last three years. I’m on this.
(Upper photo Scottie Scheffler with your Caddy, Ted Scott: Michael Reaves / Getty Images)
