Oosthuizen, Spieth start strong at Open

As the calendar turns to April, signs of spring are all around. And that, of course, includes the start of the Masters Tournament. The COVID-19 pandemic impacted the last two editions – it was moved to November in 2020, and a limited number of patrons were welcomed back in 2021 – but things are back to normal at Augusta National Golf Club this year. Here’s everything you need to know leading into the first men’s major championship of 2022: FIELD NOTES: Will he or won’t he tee it up? As of the morning of April 2, Tiger Woods is still listed in the field for the 2022 Masters, but no official word has been said either way. According to various reports, Woods played a practice round on March 29 at Augusta National. He suffered serious leg injuries in a car crash in February 2021 and hasn’t teed it up on TOUR since. He played alongside his son Charlie at the PNC Championship in December … Defending champion Hideki Matsuyama is another question mark. Matsuyama withdrew from THE PLAYERS Championship before play began, citing a back injury. He withdrew from the Valero Texas Open midway through the second round, citing a neck injury … Professionals making their Masters debut this week include three-time TOUR winner Sam Burns, Cameron Davis, Talor Gooch, Lucas Herbert, Garrick Higgo, Harry Higgs, Tom Hoge, K.H. Lee, Min Woo Lee, Guido Migliozzi, Seamus Power, Sepp Straka, Harold Varner III and Cameron Young … Amateurs in the field include Austin Greaser, Stewart Hagestad, Aaron Jarvis, James Piot, Laird Shepard and Keita Nakajima – the top-ranked amateur in the world … PGA TOUR Champions regulars who also own a Green Jacket and are back for more in 2022 include Fred Couples, Bernhard Langer, Vijay Singh and Mike Weir … Harris English announced he would withdraw from this year’s Masters as he continues to recover from hip surgery. English hasn’t teed it up on TOUR since the Sony Open in Hawaii … If the winner of the Valero Texas Open has not yet qualified, he will earn the final spot in the Masters field. Corey Conners was the last to pull the feat. He Monday qualified into the 2019 Valero Texas Open and proceeded to win the tournament. FEDEXCUP: Winner receives 600 FedExCup points. COURSE: Augusta National Golf Club, par 72, 7,510 yards. The iconic Alister MacKenzie/Bobby Jones design saw two changes for the 2022 edition of the Masters. Both the par-4 11th and par-5 15th holes have been lengthened. The 11th sees 15 yards added to it (520 yards from 505) and the tee box has been shifted to the left. The 15th now plays 20 yards longer (550 yards). Hideki Matsuyama’s 10-under 278 was the highest winning total at Augusta National since Sergio Garcia’s 9-under 279 four years prior. STORYLINES: Rory McIlroy is still hunting for the career Grand Slam. The 2022 Masters tournament will mark his eighth crack at winning the Green Jacket since moving to the verge of the career Grand Slam with his win at the 2014 Open Championship … Can Scottie Scheffler keep up his excellent form? Scheffler has won three times in his last five starts on TOUR and ascended to world No. 1 in the process … Collin Morikawa is looking to become the first man since Jordan Spieth in 2015 to win back-to-back majors. Brooks Koepka won two majors in 2018, but Francesco Molinari’s Open Championship triumph came between them. Morikawa won last year’s Open Championship, the final major on the 2021 calendar … Will Jon Rahm’s major-championship success continue at Augusta National? Rahm has finished inside the top-10 in each of his last five major starts, including a victory at the 2021 U.S. Open … Luke List, 37, is returning to Augusta National after a 17-year absence. The low amateur in 2005 is playing his first Masters as a professional after his win at the Farmers Insurance Open … Will a major-less TOUR winner break through this week? Scheffler, Viktor Hovland, Cameron Smith and Xander Schauffele, all inside the top 10 on the Official World Golf Ranking, have yet to secure a major championship title … Smith comes into Augusta National off his win at THE PLAYERS. Only one player in history has won both THE PLAYERS and the Masters in the same season – Tiger Woods in 2001 … Woods was also the last player to defend his title at the Masters, which happened exactly 20 years ago. 72-HOLE RECORD: 268, Dustin Johnson (2020) 18-HOLE RECORD: 63, Nick Price (Round 3, 1986), Greg Norman (Round 1, 1996) LAST TIME: Hideki Matsuyama became the first Japanese male to win a major when he won the 2021 Masters by one stroke. He was treated to a hero’s welcome when he returned to Japan following his Green Jacket triumph, but the win did not come without its challenges. Matsuyama opened the final round with a bogey and added four more squares to his scorecard on the back nine, including on Nos. 12, 15, 16 and 18 – although his last bogey of the day mattered little. He held off a Sunday charge from Jon Rahm, who fired a 6-under 66 (the low round of the day), as well as Masters rookie Will Zalatoris, who ended up in second alone at 9 under for the week after a 2-under 70 on Sunday. It was the best finish by a first-time Masters participant since Jordan Spieth in 2014, who also finished runner-up that year. Spieth shot a matching 70 in the final round last April to finish T3 alongside Xander Schauffele. Schauffele made it interesting late Sunday after he rattled off four straight birdies on Nos. 12-15, but he gave almost all of them back with a triple-bogey 6 on the par-3 16th. Rahm was T5 with Marc Leishman. Matsuyama finished as low amateur when he made his Masters debut a decade prior, in 2011. His first TOUR title came at the Memorial Tournament presented by Workday in 2014. HOW TO FOLLOW Television: Thursday-Friday, 3 p.m.-7:30 p.m. ET (ESPN); Saturday, 3 p.m.-7 p.m. (CBS); Sunday, 2 p.m.-7 p.m. (CBS) Radio: Thursday-Sunday, 2 p.m.-7 p.m. ET (CBS Radio; Sirius 208, XM 92) (PGA TOUR Radio on SiriusXM and PGATOUR.com/liveaudio) For outside of the U.S., click here for GOLFTV powered by the PGA TOUR Stream: On the Range, Holes 4-6, Featured Group coverage, Amen Corner, and Holes 15 & 16 will be available to stream for views in the U.S. only via Masters.com (Starting times include: Thursday-Friday, 8:30 a.m. ET; Saturday-Sunday, 11 a.m. ET) PGA TOUR LIVE Editor’s note: Augusta National Golf Club, which owns and operates the Masters Tournament, controls all digital streaming and broadcast rights to this event. PGA TOUR LIVE coverage will resume at next week’s RBC Heritage.

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After ranking 71st in Strokes Gained: Around-the-Green last season, Rory McIlroy performed a system update on his wedges ahead of the DP World Tour Championship two weeks ago. He switched his two highest-lofted clubs to TaylorMade’s MG3 model, which he’d already been using in his 46-degree wedge. McIlroy had been using the MG2 model in his 54- and 58-degree wedges before making the change for the European Tour’s season finale in Dubai. He has the same setup in the bag for this week’s Hero World Challenge. While it’s always interesting to see a player switch equipment, what’s notable in McIlroy’s case is the nuance behind the move. The two-time FedExCup champion opted for high-bounce varieties of the wedges. TaylorMade’s MG3 line comes in LB (low bounce), SB (standard bounce), and HB (high bounce) variations for each wedge. The 56-degree MG3, for example, features 8, 12, and 14 degrees of bounce in the three configurations. As a refresher, “bounce” refers to the angle of the leading edge of an iron or wedge and the lowest part of the sole. The sole of the club “bounces” through the turf, hence the name. The higher the leading edge of a club is off the ground at address, the greater the bounce. Generally, speaking more bounce means more forgiveness and, all things being equal, better performance from the rough, longer grasses, and softer turf. McIlroy most recently had 8 degrees of bounce on his highest-lofted wedge (58 degrees). He now has 14 degrees of bounce in that club. McIlroy indicated adding bounce will benefit him at Albany, which has many closely-mown areas surrounding its greens. “Bounce is certainly your friend,” he said. “I mean especially a course like this week, really grainy, it’s helped a lot around the greens. I just have more trust in it, just more trust it’s not going to dig, it’s going to get out of the ground a little bit easier.” Regarding ball flight on mid-range and full shots, McIlroy said the new clubs help him better control his trajectory. “The ball doesn’t get up as much so when you’re able to control your trajectory better, you’re able to control your distance better and I’ve sort of found that with them,” he said. Keith Sbarbaro, TaylorMade’s VP of TOUR Operations, said McIlroy recently went through a fitting with the TaylorMade team. “We presented him with all bounce options — low, standard and high. We started with 50-75 yard shots and he immediately noticed a lower and more controlled flight with the high bounce,” Sbarbaro said. “He also noticed how much better the club was sliding through the turf. The club was never getting stuck, whereas with low bounce he noticed it occasionally sticking.” As McIlroy mentioned at his Hero World Challenge press conference, improved performance was apparent around the green as well. “We then moved to the chipping green and once again he felt it was much easier to get the club through the turf,” Sbarbaro said. “The extra bounce allows him to be more aggressive without the club digging and the ball coming up short. Rory felt as if he could slam the club behind the ball or even hit a bit behind it and still not get the club stuck. The one shot that really showed this was uphill pitches into the grain and once he saw the performance he was sold. The high bounce sole has now progressed into being Rory’s first choice of bounce moving forward.”

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