Perks aside, new members came to play at The Greenbrier

Gary Player will get some competition for long drive amongst the Masters Tournament’s honorary starters. Fred Ridley, Chairman of Augusta National Golf Club and the Masters, announced today that two-time Masters champion Tom Watson will join Player and Jack Nicklaus as honorary starters beginning this year. The first round of the 86th Masters is set for Thursday, April 7. “I am honored that Tom has accepted our invitation,” Ridley said in a release. “I look forward to commemorating his love for the game and impact on the Masters with his millions of fans across the globe as he hits a tee shot alongside two of the Tournament’s other all-time greats, Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player.” Watson won the 1977 and 1981 Masters and finished runner-up three times in his 15 top-10 showings at Augusta National. He is one of 17 players to win multiple green jackets, and his 72.74 scoring average ranks fifth in tournament history. He won eight majors in total among his 39 PGA TOUR titles, and later racked up 14 more victories on PGA TOUR Champions. After competing in the Masters as an amateur in 1970, Watson made 42 consecutive starts from 1975-2016, the fifth-longest streak in tournament history. His 58 subpar rounds are second all-time behind Nicklaus (71), and he holds the record for most consecutive years with at least one subpar round (21, 1975-1995). “Augusta National in April is one of my favorite places to be,” Watson said of his upcoming tee time with Nicklaus and Player. He noted that Nicklaus pushed him down the stretch in his two Masters titles, and when Player won the Masters for the third time in 1978, it was Watson who was there to help him slip on the green jacket. “With the many fond memories of both watching the Masters as a youngster and then competing in the Tournament for so many years, I am greatly honored to join my friends and fellow competitors, Jack and Gary,” Watson added. The tradition of honorary starters began with Jock Hutchison (1963-1973) and Fred McLeod (1963-1976). Others to perform the duties included Byron Nelson (1981-2001, non-consecutive), Gene Sarazen (1981-1999), Ken Venturi (1983), Sam Snead (1984-2002), Arnold Palmer (2007-2016), Nicklaus (2010-present), Player (2012-present) and Lee Elder (2021).

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The European Tour’s season finale tees off this week in Dubai, but it’s a pair of Americans who have the best chance to win the tour’s top prize. The Race to Dubai – which concludes with this week’s DP World Tour Championship at Jumeirah Golf Estates – is led by Collin Morikawa, with Billy Horschel in the No. 2 spot. As the number of Americans competing in the Race to Dubai continues to increase, this could become a more common sight. Next year marks the beginning of a new era in the PGA TOUR and European Tour, which will be known as the DP World Tour in 2022. As part of their strategic alliance, there will be three events next year that are part of both tours’ season-long points race, the FedExCup and Race to Dubai. Morikawa earned the pole position in this year’s Race to Dubai with his wins at the World Golf Championships-Workday Championship at The Concession and The Open. Morikawa is trying to add the Race to Dubai to the two prizes he’s already taken from Europe this year, the claret jug and the Ryder Cup. Morikawa’s win in The Open was his second major triumph, and he followed it by securing the clinching point at Whistling Straits. Horschel finished second to Morikawa at Concession, then won his own World Golf Championship and, like Morikawa, a prestigious event in England. He claimed the Dell Technologies Match Play Championship in March and then became the first American since Arnold Palmer to win the European Tour’s flagship event, the BMW PGA Championship. “It’s great to be where I am in the standings,” Horschel said at the World Wide Technology Championship at Mayakoba. “At the start of the year the FedExCup is No. 1, but I’m a member of the European Tour so you never know how things might pan out – because you have to play well at certain events to make it work, and I really did a good job of that for the first time in my career. “The goal is to become the first American to win the Race to Dubai.” To do that, he’ll have to go through Morikawa, who makes his return to Dubai after making his European Tour debut at the event in 2020. Morikawa finished T10 at last year’s DP World Tour Championship. “Winning The Race to Dubai would mean a lot because I want my game to travel,” Morikawa said in 2020. “I want to be a world player. I want to be able to bring my game anywhere, adapt to the different places I come to, and this is just the first step in doing that.” A little further down The Race to Dubai is another star American making his Dubai debut this week – Will Zalatoris. Zalatoris, the PGA TOUR’s Rookie of the Year, is 11th in the Race to Dubai. A runner-up finish at the Masters, and top-10s at the PGA Championship and World Golf Championships-FedEx St. Jude Invitational helped him attain his high standing. Zalatoris is based in Dallas, Texas (about 8,000 miles from Dubai) but has seen the blueprint laid down by golfers like Morikawa and said it’s likely more guys will be going back and forth between the European Tour and PGA TOUR. “In the future I’ll be planning on going (to Europe) a decent amount,” said Zalatoris. There will be plenty of guys with deep TOUR ties teeing it up in Dubai, as well, including WGC-FedEx St. Jude Invitational winner Abraham Ancer, Tyrrell Hatton, Shane Lowry, Ian Poulter, Garrick Higgo and two-time FedExCup Champion Rory McIlroy. Hatton, Poulter, Lowry, Patrick Reed and Christiaan Bezuidenhout are playing in Dubai after competing last week at the Hewlett Packard Enterprise Houston Open. Viktor Hovland, who earned his third PGA TOUR title two weeks ago in Mexico, will not be playing Dubai, nor will U.S. Open champion Jon Rahm. Both European Ryder Cuppers cited the need for rest after a long year. But in order for those other international stars to win the European Tour’s top prize, they’ll have to overtake a pair of Americans. Something that will likely become more commonplace moving forward. “It’s trending in that direction,” said Zalatoris.

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