Prior to his injury, Langer had faired well at Augusta, making the cut in 2020.
AUGUSTA, Ga. — Bernhard Langer confirmed Tuesday that 2025 will be his final Masters Tournament.
The 66-year-old tore his Achilles tendon on Feb. 1, and had previously announced that 2024 would be his last competitive appearance.
“I plan to play next year,” Langer, the 1985 and 1993 Masters winner, said Tuesday. “That’ll be my last.”
When Langer steps away, it’ll stamp a final goodbye to champions from the 1980s.
Jack Nicklaus was the first 1980s victor to cease competing in 2005, while Larry Mize and Sandy Lyle stopped in 2023.
At 48-years-old, Nick Faldo exited the stage in 2006 to commentate for CBS.
“My decision was easy,” Faldo said. “It was a cold, windy day (in 2006) and I had my son on the bag. I hit driver at the ninth hole and didn’t make it down the hill. So I’m hitting 3-iron into the wind and thought, ‘That’s it. I’m done.’”
Prior to his injury, Langer had faired well at Augusta lately, making the cut in 2020, while missing the weekend by two shots in 2023.
Still, Faldo believes the German is making the right call.
“Bernhard’s done an incredible job staying on top,” Faldo said. “But as time goes on, we start to lose touch, and you can’t play Augusta without touch.”
As for 1990s champs, four past winners have already ceased competing, including Faldo (1989, 1990, 1996), Ian Woosnam (1991), Ben Crenshaw (1984 and 1995) and Mark O’Meara (1998).
In the timeline of champions, Fred Couples would be next to depart, but the 1992 winner hasn’t announced plans to give notice.
After all, in 2023, Couples, then 63, became the oldest player to conquer the cut.
“I can’t compete with Viktor Hovland or Jon Rahm or anybody, but I can compete with myself, and that’s really why I come,” Couples said. “That’s what I like to do: make the cut here at an older age.”
Couples added: “The last thing I want to do is embarrass myself. I know I can hit the ball. What is that? I don’t know if that’s a 73 or 75, but I’m not shooting 80. There’s no way. I’m just not that kind of person.”
When Langer steps away next April, it will duplicate his contemporaries, in that no champion from the 1980s missed the cut more than 10 straight years before quitting.
In contrast, 1957 winner Doug Ford, either missed the cut or withdrew in each of his final 30 appearances.
“I’m not coming up the last at 18 over,” Faldo said. “When CBS called, I went straight to the tower.”
Here’s everything you need to know for Tiger’s return to Augusta National.
AUGUSTA, Ga. — The Big Cat is back on the course this week with a shot at history at the 2024 Masters.
Tiger Woods will make his 26th appearance at Augusta National this week, where he’s looking to set the all-time record for consecutive Masters cuts made with 24 in a row. The five-time Masters champion tied Fred Couples (1983-2007) and Gary Player (1959-1982) for the current record of 23 at last year’s tournament before he withdrew ahead of the third round.
“Well, this tournament has meant so much to me in my life and my family. I think I’ve been playing here for, what, 29 years now,” Woods said during his pre-tournament press conference on Tuesday. “It’s been a part of my life to have won here as my first major as a pro. Hugging my dad, as you saw; then a full circle in 2019 to hug my son.”
“It has meant a lot to my family. It’s meant a lot to me,” he added. “I always want to keep playing in (the Masters).”
After a weathey delayed the first round, the 15-time major champion will now begin his quest for history at 3:54 p.m. ET on Thursday alongside Jason Day and Max Homa.
Featured group coverage will air on Masters.com and the Masters app, as well as on Paramount+. The first-round television broadcast runs from 3-7:30 p.m. ET on ESPN. SiriusXM radio will call the action from 2-8 p.m. ET.
Across 25 starts and 96 rounds at the Masters, Woods has a low round of 65 and a scoring average of 71.10. He’s finished inside the top 10 in more than half of his starts (14), 12 of which were top fives.
Woods begins his 26th Masters on Thursday at 1:24 p.m. ET
AUGUSTA, Ga. — Tiger Woods has been playing at Augusta National Golf Club long enough that he remembers his first trip down Magnolia Lane in darkness in 1995.
During his Masters debut, he stayed at the Crow’s Nest, the intimate accommodations for amateur champions in the white antebellum clubhouse, and watched Sam Snead, Byron Nelson and Gene Sarazen hit the opening tee shot on Thursday morning.
Just two years later, Woods won his first of five Green Jackets in record fashion and set the menu for the Champions Dinner, and smiled at the memory of watching the three legendary champions “drinking my milkshakes.”
For Woods, the mission hasn’t change. He’d like to win a sixth Green Jacket at the 88th Masters and tie Jack Nicklaus for the most career victories at the Masters, pick up his 16th career major championship and 83rd official PGA Tour title to break a tie with Snead for the most victories in a career.
Tiger Woods follows his shot from the No. 8 tee during a practice round for the 2024 Masters Tournament at Augusta National Golf Club. (Photo: Michael Madrid-USA TODAY Network)
“If everything comes together, I can get one more,” he said of the Green Jacket during his Tuesday pre-tournament press conference.
Woods, 48, hasn’t played in a Tour event since he withdrew after hitting his tee shot at the seventh hole of the Genesis Invitational, citing illness, in February. A day earlier he complained of back spasms. On Tuesday, he gave his first explanation for why he elected to skip the Florida Swing and entered this year’s Masters with only one full competitive round under his belt.
“I wasn’t ready to play. My body wasn’t ready. My game wasn’t ready,” he said. “I thought that when I (played in the Bahamas in December), once a month would be a really nice rhythm. Hasn’t worked out that way. But now we have major championships every month from here through July. So now the once a month hopefully kicks in.”
Tiger Woods: “If everything comes together, I can get one more”
Woods paid a visit to Augusta National a week earlier for a scouting trip with Justin Thomas and played with his longtime friend and business partner, Rob McNamara, and Masters chairman Fred Ridley. He walked the front nine on Sunday with three clubs, played the back nine Monday with Will Zalatoris and the front nine with Thomas and past Masters champion Fred Couples.
“He said his back is doing OK. I think last year it was so bad that a lot of things just wore him down,” said Couples, referencing how Woods withdrew Saturday before the third round of the 2023 Masters began after making the 36-hole cut for the 23rd consecutive time, tying a record held by Couples and Gary Player.
“Can he win here? You know what, yeah. I just watched him play nine holes, and nine holes is only nine holes on a Tuesday, but he never mis-hits a shot,” Couples said. “But the idea of making a cut, I think he would laugh at that because he’s not here to – that’s a huge record, but he’s here to win. He’s here to play really, really hard.”
Woods had his right ankle fused shortly after last year’s Masters, an injury that forced him to miss the remaining three majors last year and not play again until the Hero World Challenge. Woods was asked several times for updates on the health of his body, which already had endured countless surgeries before he was involved in a single-car crash in February 2021 that nearly resulted in the amputation of his right leg.
Tiger Woods tees off on No. 3 during a practice round for the 2024 Masters Tournament at Augusta National Golf Club. (Photo: Rob Schumacher-USA TODAY Sports)
“I hurt every day,” he said. “I ache every day. And I prefer it warm and humid and hot. And I know we’re going to get some thunderstorms. So at least it will be hot. It won’t be like last year.”
Woods has said repeatedly that his body won’t be able to withstand playing more than once a month and it is still to be seen if it can withstand walking four straight days on the hilliest and arguably most difficult walk on Tour.
“Tiger is Tiger, he’s different than all of us but it’s hard to do this when you’re not playing all the time,” said past U.S. Open champion Geoff Ogilvy, who is serving as an ESPN commentator this week. “It’s really different when you don’t do this week in, week out, it really is.”
“There’s no doubt he’s going to hit a lot of good shots, and there’s no doubt he’s going to make some putts, but can he sustain that over two, three, four days?” said two-time U.S. Open champion Curtis Strange, who is also commentating for ESPN.
Strange said the uncertainty of Woods’s health has him wondering if he’s shifting into a role of becoming a ceremonial golfer, a role that Arnold Palmer eventually accepted, and Jack Nicklaus and Tom Watson resisted for as long as possible.
“It didn’t matter what he shot,” Strange said of Palmer. “It didn’t matter about the shots he hit. We just kind of wanted him there, and I think the world thinks the same thing about Tiger.”
“I can’t see him finishing 50th every week and being happy,” Ogilvy added.
When the subject of becoming a Masters starter and simply hitting the opening tee shot to the tournament was broached to Woods during his press conference, he was quick to shoot it down.
“No, I have not thought about being a starter here, no,” he said to a roomful of chuckles.
When the reporter attempted to rephrase his question and asked how Woods would handle the situation in the future when he didn’t feel as if he could still another Green Jacket, Woods refused to consider the scenario.
“Well, I still think they can. So I don’t know when that day is, when that day comes, but I still think that I can. I haven’t got to that point where I don’t think I can.”
Woods begins his 26th Masters on Thursday at 1:24 p.m. ET alongside Jason Day and Max Homa, and as Couples noted, “the last thing he’s thinking about is making the cut.”
Is Tiger Woods going to captain the 2025 United States Ryder Cup team? He sure seemed to hint things are heading in that direction.
Woods spoke with members of the media Tuesday ahead of the 2024 Masters at Augusta National Golf Club, his first tournament appearance since withdrawing from the 2024 Genesis Invitational because of an illness. He was asked about myriad topics, from his pursuit of a 24th consecutive made cut, his body and Masters memories.
However, his answer to a question about the Ryder Cup makes it seem as if Woods will soon again be involved in the biennial competition between the U.S. and Europe, this time from a captaincy standpoint.
“We’re still talking about it,” Woods said while smiling when asked directly about his current position related to the captaincy.
Woods spent time as a vice captain in 2016, but his record in the Ryder Cup is one of the worst marks of his professional golf career. He’s 13-21-3 in the competition, including a 0-4 mark in his last appearance in 2018 at Le Golf National in Paris, site of the 2024 Olympic competition.
He is 4-2-2 in singles matches.
However, people have clamored since the 2023 Ryder Cup for Woods to be considered for captaincy at Bethpage Black in New York.
And it’s something he and PGA of America CEO Seth Waugh have discussed plenty in recent weeks. And according to Big Cat, there are more conversations to be had soon.
“It’s something that Seth and I are going to sit back and talk about it after this event,” Woods said. “I said I’m going to be busy for a couple weeks, so let me focus on getting through this week and hopefully getting another jacket, and then we can sit back and talk about it next week.”
Defending champion Jon Rahm now tees off at 1 p.m. ET after an early weather delay.
AUGUSTA, Ga. — Augusta National Golf Club has once again opened its gates to some of the best players in the world for the 88th Masters Tournament, and on Tuesday morning the tee times for the first two rounds were announced.
Inclement weather on Thursday morning has delayed the start of the first round by two and a half hours, as the first group will now tee off at 10:30 a.m. ET. The Honorary Starters Ceremony will begin at 10:10 a.m. ET.
LIV Golf’s Jon Rahm will begin his title defense at 1 p.m ET alongside Matt Fitzpatrick and Nick Dunlap. World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler will be joined by world No. 2 Rory McIlroy and Xander Schauffele in the following group at 1:12 p.m. ET. Tiger Woods will highlight the afternoon featured groups when he tees off at 3:54 p.m. ET with Jason Day and Max Homa.
From tee times to TV and streaming info, here’s everything you need to know for the first round of the 2024 Masters at Augusta National. All times Eastern.
Thursday tee times
Time
Players
10:30 a.m. ET
Erik van Rooyen, Jake Knapp
10:42 a.m. ET
Jose Maria Olazabal, Taylor Moore, Santiago de la Fuente (a)
10:54 a.m. ET
Danny Willett, Austin Eckroat, Stephan Jaeger
11:06 a.m. ET
Charl Schwartzel, Luke List, Christo Lamprecht (a)
11:18 a.m. ET
Gary Woodland, Thorbjorn Olesen, Bryson DeChambeau
“But I would hope it would be something that would help expedite that process,” Rahm said of his LIV move.
AUGUSTA, Ga. —At the start of last year, Jon Rahm wanted to be a fly on the wall for what he predicted would be a “tense” Champions Dinner as a handful of LIV Golf players reunited with their former PGA Tour colleagues at the 88th Masters.
Fast forward to this week and the 29-year-old is hosting the annual Tuesday night gathering at Augusta National Golf Club as the defending champion, and he’s brought a little Spanish flair down Magnolia Lane.
“Everybody I talked to seems very excited about the menu, which, if anything, has put a lot more pressure on me, even though I’m not cooking, right. So, yeah, I’m definitely a little nervous,” said Rahm Tuesday during his pre-tournament press conference. “It is quite daunting to think about the room you’re going to be in and having to stand up and talk to that group of players, right. I mean, it’s basically all the living legends in this game, active and non-active. Everybody who’s been somebody in this game is there. So as wonderful as it is to be a part of, it’s still, yeah, a little nerve-wracking for sure.”
The big man from the Basque region didn’t just dish on his menu, he also talked about his best memories with the green jacket – not many get to throw out the first pitch at a World Series – as well as the divided professional game and what needs to happen to get more LIV players in major fields. LIV had 18 players in last year’s field, and that number has dropped to just 13 this year.
“I understood my position, yes. And I understood that it could be, what I hoped, a step towards some kind of agreement, yes. Or more of an agreement or expedited agreement,” Rahm said of the ongoing talks between Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund and the PGA Tour. “But, unfortunately, it’s not up to me. But I would hope it would be something that would help expedite that process. But at the end of the day, I still did what I thought was best for myself.”
“I still love the PGA Tour, and I still hope everything the best, and I still hope that at some point I can compete there again,” he added later.
As far as a way to get more LIV players involved in the majors, Rahm echoed what many of his cohorts have said over the last year: there’s smarter people who can figure out how to unify the game. Players like Phil Mickelson and Bryson DeChambeau, who were among the first to break away and leave for LIV, have called for new qualification categories for LIV players since the Saudi-backed league isn’t recognized by the Official World Golf Ranking. Rahm agrees.
“But the obvious answer is that there’s got to be a way for certain players in whatever tour to be able to earn their way in. That’s the only thing can I say,” he explained. “I don’t know what that looks like. But there’s got to be a fair way for everybody to compete.”
Jason Day gets a hug from Jon Rahm at the practice facility during a practice round for the 2024 Masters Tournament at Augusta National Golf Club. (Photo: Katie Goodale-USA TODAY Network)
“They’ll need to figure out a way to evaluate how the LIV players are doing and how they can earn their way. And I understand there’s less players and you can’t give, right, 10 people or 15 people a start, but there’s got to be a way for some players to earn their way in,” Rahm continued. “That’s the best way I can say it. I just don’t really know what that looks like.”
Add Rahm to the long list of LIV players who are quick to point out a problem without offering up any solution.
As far as his title defense is concerned, Rahm is riding a weaker wave of momentum into the first men’s major of the year compared to last season. Instead of three PGA Tour wins in eight tournaments, he’s played five LIV events with finishes of T-3, 8, 5, T-8 and T-4. His team, Legion XIII, have won two events, including last week at LIV Golf Miami at Trump National Doral. Many view fewer competitive rounds as a negative, but the two-time major champion actually sees this year’s change in preparation as a positive.
“Well, you’re saying like playing a little bit less is a bad thing. Which I wouldn’t think it is. If anything, for the, if I had would go based on how I feel today on a Tuesday, I feel physically better than I did last year,” Rahm said. “But then once competition starts, it doesn’t really matter. Once the gun goes off, whatever you feel is out the window. You got to go out there and post a score.
“So it’s not something that I have in mind, but I do feel, I do feel fresh and ready for it.”
“I just felt like I got to basically the pinnacle of what my golf swing was able to do last year.”
Viktor Hovland isn’t ruling himself out at the 88th Masters Tournament. But he’s honest about the additional challenges he faces as he works through swing changes.
Hovland, 26, has never missed at cut at Augusta National and has enjoyed an upward trend in his performances, cracking the top 10 for the first time last year with a share of seventh.
But while the affable Norweigian won three times last season, Hovland said winning the FedExCup title and the $18 million bonus came as a bit of surprise given how many hours he spent grinding on the range at the Scottish Open and British Open last season.
“I was always trying to learn, but at the same time, I just felt like I got to basically the pinnacle of what my golf swing was able to do last year,” he said during a pre-tournament press conference, “and just when I keep looking back at my swings from 2020, 2021, I just really had more control of the golf ball, in my opinion.”
Hovland said he went searching for other opinions on his golf swing because he felt like he got everything he could out his game last summer and didn’t believe that level of golf was sustainable. After an extended break during the offseason, Hovland said his game wasn’t the same when he returned to the range.
So far, Hovland said, the changes he’s working on haven’t clicked, which is why recent results have been lacking. In 2024, Hovland has only one finish in the top 20 at The Genesis Invitational, where he took a share of 19th.
Though he has yet to win one, Hovland has been a force at the majors over the past year. He leads the way with the best cumulative score to par at the last five majors at 30 under alongside Rory McIlroy. Scottie Scheffler is next at 27 under.
In addition to his top 10 at the Masters last year, he took a share of second at the PGA Championship in 2024 and tied for fourth at the British Open in 2022.
As a kid, Hovland liked to dive into YouTube videos to learn more about the why. While he’s not a student of other people’s golf swings, he does like to get technical about his own in terms of the biomechanics and forces and torques.
The goal though, of course, isn’t to have all those swing thoughts swirling around.
“Your confidence level is going to be a little bit different than when you don’t have any conscious thoughts,” he said. “That’s obviously the end goal when you play this game, is that you show up and you go through your routine and there’s almost, like, a blackout. You just react to what you’re doing, and you see the shots, and the ball flight translates into what you’re seeing. That’s the goal. When you’re not doing that, you have to obviously work to get there.”
“You definitely feel different when you walk onto this property as opposed to any others.”
AUGUSTA, Ga. — Brian Harman has always been known for playing golf with a bit of a chip on his shoulder.
A three-time All-American during his stellar career at the University of Georgia, the Savannah native gained national prominence when he won the U.S. Junior Amateur in 2003 as a rising junior at Savannah Christian.
His professional career was by all means successful entering last summer, as the 5-foot-7, 155-pound left hander had wins in the 2014 John Deere Classic and the 2017 Wells Fargo Championship. He has won more than $30 million in prize money, but was looking for his Major breakthrough after a second place finish in the 2017 U.S. Open.
Everything came together at Royal Liverpool last July as Harman blew away the field by six strokes to win the Open Championship with a dominant display of his shot making skills combined with a stellar short game and cerebral mental approach. He is ready for his sixth appearance at Augusta National, looking to improve on his best Masters finish — a tie for 12th in 2021.
On Monday, Harman was in Augusta National’s interview room for the first press conference of the 88th Masters Tournament with his confidence level at an all-time high.
“I don’t like thinking of it as like an arrival because I’ve always felt that way,” Harman said of his win at the Open Championship. “I don’t really like thinking of it that it’s like a justification of all the hard work that I’ve done. It’s just like this long process of a career, and that’s obviously a highlight.
“But it happened. I’m really proud of it. But I live to feel those moments, that’s like the drug for me. I want to get in contention in big golf tournaments. So my goal is to try and get to those uncomfortable places as many times as I can.”
Harman, an avid outdoorsman, said he got to play Augusta National for the first time as a 14-year old as a guest of a friend who introduced him to duck hunting. He’s in the middle of turkey hunting season right now and said he had a proud dad moment when he was with his seven-year-old daughter when she took her first bird a couple weeks back.
“When you’ve got three kids at home, it’s hard to prepare as well as you would want to. For me the preparation came last week at Valero. It’s a hard golf course, really good preparation for this week,” Harman said. “It’s just hard for me to get into that same sort of competitive space. I need the pressure to know so I can test my game against that pressure. That’s how I figure out what I need to work on going into a bigger golf tournament.”
Harman said the experience at The Open could pay off as he plays in his next major.
“I feel as though I’m more prepared to handle whatever comes my way,” Harman said. “Winning The Open and then the Ryder Cup, just these pressure-packed situations, and I’ve seen myself perform pretty well under that pressure. I may not execute under certain situations, I might just miss a golf shot, but I would like to think that the pressure wouldn’t get to me quite as bad as it may have at some point.”
Harman, who lives in St. Simons, Georgia, said he hopes to get back to Savannah soon to see old friends and fans. He is looking to make his mark this week at a course that is special to him after breaking through to win The Open.
“It’s something I’ll remember forever. My game was really trending…I got to play the week before at the Scottish Open, had some really good feelings and getting used to the weather and it just all timed up at the right time, which is really fortunate.
“I wanted to play last week, knock the rust off, and be as ready as I can to try and contend this week,” he said. “You definitely feel different when you walk onto this property as opposed to any others. Just the aura and the history and the beauty of this place makes you want to come back every year, and certainly makes you want to play well.”
Check out the action on Day 2 of 2024 Masters Tournament week.
AUGUSTA, Ga. — It’s Day 2 of Masters 2024 tournament week. That means we’re less than 48 aways from the 88th rendition of this major held every year in Augusta, Georgia.
Tuesday’s weather calls for a high of 79 and there was some early-morning rain.
The 88th Masters gets underway Thursday at Augusta National Golf Club. The popular Par 3 Contest will be Wednesday. Tuesday is another day of practice rounds. It’s only during the non-tournament days that patrons can bring cameras on the course, so for many people, getting to Augusta on a Tuesday is the way to go.
Check out some images from the second day of Masters Week 2024.
“There’s very few places in America that have a bed big enough for me, but I’ve gotten used to that.”
It has been a good start to the week for Georgia Tech senior Christo Lamprecht.
The top-ranked player in the World Amateur Golf Ranking won the Georgia Cup on Sunday, a matchup against Nick Dunlap that pits the defending U.S. Amateur champ against the defending British Amateur winner. Lamprecht nailed a 14-foot eagle putt on the final hole at the Golf Club of Georgia to win 1 up.
Then, the duo headed to Augusta National Golf Club for the 2024 Masters. Although only Lamprecht remains an amateur, they both will make their debut at the 88th edition of the Masters.
“It’s my first time coming to the Masters,” Lamprecht said. “I promised myself the first time I come here is when I play, not come and watch. So this is so cool. It’s so fun. I have a bunch of friends from home that flew over. It’s fun to have some family and friends around. It’s pretty special.”
Lamprecht, at 6-foot-8, is one of five amateurs in the field. That means he has a couple special privileges this week others won’t be able to enjoy.
On Monday, it was the annual Amateur Dinner, where he and the other four ams got to enjoy a dinner with Augusta National chairman Fred Ridley. Then, Lamprecht got to partake in another tradition reserved for amateurs: staying a night in the Crow’s Nest.
It’s a room that is reserved for amateurs the week of the Masters. Measuring only 30 feet by 40 feet, the tight space is historic sitting above the Augusta National clubhouse.
“The Crow’s Nest is going to be fun,” Lamprecht said. “Only night I’ll be staying here, but I’m looking forward to it. Just sitting around with a bunch of amateurs and talking about our experiences and stuff, just being little kids in a toy store.”
Amateurs at the Masters usually spend one night, if not more, in the Crow’s Nest. But it’s not going to be comfy for Lamprecht, who looks like he belongs on a basketball court as much as he does a golf course.
“There’s very few places in America that have a bed big enough for me, but I’ve gotten used to that,” Lamprecht, from South Africa, said. “It’s probably the best uncomfortable sleep I’ll ever have in my life. Yeah, I’m just fortunate to be here.”
Fans may remember Lamprecht from the 2023 Open Championship when he held a share of the first-round lead after the opening day and finished as the low amateur.
Time will tell if he’s able to hoist the Silver Cup, given to the low amateur at the Masters, come Sunday.
