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Masters thoughts and links

Masters thoughts and links

Content firehose, the average golfer, major trends, and more

Sean Melia
April 08, 2025

Two more sleeps until The Masters kicks off!

I’m not even sure I’m allowed to use “kicks off” in a sentence with regards to The Masters. It should probably be “commences” or some other fancy word.

Patrons not fans

Second Nine not Back Nine.

Like any major championship, The Masters generates all sorts of thoughts and ideas. This particular post will be exactly that.

Some quick thoughts.

Some extended thoughts.

Some rambling thoughts.

Some links.

Let’s get into it.

Preview Podcast with Paul Burke

Paul Burke joined me for another major preview. We’ve been doing these for at least 11 years now. This one was “robust.” We covered a bunch of good stuff.

Multiple major winners of the 2020s and who can join the club?
Is there TOO MUCH Masters coverage?
Who is feeling the pressure to win?
Who is in the wilderness?
Can players with scars from Augusta ever win The Masters?
Picks and dark horses

2025 Masters Preview with Paul Burke

Bay State Golf Podcast · Episode

open.spotify.com/episode/4V0C5eqxVmTHFLGjG26n0Y?si=56b59fd428ce41e9

Masters Content and the PGA Tour schedule

The Masters’ firehose seems to run harder and earlier with every passing year. The major golf void is bigger than ever; Xander Schauffele lifted the Claret Jug on July 21. That’s 263 days between shots in the majors.

So we’re all frothing at the mouth for The Masters and the extra month and the glut of media pumping out content starting in late March leaves me with one single thought.

The PGA Tour should absolutely not have an event the week before The Masters, or any major, to be honest.

This past weekend had:

The Augusta National Women’s Amateur
Men’s and Women’s College Final Four
Drive, Chip, and Putt
LIV Golf Miami
LPGA Match Play

LIV Golf can take a hike for all I care.

It’s starting to feel like the gravitational pull of Augusta, Georgia is getting stronger and stronger for the first two weeks in April. Claire Rogers of Golf.com is in town for 14 days. Many media members are arriving for the ANWA and sticking around for the Masters.

Why not just allow this gravitational pull and turn these two weeks into an Augusta National Festival?

Women’s amateur golf, junior golf, and then men’s professional golf are all there.

So why bother with an event at TPC San Antonio?

What if the weeks leading up to The Masters looked like this:

March 13-16: The Players Championship
March 20-23: Valspar Championship
March 27-30: Houston Open
April 3-6: OPEN
April 10-13: The Masters

Imagine if ANWA turned into a longer event. Maybe they play Champions retreat on Tuesday and Wednesday, then have the practice round on Thursday. The whole field plays on Friday and then there’s a cut before the final round on Saturday.

Is that unrealistic? Probably. Three rounds might be a bridge too far for the folks at Augusta National.

Also, giving the LPGA Match Play at Shadow Creek in Las Vegas some attention would be sweet. It’s in prime time on the East Coast, and it’s a format that doesn’t exist on the PGA Tour.

In short. The Masters needs some room to breathe, and so does the other golf going on the week before the event.

Justin Rose. The perfect average

I rarely tweet, and when I do, no one sees them. But this one with a Mystery Skill Penagon made the rounds. Justin Rose is statistically playing like the perfectly average PGA Tour pro.

I kinda like him this week…

Maybe the most staggering skill pentagon you can find... anyone wanna guess who this perfectly average major winner who will tee it up in The Masters is? @KylePorterNS
— Sean Melia (@baystate_golf)
5:49 PM • Apr 7, 2025

Experience at Augusta

It will be interesting to see how the Monday rain impacts the players with less experience. Two days to prepare for this exacting exam might not be enough for players competing for the first or second time. Especially considering how much the course will dry up over the next 48-72 hours.

Could this impact Ludvig?

Maybe…

Bryson Dechambeau

In eight appearances in The Masters, Bryson Dechambeau has made the cut six times. Pretty solid record. However, before last year’s T6, his best finish was T21 in 2016 as an amateur.

He’s shot in the 60s four times in 28 rounds. He shot 80 in 2022.

Last year, he opened with a 65, his best round ever at The Masters. However, he slid backward over the last 54 holes. He shot 73-75-73 and wasn’t really in the mix with Collin Morikawa, Ludvig Aberg, and Scottie Scheffler on Sunday.

Speaking of Scottie

There is some history on the line this week for the world’s number-one player.

One man has won three Masters in the span of four years: Jack Nicklaus.

Tiger won three in five years (2001, 2002, and 2005).

Woods, Nicklaus, and Nick Faldo, are the only three players in history who have won back-to-back Masters.

With a win this week, Scheffler would also join Nicklaus (6), Woods (5), Arnold Palmer (4), Jimmy Demaret, Sam Snead, Gary Player, Nick Faldo, and Phil Mickelson (3) as the only players to win three or more Masters.

Scottie would also join Jimmy Demeret as the only player to win three Masters and no other major.

Multiple Major Winners in the 2020s

We’re about halfway through the decade, and five players have won two majors since 2020: Jon Rahm, Scottie Scheffler, Xander Schauffele, Bryson Dechambeau, and Collin Morikawa.

Add Justin Thomas and Dustin Johnson, who won their second majors in the 2020s but their first in the 2010s.

With a win, Morikawa and Schauffele would add their names to the list of modern players who are one major shy of the career grand slam.

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Legacy cappers

Looking at the most prolific major champions in history, they (mostly) have two things in common.

First, they win in bunches.

Ben Hogan won nine in seven years
Arnold Palmer won seven majors in six years
Seve Ballesteros won four in five years
Lee Trevino won five majors in six years
Nick Faldo won five in five years
McIlroy won four in three years
Koepka won four in two years
Nick Price won three in two years
Padraig Harrington won three in 14 months

Is it a rule? Not really, but it’s a bit of a trend.

Second, a lot of players cap their legacy with one last major that’s separate from their penultimate win.

Faldo won in 1996. Four years after his 1992 major.
Seve’s fifth major was in 1988. Four years after his 1984 win.
Tiger’s 2019 Masters win was 11 years after his 2008 U.S. Open win (sorry, he ain’t winning again.)
Payne Stewart won the 1999 U.S. Open. He won the 1990 PGA Championship and the 1991 U.S. Open. Sadly, his career was cut short. So, who knows if he gets a fourth major?
Ernie Els won the 2002 Open Championship and then the 2012 Open Championship.
Jack Nicklaus won the 1986 Masters. He hadn’t won a major since 1980.

Of course, one outlier is Phil Mickelson. His majors are bunched and then spread out (2004, 2005, 2006, 2010, 2013, 2021).

So why does this matter?

I’m looking at Brooks Koepka, Schauffele, and Rory McIlroy.

Koepka won the 2023 PGA Championship after winning four majors really quickly from 2017-2019. Is that Koepka’s cap? The exclamation point on his career?

Maybe.

I think it is. I think he’s done winning majors.

McIlroy hasn’t won a major in 11 years. Eleven!

So, history suggests that McIlroy will get one more somewhere down the line. He was so young when he won his fourth major in 2014 (24 years old). Does that mean he wins this week?

No.

But it seems like McIlroy will snatch one in the next eight majors.

On the other hand, Schauffele might be in his "majors binge” era. He’s been so good in the majors his entire career that I would imagine he’ll win another major in the next eight.

It’s funny how time and winning create pressure, but time and losing also create pressure.

Golf…is wild.