Hey Everyone,
Rory McIlroy is better than all of us, but man, does he play golf like all of us sometimes, too. The ceiling and floor are both higher (duh…), but the ups and downs are very relatable.
Here’s a wild little nugget: McIlroy and Scottie Scheffler have won 4 of the last 5 Masters and 4 of the last 5 majors. Now we just need a duel between the two of them.
I watched most of Rory’s nervy Saturday round at Vanguard Golf during their open house. It was great to meet a bunch of people and put faces to names. I’ll be sure to share more about public events in that space. It’s worth checking out, even during the golf season.
News and Notes
Pro Golf
The Masters: Keegan Bradley shot 72-74-73-66 to finish T21. His Sunday 66 tied for the best round of the day with Tyrrell Hatton.
College Golf
Princeton Invitational (Men): Harvard won by six shots over Georgetown. Yale finished seventh, and Dartmouth finished ninth. Carson Erick (Hingham, Mass.) finished T4, Alan Rose III (Weston, Mass.) finished 18, and CJ Winchenbaugh (Weston, Mass.) finished 25th. Temple senior, Aidan Emmerich (Swampscott, Mass.) finished 27th.
Wofford Invitational (Men): The Providence men’s team is playing at the CC of Spartanburg in South Carolina. They were T12 after the first round. Live Scoring
Rutgers Invitational (Women): Dartmouth finished third, Quinnipiac finished seventh, Boston University finished T11, and Sacred Heart finished 13th. Results
The Shark Invitational (Men): Dates: April 13–14 Course | Brookville Country Club | Teams: Sacred Heart, Bryant, College of the Holy Cross, Fairfield, New Haven Scoring
ABARTA Coca-Cola Collegiate Invitational (Men): Dates: April 14–15 | Course: Northampton CC | Teams: Merrimack Scoring
Women’s ACC Championship Dates: April 16–19 | Course: Porter's Neck GC | Teams: Boston College Scoring
Seagulls Four-Ball
Ryan Brown and Sam Russell earned medalist honors with a 67 in qualifying at Hyannisport Club. However, they bowed out in the first round of match play on Sunday against the father-son duo of Paul and Kyle Puchol.
There are seven total flights. The final 8 in each flight will return to Hyannisport next Saturday. Results
US Challenge Cup Match Play Championship - Results
Luke Edgar (Hanover, Mass.) beat Maxx Zides (North Attleboro, Mass.) to take home the title in the boys 15-18 division
Ishaan Catone (Cranston, RI) beat Michael Rogers (Hingham, Mass.) 3&2 in the Boys 14 & Under Division
Adriana Eaton (Greenvile, RI) won the Girls Division with a 3&2 win over Juyeon Paek (Chesire, Conn.).
Some thoughts about The Masters
Rory’s Rare Major Record
There is a trend among golfers with 4 or more majors. They either win their majors in a short chunk of time or they get one last major years after it looks like they’re done winning.
Winning majors isn’t a slow-burn kind of thing.
Arnold Palmer won seven majors in six years from 1958 to 1964.
Ben Hogan won eight from 1948 to 1953.
Tom Watson won seven majors from 1975 to 1983. And nearly won the 2009 Open Championship, which would have been the ultimate example of this trend.
Then there’s Tiger Woods, who won 14 majors from 1997-2008 and then snatched one more in 2019 (and that’s probably it, I think even the absolute sickos would admit that now.).
Jack Nicklaus won in 1986 at The Masters; it had been six years since his last major in 1980.
Lee Trevino won his first five majors from 1968 to 1974 and then won the PGA Championship at 45 years old.
Ernie Els went ten years between his penultimate and final major from 2002 and 2012.
Who can forget Phil Mickelson’s time machine journey in 2021 at Kiawah Island? His penultimate major was the 2013 Open Championship.
Raymond Floyd might have one of the stranger major win records. He won in 1969, 1976, 1982, 1986. Impressive to win majors in three different decades.
When Rory slayed the demons last year, he broke an eleven-year losing streak in the majors. Players don’t win a second major after ending that type of drought. They get their last one, and that’s it. It’s their grand finale. But not for McIlroy.
Rory had his run so early in his life, so it makes sense that he would grab another major (or more!) at age 35.
Now, he’s halfway to a second career grand slam. If he win’s the U.S. Open at Shinnecock this year or Pebble Beach in 2027, there’s a chance he tees it up at St. Andrews in 2027, looking to complete that career achievement and join only Tiger and Jack to do it.
Who Lost Sleep on Sunday Night?
Cam Young had Rory in his sights on Sunday and just couldn’t make putts on the back nine. He was steady and had a bunch of good birdie looks. He finished his round with nine straight pars.
This was a good exchange after the round.
Russell Henley had a real chance to win The Masters on Sunday (on his birthday). He shot 32 on the first nine and then stalled out, making seven pars en route to a 36. He missed so many putts down the stretch, there’s a world where he makes three putts and wins The Masters.
Scottie Scheffler might wake up in a cold sweat, standing on the 13th or 15th fairways with a long iron in his hand and his ball bounding over the green. He played the second nine par 5s in one-over par during the week. He might also have Haotong Li up in the trees slapping it around and shooting 80 in that nightmare. That Sunday stretch from hole Nos. 4-14 was tough, and that birdie putt on 17 was also brutally close, too.
Justin Rose’s Amen Corner performance on Sunday was stunning. He made the turn with a two-shot lead at 12-under par, and it was looking like he might put down the throttle as his birdie putt dripped into the hole on nine.
Then he bailed out on 11 and made bogey, chunked a chip on 12 for another bogey, and three-putted 13 for par. He looked 45 years old in that 45 minute window. It was kind of the death blow for the Englishman. Rose shot 21-under par over the last 144 holes at Augusta National and lost to the back-to-back champion by a total of two shots.
Is The Masters losing the fight?
It’s always felt like The Masters was successfully pushing against the walls of modernity (for better and worse).
The no phones policy has been romanticized endlessly, and for good reason. It’s incredible to be in a place where people aren’t distracted by their phones or making an effort to record every moment of their experience.
Patrons (not fans!) are not allowed to run.
Leave a chair in your favorite spot, and that spot is yours until you remove your chair.
But this year it started to feel like the outside world is creeping through the gates at Augusta National.
The hats and merchandise stuff has jumped the shark. The “Egg Salad” hats are dumb as hell, and I can’t imagine buying one, let alone two…
There were some stories about phones ringing on the course. Apple Watches and Meta Glasses are also permeating the event. They kicked Mark Calcavechia, a Open Championship winner, off the grounds because he had his phone out, but they also seemingly allowed zero-time major winner Kai Trump to use her phone.
The Jason Kelce, Kevin Hart, and The Mizz stuff on Wednesday doesn’t really bother me. Probably because I don’t watch the par 3 contest, and once the golf starts on Thursday, a lot of that stuff fades into the background or disappears completely.
But that didn’t feel like it was the case this year.
I even caught a few moments where patrons were yelling nonsense after shots, which is not typical of a Masters telecast.
"GIVE ME BACK MY SON!"
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing.bsky.social) 2026-04-12T02:57:15.458Z
Augusta Chairman Fred Ridley admitted during this press conference that the tension is real.
I think that your question really points out sort of the balance -- and I've referred to the tension in the past -- between respecting tradition and innovating, or in our nomenclature, continuous improvement. So I do think we need to be looking at nontraditional ways of promoting the tournament, but more so promoting golf.
A few years ago we had Dude Perfect playing frisbee at Amen Corner. In retrospect, I like those guys, but that may not have been the best idea. But it does point out that we try things every once in a while that are a little bit nontraditional.
Times change, and I’m an old guy. But I think there are examples of tournaments that kind of take their eyes off the ball for the sake of a bit more cultural impact. I don’t ever foresee The Masters having a day like The WM Open had a few years ago. However, that event had to make changes and try to put the toothpaste back in the tube. That’s a tall task.
Will Joel Dahman rip off his shirt on 16 at Augusta National someday?
Hell no.
Will patrons throw their plastic cups onto the green when (yes, when) Shane Lowry makes another hole-in-one?
Of course not.
However, The Masters has a vibe, and this year it felt like there was a small shift in that vibe as I watched on TV.
The next few years of The Masters will be worth tracking. This year felt like a bit of a new benchmark between Egg Salad hats, merch haul videos, Amazon Prime coverage, and patrons yelling quotes from 1990s action movies.
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