The Masters 2019: Preview and predictions
By Luke Norris
Here’s a look at five more stories that could be fun on Sunday at The Masters.
12. Tiger Woods
Until he gets back into the top 10 in the world, Tiger Woods is always going to be on this page. Why? Because like it or not, as long as he’s healthy and playing (or sometimes even when he isn’t), Tiger Woods is always going to be a story. Plain and simple. The fact that he’s back healthy and just had the best year in the last five or six doesn’t hurt. He hasn’t played his best in 2019 but he hasn’t played horribly either. Since winning the Tour Championship last fall, he’s finished in the top 20 in all but one of his six starts. The putter is a bit of a concern, especially at a venue like Augusta, but as a four-time Masters champ, he obviously knows how to win here, even if it has been 14 years since the last one. Geez, can that be right? I’m sure CBS is hoping that Tiger is in contention.
15. Tony Finau
The legend of Tony Finau began at the Par-3 Contest here a year ago…you remember…he freakishly rolled his ankle after an ace. It’s a miracle he was even able to play the actual tournament and yet he still went out and finished in the top 10, the first of three top-10 finishes in the majors last year. Unfortunately for the 29-year-old, he hasn’t finished in the top 10 even once in 2019, his best finish being a T-13 at Torrey Pines back in January. It would be great to see him find his game back at the place that made him somewhat of a household name.
29. Adam Scott
It’s hard to believe that it’s been six years since Adam Scott won The Masters, his first and only major championship to date, and more than three years since he tasted victory of any kind, his last victory coming at the WGC-Cadillac Championship in March of 2016. A rough few seasons dropped the former world number one all the way down to 76th in the world rankings, that low point coming after a tie for 57th at the 2018 WGC-Bridgestone Invitational. However, Scott went out the following week and finished in solo third at the PGA Championship and has a handful of top-10 finishes since then. He finished second at the Farmers Insurance Open and tied for seventh at the Genesis Open and has slowly climbed back into the top 30 in the world. It would be great to see one of golf’s good guys give it one more run.
33. Jordan Spieth
The Masters may be exactly where Jordan Spieth needs to be right now. Also a former world number one, the three-time major champion has dropped out of the top 30 in the world for the first time in nearly six years and is struggling to find his game. Augusta National would be a great place for him to find it and get back on track. Spieth doesn’t have a top-10 finish in his last 15 starts, a streak that stretches back to last year’s Open Championship. But he knows this golf course and always plays well here. In five appearances at The Masters, Spieth has finished outside the top three just once…and even that was a tie for 11th two years ago. He finished tied for second in his debut in 2014, won here in 2015, tied for second again in 2016, had the tie for 11th in 2017 and then finished in solo third a year ago, shooting a 64 in the final round. Okay, he led after the first round and then shot 74 on day two but that’s not the point. Spieth hasn’t won a golf tournament since The Open two years ago and seeing him back in contention would be nice to see.
46. Charles Howell III
How is Charles Howell III only 39 years old? Come on, I feel like I’ve been watching this guy play golf for 30 years now. But seriously, I kid because I care. Chucky 3-Sticks (one of the coolest nicknames in the history of golf) was always one of those guys that I really liked and was waiting on to hit that next level and it just never happened. He was a solid player for a long time and won a couple of PGA Tour events but then he just went cold. Wanna know how cold? He’s played in The Masters once in the last decade, a tie for 19th in 2012. Once ranked 15th in the world, Howell found himself drop as low as 164th in 2011. Even just a few years ago, he was 148th. But in 2017, he began to bounce back a little. He tied for second at Torrey Pines and then got himself a solo second at the Quicken Loans National. He tied for sixth at Torrey last year and carded a few more top-10s before finally getting over that hump and winning his first tournament in 11 years at the RSM Classic. He’s continued to play good golf in 2019 with a T-8 at Sony, a solo sixth at Genesis and top-25s at WGC-Mexico and Bay Hill. Now back in the top 50 players in the world, Charles Howell III is playing some of the best golf of his career and contending at The Masters would be amazing to watch, if only to hear Jim Nantz say Chucky 3-Sticks.