This past weekend, the 2024 Masters Tournament occurred at Augusta National Golf Club in Augusta, Georgia. The tournament takes place every April and is the first of four major golf tournaments that take place every season.
Tagged as a “tradition unlike any other,” thousands of people flocked to Augusta to witness one of golf’s greatest honors be won and a purse of $18 million be split by players who perform well.
This year’s tournament was highlighted by an extremely talented field, featuring stars like world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler and last year’s champion, John Rahm. The field included many more stars of the game, including Rory McIlroy, Bryson DeChambeau, Rickie Fowler, Collin Morikawa, Max Homa, Justin Thomas and, of course, Tiger Woods.
This year’s tournament was graced by great weather for all four rounds, making shooting low rounds a big possibility. However, winds played a heavy factor in all four rounds, forcing the players to be very precise to make better than par on certain holes.
“The course is very scorable,” said Tucker Sutton, a senior accounting major. “However, the greens are lightning fast, and spraying the ball off the tee can put you in a lot of trouble. It’s the best tournament to watch because those guys are so good, but the difficulty of the incredible conditions still shows.”
Augusta is known for having tough greens to make putts on while also having a lot of undulation and elevation change.
“The best have to play their best to win at Augusta, and the leaderboard is always stacked,” said Josh Killen, a senior marketing major. “Sunday at the Masters would be the pinnacle of golf for me, maybe even the pinnacle of attending live sports events.”
Scheffler climbed the mountain top again and won his second Masters in three years. Scheffler finished with a final score of 11 under par, shooting a four-under 68 in the final round. The top five was made up of Ludvig Åberg, at seven under par, and a three-way tie for third, at four-under par, between Homa, Morikawa and Tommy Fleetwood.
Scheffler entered the tournament as the favorite and showed that he was well-deserving of it.
“He’s on top of the world right now and playing out of his mind,” said Ryan Collins, a junior mass communication major. “It’s exciting that the best golfer in the world is an American again. McIlroy and Rahm were on top for a while, and as a fan of the Ryder Cup, I like to see Americans playing better than Europeans.”
The tournament brought other headlines, such as Woods making the cut for his 24th straight time playing at the Masters, an incredible feat to accomplish. This is proven by the fact that Rahm, the defending champion, did not make the cut this year.
The fact that Rahm and Scheffler are trading the jacket also made headlines. As a tradition of the tournament, the previous champion awards the winner with the green jacket. In 2023, Scheffler presented the jacket to Rahm, and this year, they swapped places.
