AUGUSTA, Ga. — For whatever you want to say about what the Masters has been this year with Kevin Hart, Jason Kelce and something called The Miz making appearances on the grounds here and on your television — and we will get to some of that at some point this week — one thing remains the bedrock of this place.
One thing undergirds everything else that happens here. Whether you think the par 3 contest is silly, the Champions Dinner is saccharine and the gnomes are downright stupid, one point is irrefutable. And that is that Augusta National is still, arguably without peer, the best championship golf course in the world.
On a week when storylines have lacked at times and the hubbub of the event has waned just a little bit in the afterglow of Rory’s historic win, the main character emerged on Thursday, resulting in middle fingers, club-twirling shots OB and wonderful quotes from past champions who got pummeled late in the shadows of Thursday afternoon.
Let’s get to all of that and more with 13 thoughts on Round 1 of the 2026 Masters.
Name drops today: Eli Manning, Ryan Klesko, RNP, Ollie, Haotong Li and Major Championship P.
Thanks to Garmin for presenting today’s newsletter. Not only is Garmin giving away a Z30 rangefinder to whoever is closest to guessing my step total on Thursday (you still have time to guess — I haven’t revealed it yet), but they are also outfitting me with their amazing Approach S70 watch, which I used to count said steps.
Also, perhaps we can get Patty Reed a Z30 for the 15th tomorrow after he absolutely sent one over the green and into the pond on 16 just after absolutely twirling one (I dropped the GIF below in the members only portion of the newsletter, and I greatly hope you enjoy it).
OK, now onto the news.
Round 1 Leaderboard Fruit Nursery Edition
1. It felt a bit like a “Saturday at the U.S. Open” course setup on Thursday here at ANGC. The wild part about watching guys in person is just how difficult it seemed like it was for them to get balls to stop on the proper shelf. I watched a ton of shots into 18 (back left) and some into 14 (front right) as well as 15 (middle far left), and all three shots gave players absolute fits.
There is no defense in golf, which makes it unique compared to almost all other sports. This means that not only is the golf course part of the game in a way other venues (football fields, basketball courts) are not, but that it can also become one of the primary characters. It would be weird to watch other sports and act as if the defenders don’t matter at all, and yet we rarely think about courses in this way.
Until we get to Augusta National that is.
Does it look fun to play? Absolutely not. Are the same guys who were bopping around, having the time of their lives with their children less than 24 hours ago mad as hell about having to navigate these bowling-alley-hard greens? A thousand percent.
But listen, sometimes you face Ryan Klesko in left field, and sometimes Vladdy is throwing missiles from all over the yard. That’s just sort of the deal.
And I know which one I prefer watching.
2. I thought Fred Couples described it most eloquently.
Fred, by the way, was 2 under thru 14 and finished 9-5-6-4 to shoot 78. A tough scene — especially since he went from six up on Bryson to two down against him — but here’s what he said after his round.
Well, it's fun. It's very fun. It's fun at all times. It's challenging at all times. But it's getting really, really firm. I don't know what they'll do tonight. I know I have an early morning tee time tomorrow so that might help me stop a ball on the green. … It's really rock hard.
Again, it's Augusta National. It's supposed to be like that. The wind makes it challenging because you can't really realize how far you're going to hit it.
You fly it a little far, goes over the green. Fly it a little short, you come up short and the chipping is hard. For the really good players I think they want it like this.
Fred Couples
The greens may look big, but the reality is that they are tiny. Divided by different levels, and additionally shrunk by how firm the bounces were. Watching shots into 15 all day (and subsequent reactions from players) proved that.
Here’s what Max Homa added.
Even on the easiest day here, you're still playing on the razor's edge. I watched in my group one of the guys got off to not a great start, and you start to trying to press on a hole like three. If you [hit] a great shot, you have a kick in. If you don't, it's hard to make par or bogey at times.
So that's this whole place. I think that's why you see when someone wins, they hit a legendary golf shot, but someone that day also tried that and, you know, blew up in their face. It's the golf course, man. Everything is so fine.
Max Homa
It’s the golf course, man.
Five guys in the 60s (it was out there) and 10 in the 80s (but you better hit the right shots). Simply the best championship venue in the world.
3. There are 1,000 things to say about Rory’s round today, but the one that rings the most true right now is that the freedom we thought he was going to experience in 2025 after winning here last year seems to actually be hitting him right now.
He did not play particularly well over the first nine holes today, still went out in 34, hit some absolutely filthy wedge shots and shot 67 on a day when 1. He did not have his best stuff and 2. The field average was nearly 75.
It was the exact round that always made everyone wonder how he hadn’t won three of these by the time he turned 30 and caused Fred Couples to state after Thursday that he may never lose here again.
4. There were two Rory quotes that if I’m Sam Burns, Jason Day or Pat Reed are extremely concerning to me. Here’s the first one.
I think it's easier for me to make those swings and not worry about where it goes when I know that I can go to the champions locker room and put my green jacket on and have a Coke Zero at the end of the day.
Rory McIlroy
That is a problem.
The next one even more so.
I still have high expectations of myself, but my expectations are more, Did I make good decisions today? Was I committed? Was I trusting? It wasn't my expectations of, I'm going to go out and shoot 65 and did I do it?
I think it took me a while to get to that point where, if I focus on the process and the little mini goals of not compounding errors, like today, hitting it in trees and trying to be a hero, making good decisions, thinking my way around the golf course, I think those are the expectations I have for myself. And if I can live up to those expectations, then the scores and the results should take care of itself.
Rory McIlroy
That is terrifying. Rory’s talent with Scottie’s mindset would keep me up at night if I’m anybody else on the board.
5. I went to the annual presser with Tom Watson, Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player this morning. This is not something I normally do, but I’m glad I did this year.
Here are four things that stood out.
1. There was a lot of talk about almost winning or playing great but coming up short that was completely dismissed by these three guys. For example, Nicklaus beating Tiger in the 1998 Masters came up, and Nicklaus waved it off saying, I didn’t win so it doesn’t count. I found that interesting in a world where we (I?) value top 10s and strokes gained and all of these other things quite a bit. These legends don’t even give anything that wasn’t a win a second thought.
2. Gary Player went ham on the 12th hole.
It's a great example for golf architects to realize you don't have to make the holes all that long. That's an 8-iron, and it's crippled more people than polio. This hole, it's really some hole.
Gary Player
A real quote.
He also kept talking about when Jordan Spieth made 7 there in 2016, and Jack said, “Who?” Probably because he didn’t hear GP, but maybe because he thinks Spieth is JAG.
3. GP was exquisite on rollback.
I believe the ball should be cut back 60 yards, only for professional golf. Leave everyone to golf as it is. They're the heart of the game, but professional golf is not. With regard to professional golf, cut the ball back 60 yards.
It's a tragedy. There is no such thing as a par-5 in the world today. We saw Rory with a 7-iron last year when he won the Masters, they're hitting 8-irons and 7-irons to par-5s.
We've never had a big man play golf of note. Wait until LeBron James comes out, Michael Jordan, and they are because [incentives are] so great. There's so much money that people around the world are exercising and going to the gym, which originally I was criticized and condemned for doing that. They're lifting weights now. They'll drive the 1st green here very easily.
They're going to be driving many, many par-4s. So where are we going?
Gary Player
Preach brother!
4. I thought the end of the presser was lovely.
You can read Tom Watson’s quote below or watch it here.
It's always a pleasure to be at the Masters. When I was a kid, I watched the Masters in '58, '60, '62, '64, and then this guy came along and beat my king right here. It was the beginning of golf in [the spring in] Kansas City, and the Masters Tournament came on, and it got you so pumped up for the game. It still does.
Tom Watson
Tom Watson is 76 years old. He’s hit a billion shots at Augusta National. And the fire still burns. He had me jacked up for the first round with that ending quote.
7. One of my favorite stats: Since 2005, only Tiger and Rory have come from outside the top 10 after Round 1 to win the Masters. I don’t think that’s going to change this year, which means that your 2026 champ will likely be one of the following.
Rory
Burns
Kitayama
Day
Reed
Lowry
Xander
Rose
Scottie
Haotong
Taylor
Campbell
Bridgeman
Fleetwood
Rai
Woodland
Now let’s do that list and remove guys that I believe have close to no chance.
Rory
Burns
Reed
Lowry
Xander
Rose
Scottie
Fleetwood
Woodland
Yeah … that looks pretty great.
The problem if you’re over par is not so much that you’re at least six back of the lead but that you’re at least six back of Rory and at least three back of Scottie.
Spotting those two a combined nine shots with just 54 holes left on a golf course that destroys even the smallest mistakes is not a position I’d want to be in.
8. Some of my favorite tweets from Thursday.
9. And my favorite GIF maybe ever.
This ball hit the green and bounded about 35 yards over into the pond. I’m in love with the club twirl —> drop sequence no matter who is performing it.
Also, I think this take on No. 15 is pretty interesting.
It was impossible to stop a ball there late, which is obviously sick.
Even like Gary and I both hit pretty good shots in there. His ball lands on the back fringe. He's almost in the water long. You can just as easily chip skip that ball in the water. I'm sure you saw some carnage on that hole today, but it was challenging.
Scottie Scheffler
But also, it was the easiest hole of the final five on the golf course. It will be an interesting one to monitor over the next few days as they move pins around. I kind of agree that I’d like to see eagle opportunities brought into play, but I also love how difficult the choices are for the best players in the world. Nowhere to go, nowhere to hide, a thousand decisions on every shot. It is the most fun thing in the world to watch.
10. I walked most of the morning with the Jose Maria Olazabal-Aldrich Potgieter-Rasmus Neergaard-Petersen group. It was an absolute delight. JMO struggled to cover the beginning of Rae’s Creek on 13 and clipped the crosswalk on 17 by a yard or two. And JMO just torched the youngsters for most of the day.
The two youngsters — a combined 47 years old to Ollie’s 60 — averaged 299 off the tee, 40 yards longer than the two-time champ. Their best ball 72 narrowly clipped Ollie’s 74 even though he got the Dane by three and the South African by 10 individually.
It was impossible to watch that trio and not think about what Fred Ridley said on Wednesday ahead of the tournament.
Until recent years golf has been a game of imagination, creativity, and variety. The game has become much more one-dimensional. …
As for professional golf, we hold firm in our belief that the greats of the game are defined not merely by how far they hit the ball, but their extraordinary skill in all aspects of the game. Their ability to shape shots, to take on risk, and to execute under pressure is at the heart of championship golf and is best displayed through a full spectrum of shot-making opportunities.
Fred Ridley
I’m sure there are better descriptions of Jose Maria Olazabal than “imagination, creativity and variety,” but there can’t be many.
Potgieter and RNP are certainly more impressive to watch if you’ve never watched golf before. Louder, definitely, and much, much longer. But if you know what you’re looking at, golf doesn’t get much better than JMO bunting it around the National on Thursday, chipping, spinning, drawing and wiling his way to that 74 that was one late errant shot from 72.
Nobody in junior golf is chasing what Ollie does compared to what those other two do. Speed is the game, and the Spaniard has none of it. But there’s a reason he dunked on both of them all day. Because he understands that the only numbers that matter are not found on a Trackman but the ones you put on the card. And the card doesn’t care what your swing speed is or how old you are or are not. It only cares about how long it took you to get the ball in the hole. There have been few better than Jose Maria Olazabal in his career around this place. And hell, there were few better on Thursday in the first round of his 37th appearance.
Yes, I look at the leaderboard. I saw myself 2-under par, and for a little while I said to myself, hey, I'm leading the Masters. There you go.
JMO
Senior flex vs. X-stiff
11. A collection of notes from walking around on Thursday.
• Eli Manning is a member here. I did not know that. I knew Peyton was (and has been for a while), but I saw Eli in a green jacket on Thursday afternoon.
• One of my favorite dumb tiny things on the grounds is that they put last year’s major winners as well as the U.S. Am and British Am winner and their scores from this event on the main leaderboard by 18 and leave them up there most of the day.
• I nearly got hit by a JT drive on 10, and the lady just ahead of me did get hit, keeping his ball from going even deeper in the trees and pine straw. It got me thinking about how big of an advantage it is when you have a big gallery. That ball stopping could (won’t, but could) be a difference of two shots, which could be the difference in winning and losing the tournament.
There’s always a lot of talk about making things fair for the entire field, and of course it’s impossible to protect against something like how many fans are following specific players, but it does strike me as something that could provide meaningful margins that we almost never talk about.
• I saw a hat that read “HALLOWED” but it was upside down and backward. No.
• I experienced No. 12 with Soly while watching Spieth for the first time. I think we both held our breath. Felt like we were personally exorcising some demons.
12. I did a quick “who it would be cool to see Rory put the jacket on” ranking in my head while walking around on Thursday.
1. Himself
2. Lowry
3. Rose
4. Tommy
5. Scottie
90. Reed
I think that looks about right.
Can you imagine Rory putting the jacket on Lowry? My gosh. I did find myself silently rooting for Rose on Thursday. Rory running it back would obviously be very cool, and a Rory-Scottie showdown on a diabolical golf course this weekend could be all time, but Rose has been too good and too consistent for too long to only have one major championship on his CV.
13. Also … it might be over.
So it was nice to feel my hand shaking a little bit when the tee went into the ground and struggle to put the ball on top of the tee. So I knew I was feeling it. That's a good thing. That's why we want to be here.
Rory McIlroy
Back to back for the first time in nearly 25 years. I’m not saying it’s going to happen. But I am saying that 67 on Thursday was a 71 in basically any of the last 15 years.
Problematic for anyone trying to get involved.
Thank you for reading our outrageous golf newsletter that is sometimes about golf and sometimes about who played left field for the Atlanta Braves.
Every edition is handcrafted by me (Kyle) and Jason. It is a labor of love, but as long as you keep showing up and we still have money in our bank account, we will keep handcrafting and delivering this thing to you with all the obsession we can muster.
AUGUSTA, Ga. — For whatever you want to say about what the Masters has been this year with Kevin Hart, Jason Kelce and something called The Miz making appearances on the grounds here and on your television — and we will get to some of that at some point this week — one thing remains the bedrock of this place.
One thing undergirds everything else that happens here. Whether you think the par 3 contest is silly, the Champions Dinner is saccharine and the gnomes are downright stupid, one point is irrefutable. And that is that Augusta National is still, arguably without peer, the best championship golf course in the world.
On a week when storylines have lacked at times and the hubbub of the event has waned just a little bit in the afterglow of Rory’s historic win, the main character emerged on Thursday, resulting in middle fingers, club-twirling shots OB and wonderful quotes from past champions who got pummeled late in the shadows of Thursday afternoon.
Let’s get to all of that and more with 13 thoughts on Round 1 of the 2026 Masters.
Name drops today: Eli Manning, Ryan Klesko, RNP, Ollie, Haotong Li and Major Championship P.
Thanks to Garmin for presenting today’s newsletter. Not only is Garmin giving away a Z30 rangefinder to whoever is closest to guessing my step total on Thursday (you still have time to guess — I haven’t revealed it yet), but they are also outfitting me with their amazing Approach S70 watch, which I used to count said steps.
Also, perhaps we can get Patty Reed a Z30 for the 15th tomorrow after he absolutely sent one over the green and into the pond on 16 just after absolutely twirling one (I dropped the GIF below in the members only portion of the newsletter, and I greatly hope you enjoy it).
OK, now onto the news.
Round 1 Leaderboard Fruit Nursery Edition
1. It felt a bit like a “Saturday at the U.S. Open” course setup on Thursday here at ANGC. The wild part about watching guys in person is just how difficult it seemed like it was for them to get balls to stop on the proper shelf. I watched a ton of shots into 18 (back left) and some into 14 (front right) as well as 15 (middle far left), and all three shots gave players absolute fits.
There is no defense in golf, which makes it unique compared to almost all other sports. This means that not only is the golf course part of the game in a way other venues (football fields, basketball courts) are not, but that it can also become one of the primary characters. It would be weird to watch other sports and act as if the defenders don’t matter at all, and yet we rarely think about courses in this way.
Until we get to Augusta National that is.
Does it look fun to play? Absolutely not. Are the same guys who were bopping around, having the time of their lives with their children less than 24 hours ago mad as hell about having to navigate these bowling-alley-hard greens? A thousand percent.
But listen, sometimes you face Ryan Klesko in left field, and sometimes Vladdy is throwing missiles from all over the yard. That’s just sort of the deal.
And I know which one I prefer watching.
2. I thought Fred Couples described it most eloquently.
Fred, by the way, was 2 under thru 14 and finished 9-5-6-4 to shoot 78. A tough scene — especially since he went from six up on Bryson to two down against him — but here’s what he said after his round.
Well, it's fun. It's very fun. It's fun at all times. It's challenging at all times. But it's getting really, really firm. I don't know what they'll do tonight. I know I have an early morning tee time tomorrow so that might help me stop a ball on the green. … It's really rock hard.
Again, it's Augusta National. It's supposed to be like that. The wind makes it challenging because you can't really realize how far you're going to hit it.
You fly it a little far, goes over the green. Fly it a little short, you come up short and the chipping is hard. For the really good players I think they want it like this.
Fred Couples
The greens may look big, but the reality is that they are tiny. Divided by different levels, and additionally shrunk by how firm the bounces were. Watching shots into 15 all day (and subsequent reactions from players) proved that.
Here’s what Max Homa added.
Even on the easiest day here, you're still playing on the razor's edge. I watched in my group one of the guys got off to not a great start, and you start to trying to press on a hole like three. If you [hit] a great shot, you have a kick in. If you don't, it's hard to make par or bogey at times.
So that's this whole place. I think that's why you see when someone wins, they hit a legendary golf shot, but someone that day also tried that and, you know, blew up in their face. It's the golf course, man. Everything is so fine.
Max Homa
It’s the golf course, man.
Five guys in the 60s (it was out there) and 10 in the 80s (but you better hit the right shots). Simply the best championship venue in the world.
3. There are 1,000 things to say about Rory’s round today, but the one that rings the most true right now is that the freedom we thought he was going to experience in 2025 after winning here last year seems to actually be hitting him right now.
He did not play particularly well over the first nine holes today, still went out in 34, hit some absolutely filthy wedge shots and shot 67 on a day when 1. He did not have his best stuff and 2. The field average was nearly 75.
It was the exact round that always made everyone wonder how he hadn’t won three of these by the time he turned 30 and caused Fred Couples to state after Thursday that he may never lose here again.
4. There were two Rory quotes that if I’m Sam Burns, Jason Day or Pat Reed are extremely concerning to me. Here’s the first one.
I think it's easier for me to make those swings and not worry about where it goes when I know that I can go to the champions locker room and put my green jacket on and have a Coke Zero at the end of the day.
Rory McIlroy
That is a problem.
The next one even more so.
I still have high expectations of myself, but my expectations are more, Did I make good decisions today? Was I committed? Was I trusting? It wasn't my expectations of, I'm going to go out and shoot 65 and did I do it?
I think it took me a while to get to that point where, if I focus on the process and the little mini goals of not compounding errors, like today, hitting it in trees and trying to be a hero, making good decisions, thinking my way around the golf course, I think those are the expectations I have for myself. And if I can live up to those expectations, then the scores and the results should take care of itself.
Rory McIlroy
That is terrifying. Rory’s talent with Scottie’s mindset would keep me up at night if I’m anybody else on the board.
This post will continue below for Normal Club members (all 1,043 of them) and includes notes from the grounds on Thursday and a memorable morning in a press conference with three Masters legends.
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