There were tears shed at Tuesday’s Champions Dinner — and not just from Scottie Scheffler’s spicy tortilla soup. Augusta native Larry Mize was so choked up about playing in his final Masters that he could barely get through his speech. Sandy Lyle, who is also having a swansong at the event this week, did better getting the words out, but understandably, it’s an emotional time for an athlete when they realise it’s time to hang it up.

But as former Masters champs, at least Lyle and Mize were able to make that decision themselves. For most golfers, that’s not the case. And if you haven’t won a green jacket and want to keep coming back to Augusta National, you have to keep qualifying. And qualifying. And qualifying. Maybe you go into a slump. Maybe you get an injury. Maybe you miss one Masters. Maybe you miss another. And next thing you know, you’re having to order that “Taste of the Masters” to your home like a regular patron, if you’re craving a Georgia peach ice cream sandwich. Life comes at you quick. (See Fowler, Rickie.)

With that said, we can say with certainty that Larry Mize and Sandy Lyle won’t be the only golfers teeing it up this week who will look back one day and realise the 2023 Masters was their final one. We just can’t say for sure who those other golfers are. But with LIV Golf tournaments still not being awarded Official World Golf Ranking points — and the Masters only making a couple small tweaks to its qualifications for 2024 — it’s very possible that there are more such cases this year unless guys perform really well at majors or pull a Patrick Reed and start loading up on Asian Tour events.

Take Thomas Pieters, one of LIV’s latest free-agent signings. The 31-year-old Belgian should have a couple decades left of playing in major championships, but with this OWGR situation, he realszes this (gulp) could be it. Despite the fact that he’s less than half of Mize’s age!

“I took my parents here because it could be my last one,” Pieters told reporters on Tuesday. “That’s just being realistic. I don’t know. Time will tell. We’ll see.”

Yes, we will. It got us thinking about LIV guys like Pieters and a couple notable PGA Tour players who aren’t guaranteed invites after this year. Obviously LIV green jacket members like Patrick Reed will always have a place at Augusta National, and recent major champs like Cameron Smith and Bryson DeChambeau are safe for another couple years. But here are some others whose Masters future is a bit more murky.

Louis Oosthuizen: The man with the runner-up career Grand Slam has fallen to 120th in the Official World Golf Ranking after ending 2022 in the top 50 to earn his invite this year. He also turned 40 and shot 76 on Thursday with this pad on his elbow:

Louis Oosthuizen. Patrick Smith

In other words, he’s not getting any younger.

Kevin Na. Andrew Redington

Kevin Na: At least Louis made it through his first round, though. Na walked off after only nine holes due to an illness. And he’s another guy who won’t sniff the top 50 in the OWGR again unless LIV gets World Ranking points real soon.

Jason Kokrak: Like Na, another 30-something who is not a top-50 something anymore. You get the point.

Talor Gooch: Ditto.

Abraham Ancer: Now he’s a 30-something who is still ranked 31st. But without any OWGR points, it’s very doubtful he’ll remain in the top 50 by the end of 2023. Again, you get the point.

Francesco Molinari. Andrew Redington

Francesco Molinari: See? We told you this list wouldn’t be all LIV guys. Molinari is in the final year of a five-year Masters exemption for winning the 2018 Open Championship. Despite winning at Bay Hill the following year and nearly winning a green jacket in 2019, he’s now in a four-year winless drought and down to 130th in the world. And if he had just held onto that two-shot lead on the back nine four years ago, he’d be coming back here for the rest of his life. What a cruel sport.

Harold Varner III: OK, back to the LIV guys. After finally qualifying for his first Masters in 2022, this could be it. However, and we probably should have mentioned this earlier, any of these guys can earn a trip back next year by finishing in the top 12 this week. And after an opening 72, hey, you never know.

Cameron Champ. Ben Jared

Cameron Champ: And one final PGA Tour guy! You’re probably saying: “What’s this young stud doing on this list?!” And maybe we’re crazy. BUT, despite the fact that Champ is only 27, and has three PGA Tour wins, and hits absolute lasers, he’s only here this year because of that top-12 rule. Champ is currently the lowest-ranked golfer on this list at No. 201, and he’s had back problems, and, well, again, you just never know.

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By John Huggan
This is a story about proud men, men with something to be proud of. Every April, they attend one of the sports world’s most exclusive gatherings. Every April, they are allowed to don a special and distinctive green garment, one worn by only a few. Every April, as past winners of golf’s most important tournament, they can play in the Masters at Augusta National. That is their privilege, one allowed them for as long as they choose to take advantage of their bygone victory. Any discretion is theirs and theirs alone.

All good things, though, have a natural shelf life. So it is that a less attractive decision-making process represents perhaps the only disappointing aspect of that sumptuous package of Masters goodies: When to stop playing in golf’s so-called “rite of spring?”

When does the fall in performance that is the inevitable consequence of age lead to discreet retirement?

When is it time to give up the opportunity of a lifetime and get out of the way?

When does embarrassment supersede excitement?

What scores are too high, too much of a blow to that well-earned pride?

When, then, is it time to sit back on the clubhouse veranda and watch younger men perform?

The timetables and motivations may vary, but every one of those questions leads to the same destination. And the eventual conclusions, as ever, depend on who you ask. The common factor, however, is not staying too long, as 1970 champion Billy Casper did when he shot 105 in his last Masters round in 2005. Which is easier said than done. The temptation is always there. The mind of a champion can be a wondrous thing.

“I remember Gary Player coming into the locker room a few years ago,” says two-time Masters champion Bernhard Langer. “He told me he had made the biggest mistake of his life. I was a bit taken aback as you can imagine. I asked him what was going on. He told me he had announced his retirement from the Masters that year but he had just shot 78 and thought he might still be competitive.”

Still, most players announce their intention to make one last curtain call and so enjoy the adulation of the patrons as they tour the hills and dales of Augusta National for a final time. Some, like Arnold Palmer, change their minds and do it twice (2002 and 2004). Others, 1988 champion Sandy Lyle but one example, simply change their minds and keep playing.

Then there is Ian Woosnam. In 2016, he was apparently done with the tournament he won in 1991. “It’s just getting really tough,” said the Welshman at the time. “That’s my last go. I am not fit enough to play with my bad back. Every time I play this course it just seizes on me, and I can’t swing the club properly. I am in pain all the way round, so it’s time to say ‘bye bye’ really.”

But he continued on. Then, three years and three more missed cuts later (his last made cut came in 2008), Woosnam basically repeated himself.

“I think this is going to be my last time playing here,” he sighed in 2019. “I’m just in too much pain. And it happens every time I get here. It must be the hills because I’ve been playing and hitting a lot of balls recently with no ill-effects. But as soon as I get on this course my back bothers me.”

Next week, Woosnam, at 63, is scheduled to make his 32nd appearance at Augusta, one he feels might be his swansong. Then again maybe not.

“I don’t know if this will be my last Masters,” he says, having skipped playing last November. “I just want to see how I go. Given the condition of my back, I can never say for sure. I know I’ve said before that I’m finished, but I also said that could change if my back improved. And it has. Plus, I don’t want to go out that way. My real objective is to get round pain-free. I would enjoy that. I’ve been in pain for the last 20 years really.”

So it’s tough to say goodbye. But with age comes deterioration. Even Fred Couples, who has recorded 11 top-10 finishes in 35 Masters appearances can see the end of the road, or should we say Magnolia Lane. The 1992 champion his missed the cut three times in his last five starts after making it in 28 of his first 30 appearances.

“This is a course I think I can play,” says Couples, 61. “If that’s not good enough to compete at a semi-certain level, I don’t want to do that. I don’t know when that’s going to be, but I’m not going to come out here and wave and tell everyone it’s my last round.”

“Each year it became harder and harder to break 80,” agrees two-time winner Ben Crenshaw, who retired from Masters competition amidst much pomp and ceremony in 2015 at 63. “I’m part of a bygone era when it comes to distance. I was beating my head against a brick wall. I just felt like I didn’t belong out there anymore. We’re all 2 down to father time. I was out of presses.”

Jamie Squire
Ben Crenshaw announced his retirement ahead of time in 2015 and received standing ovations throughout his final round.

Others wait until the eve of their last round to tell the world, “enough.” Craig Stadler (at 60), Fuzzy Zoeller (57) and Ray Floyd (66) all chose that route to retirement.

“People ask me why I don’t play in the Masters any more,” says Zoeller, who called it quits in 2009, three decades on from his 1979 victory and after missing the cut in 10 of his last 11 Masters starts. “I’m just not competitive. If I’m not competitive, I can’t do it. I don’t have an ego. And I knew it was time. Golf is a game to me, a hard game, but still a game. And there are 18 hard games on that course. On some you’ll be fine but others are going to kick your butt. And too many were doing that to me. I didn’t feel that I had a chance. That’s a terrible feeling. And the time when you know it is time to step aside and let the young guys have at it.”

The biggest factor in the demise of many past champions is the length of the examination they are asked to take these days. When Jose Maria Olazabal won the first of his two green jackets in 1994, Augusta National measured 6,925 yards. This year the course will be 550 yards longer. Combined with the fact that the Spaniard is 28 years older, chances are he’s going to struggle to keep up. Which he has. Since finishing T-3 in 2006, the now 55-year-old has missed seven cuts in 10 starts.

“Time is a handicap, no question,” he says. “Every year the course seems to get longer. Last year I hit a lot of 5-woods and 3-irons to the par-4 greens. So I have to be very sharp, especially with the short game. But it is just a matter of how you feel, whether you continue to play or not. We all have the right to do so, and I will do so as long as I don’t feel like I am embarrassing myself in front of people. The bottom line is the score. As long as I can get round in a decent number I will play.”

That is a common theme. As is motivation. As is the depressing thought that the limit of an aging past champion’s ambition is to make the halfway cut. One who rebelled at that notion, even while feeling like he is capable of making it to the weekend, is O’Meara. The 1998 champion made his Masters bow in 2018.

“My last good Masters [2015] was when I was 58 years old,” he says. “I made the cut when the course was dry. I tied for 22nd. After that, I missed every cut. I’d shoot in the mid-to high-70s. So when I turned 62 I felt like that was going to be it for me. I wasn’t enjoying it as much. I didn’t want to go out there and have to play my tail off just to make the cut. I didn’t want that to feel like something special. It just felt like my time had come and gone. I didn’t make a big statement about it. I was tired of finishing on Friday and having the media ask me if I was done. I didn’t say anything at the Champions Dinner on Tuesday evening. I just walked away.”

Jamie Squire
Jose Maria Olazabal says that as past champions age, they have to get more creative in the way they approach playing the course.

OK, let’s talk specifics. Are there holes that have become just too long, just too tough, for men who are routinely 60-70 yards behind their younger brethren off the tee? A few come immediately to these experienced minds.

“The seventh hole is a classic example,” Olazabal says. “I used to hit a 3-wood or a 1-iron off that tee. Then have an 8- or 9-iron to the green. Now I am hitting a solid drive and still having a 4- or 5-iron left. To a green that is elevated and very shallow for those clubs. It is virtually impossible for the ball to stop on the green. That is a great example of how the course has changed for us over the years.”

Other holes stick out, too.

“The 11th, 14th and 17th are also very difficult for us now,” says 1987 champion Larry Mize, who shot an eye-opening 70 in last year’s first round at age 62. “The tees have been moved back so far. I’m hitting a long iron or a hybrid into both now. Last year, I hit a 5-wood into 17 on Day 1. We are hitting right into the hill off the tee. The kids fly over that and get some roll. But our drives hit and stop.”

The fifth is yet another brute. In 1993, when Langer won for his second time, the par 4 measured 435 yards. Last year, when the then 63-year-old German became the oldest man to make the halfway cut, it was a whopping 495 yards. Every day, he needed a 3-wood to reach the green with his second shot.

“I am hitting a lot of 2- and 3-hybrids on holes where the younger guys are hitting 8- and 9-irons into the greens,” Langer says with a smile. “So it’s a big challenge for me.”

Not an insurmountable one though. In the final round last November, Langer was paired with the longest hitter on the PGA Tour, Bryson DeChambeau—and out-scored him by two, 71-73.

Rob Carr
Despite Bernhard Langer being 36 years Bryson DeChambeau’s senior, he was able to outduel the U.S. Open champion, 71-73, in the final round at Augusta last November.

“There is a definite advantage from playing that course 100 times or more,” Langer says. “I know how all the putts break. I’ve seen all the pin positions. I understand what each means. I know that when the pin is in position X, I can’t miss in position Y. Sometimes it is better to be 20 yards short than three feet above. I know too, how certain winds affect shots. I’ve seen. I’ve watched. And I’ve experienced so much. Add it all up and it is a definite benefit.

“It often comes down to a matter of inches. When I was paired with Bryson he got very frustrated. He made mistakes you just can’t make. He missed in the wrong places. More than once he almost hit a good shot, but it wasn’t. Then he would make bogey and sometimes double bogey.”

So experience counts for a lot around Augusta National, maybe more than anywhere else in the world other than the Old Course at St. Andrews. In turn, the more senior members of the Masters field have begun using a common refrain when describing their course strategy, noting the need for “intelligent missing.”

“I have to think about where I am going to miss, about where I will have the best chance to get down in two more shots,” says Olazabal, the owner of one of golf’s most potent short games. “It doesn’t matter how aggressive I was when I was at my peak, these days I am standing over shots knowing I have virtually no chance to finish close to the hole. So I think of the best area, the one where I will have a relatively easy chip-and-putt. Or two putts. I think more about making pars than birdies.”

All of which sounds a lot like hard work. But still these old champions keep coming back. There is, after all, much to enjoy about a week at Augusta National when you don’t have to worry about such things as making the cut, breaking 80 or reaching an increasingly distant par 4 in fewer than three shots.

“Mentally, I approach the Masters differently now. I go there knowing that making the weekend is already a success,” Olazabal says. “But I go there for many reasons. Every time I set foot on the property I have so many positive memories. Just being part of the tournament is fantastic, with things like the champions dinner. Being able to watch the new generation and how they play the course is a fascination for me. So many positives, although it is hard to think of those things when you are struggling. But it is part of life. And the game prepares you for that in the sense that, even at your peak, you are successful only a very small percentage of the time.”

Jamie Squire
Larry Mize knows that at age 62, he’s down to his last handful of Masters starts.

The last word, however, belongs to Langer, whose T-29 last year represented a phenomenal feat for a man in his 60s. While he has no immediate plans to quit playing, the 41-time PGA Tour Champions winner knows that day will inevitably arrive. He is just happy that he—along with his fellow champions—is allowed to leave on his own terms.

“Last year I asked the chairman how long I am allowed to compete,” Langer says. “I wasn’t sure. I didn’t know if there was an age limit. [The club briefly instilled one in 2002 at 65, but scrapped the plan before it went into place in 2004 after blowback from fans and past winners.] But he told me I am welcome to play as long as I like and that I will know when to stop. That was reassuring. My plan is therefore to play a few more years. When I can’t reach par 4s, or when I’m shooting high numbers, that will be the time to stop playing.”

Until, then, of course, we get to enjoy these proud men, who can still give us a taste of a time when professional golf was more “smooth” than “smash.”

The post When should a past champion call it a career at Augusta National? appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Brian Wacker
An Augusta, Ga., native carded six birdies en route to a two-under 70 in the opening round of the Masters. Would you have guessed he is 62 years old?

One birdie for each decade of Larry Mize’s life—that has nice symmetry to it.

The round was also entertaining for the fact that Mize—who is so old that he was operating the scoreboard adjacent the third green at Augusta National before Tiger Woods was even born—shot the same score as the reigning U.S. Open champ, Bryson DeChambeau.

Welcome to Augusta National, where old is so often young again.

There are 35 years separating Mize and DeChambeau, and nearly 100 yards, with the former averaging a meagre 247 yards off the tee to the latter’s brawny 334.

No matter.

Just after 11 a.m. ET, on a golf course made soggy by heavy morning rain that delayed play for nearly three hours, Mize, after opening with a bogey on the difficult first hole, rattled off his third straight birdie to briefly take the lead at two-under. What a moment for the 1987 champion.

“I did happen to see that,” he said. “Wow, that’s kind of cool. I’d like to be there more often. It’s always fun to see your name up on the leader board here. I’m sorry I couldn’t keep it there.”

No need to apologise. Therein lies the beauty of the game.

Mize missed just one fairway, which is fewer than the number of fairway woods that he needed into some of Augusta’s par 4s. As such, he bogeyed the seventh, ninth and 11th.

But what Mize lacks in length to compete on the 7,600-yard layout he makes up for in knowledge and short-game wizardry. This is, after all, his 37th Masters, where he has made the cut 20 times, the most recent of which was just three years ago.

It was a sight to see.

Rob Carr

At the par-5 second, Mize sucked a wedge back from the fringe to the far-left pin, stopping his ball a few feet from the hole to set up an easy birdie. One hole later, a short part 4 on which DeChambeau would nearly reach the green from 350 yards away with just a 3-wood, Mize took a more classic approach, leaving himself 120 yards in before employing a smooth wedge to 15 feet on his way to another birdie. (DeChambeau parred the hole, by the way, even after that Herculean blast.) On the beefy 240-yard par-3 fourth, Mize only needed a long iron but again got his ball pin high and to 15 feet.

Three more birdies followed on the par-5 13th and 15th, where he leaned on more dandy wedge play, along with the par-3 16th, where Mize used the slope right of the flag and watched as his ball rolled to 10 feet. It was a shot worthy of a roar for the hometown hero, born in Augusta on Sept 23, 1958.

But no patrons, no cheers. Not this year.

“It would have been fun to make those six birdies in front of family and friends,” Mize said. “Hopefully some of them were following me online and hopefully they enjoyed that, but it would have been fun with people here.”

It was anyway.

More from the 2020 Masters
• Why Tiger is in great position to win a sixth green jacket
• Tiger Woods was feeling it Thursday and you didn’t even need to see his score to know
• Paul Casey’s opening 65 gives Peter Kostis something to cheer from afar
• Jon Rahm says he experienced a couple ‘reality checks’ playing with Bryson DeChambeau
• The Bryson Reckoning did not come to Augusta National. Or did it?
• The six most intriguing stats from Thursday at Augusta National
• Here’s how the tournament can get back on schedule for an on-time Sunday finish
• Xander Schauffele on Augusta’s easy conditions: ‘A lot of it felt wrong’
• You won’t believe how bad Kevin Na putted on Thursday
• The Masters opening tee shot ceremony, even without patrons, still had all the feels

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