The Masters, 2023
In which I issue a Mea Culpa (Mea Koepka?) to LIV. Sort of.
That was a very weird Masters with weather interrupting two of the four rounds, and yet we had a very satisfying final round, that appeared to mostly be a head-to-head battle between eventual champion Jon Rahm and Brooks Koepka.
For those without context, Koepka has won four majors but has spent the last few years injured and left for the LIV tour in the middle of last year. His appearance on Full Swing suggested he was a shell of himself, he didn’t think he could compete with the best guys on the PGA Tour and that he basically left because it was the last chance for a big payday. Rahm, on the other hand, is one of the best golfers in the world right now, firmly committed to the PGA Tour but only had one major, the 2021 U.S. Open at Torrey Pines, to his credit.
The shock of this - to me - was not only that yes, LIV golfers were ready to play (more on this later) but that Koepka ROARED out to a lead. After 36 holes, he was -12 and firmly in command of the tournament. He’d won a LIV tournament the prior week - at a golf course I’ve played and was not overly impressed by - but there was no way to understand what that would mean for him at Augusta. Whatever IT meant, he came out looking like the 4-time major winner who punished the field from 2017-2019.
Someone posted that only twice had a golfer been -12 at The Masters and lost … and both times it was LIV Golf stooge Greg Norman. Perhaps this was not the omen Koepka needed.
There is a joke to be made about how Koepka - a golfer who now normally only plays in 54-hole events - was leading after 54 holes and crumbled during the last 18. And to be sure, despite a reputation as someone who will slam the door on any threats to him winning, when you look back to the 2019 PGA where he won at Bethpage despite a rocky Sunday performance, he’s somewhat faded in the last round. He’s still a four-time major winner, and this performance was a true bright spot for him and, honestly, for golf.
I don’t like Brooks Koepka. He relishes in being a big of a jock bully, and seems very much like he’d be a member of the Cobra Kai if given a chance. He was recently in a box at a Florida Panthers hockey game and not only somehow brought in a traffic cone but was using it to try and insult/trash a player. What I can’t get over is this, but also that he wore a tracksuit to the game.
He’s not easy to like, but golf is indisputably better with a guy of his talents showing up at the majors.
You know what’s better? Jon Rahm getting his second major with an absolute dagger of a performance. Rahm is great at every aspect of golf, is incredibly thoughtful and compassionate, and is very, very easy to root for. He has to be considered a contender for every event he enters for the foreseeable future.
Golf is great when Rahm is winning, and if I’m being honest, its good when Koepka is in the mix as well. If nothing else, his performance last weekend was a reminder of what we’ve lost with him only playing in golf tournaments I’ll watch four times a year.
But now, I need to return to the fact that LIV golfers in general did much, much better than I’d expected.
Coming into The Masters, it was a big question how the LIV golfers would perform. And when folks were wondering this (like, I don’t know … me) the two golfers most brought up were Cam Smith and Dustin Johnson, both who have had a lot of success at Augusta, and who were the two “best” golfers that left for LIV Golf.
I personally have long thought Cam Smith had at least one green jacket in him, and I’ve been eyeing him as a one-and-done pick for The Masters. But … I have to say, this concerns me. Where is the proof that he’s still got the fire in the belly? While he’s the reigning Open Champion, and the winner of the last major, I truly can’t say that he’s doing his very best to prepare for the next major. And what does that tell us?
His talent hasn’t evaporated, but has his motivation? If you can’t get motivated to roll over a bunch of guys CLEARLY inferior to you, you’re gonna show up and just be ready to go up against Jon Rahm, Scottie Scheffler, Rory McIlroy and others? Can you really just turn on your best game after months and months of essentially playing in exhibitions and fishing off your boat in Florida?
I … wonder.
Welp.
Here’s how they finished:
T2 - Brooks Koepka, Phil Mickelson
T4 - Patrick Reed
T16 - Joaquin Niemann
T29 - Harold Varner III
T34 - Cameron Smith, Talor Gooch
T39 - Abraham Ancer
T43 - Mito Pereira
T48 - Thomas Pieters, Dustin Johnson
T50 - Charl Schwartzel
MC - Bryson DeChambeau, Sergio Garcia, Jason Kokrak, Bubba Watson, Louis Oosthuizen
WD - Kevin Na
That’s 12/18 LIV golfers making the cut, with three in the top-5. In no world is this not impressive. What’s odd is that Smith and DJ were never really in it, and why that’s the case is an open question. (DJ looked absolutely disinterested over the weekend, shooting a 78-75, but again there shouldn’t be too much analysis done over two rounds.)
Why the LIV golfers did so well, in my opinion, comes down to two things - and the first is a big mea culpa by me:
I completely underestimated just how good these guys are, and how motivated they are/were to do well on an international stage like this. The LIV golfers who played all qualified in some way by their performances in recent years (some of them may have run out of runway here, like Niemann, Gooch, Ancer and Pereira, until or unless they do something big in another major or something fundamental changes with LIV and OWGR).
This may sound like I’m moving the goalposts, but one thing I didn’t truly take into account enough was that these guys mostly all are incredibly familiar with Augusta National. Phil Mickelson hasn’t had a T-5 in an event since he won the PGA Championship in 2021…even in the limited fields in LIV, he hasn’t competed at all. But he can play Augusta with his eyes closed, and absolutely punished the course Sunday to somehow T2 with Koepka. Koepka, Reed and Smith always play well here, though again Smith was really never a factor. That stuff matters. Will these guys show up in the same way at Oak Hill, Los Angeles Country Club and Royal Liverpool (Hoylake) for the next three majors? These are not courses that anyone on tour plays regularly, and many of these guys will first see courses like LACC for a practice round. If they show up and play well again, I’ll be even more impressed.
