10 bits of Masters drama you might have missed

Welcome back to the Monday Finish, where we’ve decided to take up base-jumping — need a less stressful hobby than watching golf. To the news…

MASTERS DRAMA

Odds and ends from Augusta National.

If you stress-watched Rory McIlroy’s chase for the Grand Slam, you were probably too strung out to register anything else going on at the Masters. So let’s circle back with these 10 intriguing subplots, side quests, what-ifs, mini-dramas and random factoids from the weekend’s action:

1. Patrick Reed could have thrown us a real curveball.

Remember when they cut to Reed on the green at No. 13, staring down a three-footer for birdie? When he missed the birdie putt — and missed the comebacker, too, leading to a painful and unlikely bogey? That might have been a very, very big deal. Look, every player in the field threw away shots throughout the week. But these were two freebies, wasted with just six holes to go. Just a few minutes later McIlroy would play the hole behind Reed and deposit his third in the stream short of the 13th green en route to double bogey, bringing the entire field back into the mix in the process.

A little while later, Reed did the improbable at No. 17, holing his approach shot for an eagle 2 to get to 9 under par, which is where he finished — two shots outside the playoff. Can you imagine if that hole-out had gotten him to 11 under instead?!

What could have been…

Still, Reed earned the second podium of his Augusta National career, and it’s worth noting Reed’s string of high finishes at Augusta National. He won in 2018 and has five top-12s in the seven years since; his run of T36-T10-T8-T35-T4-T12-3 means he should be on our radar every spring for years to come.

2. Two surprise Low Lefties.

Entering the week you would have likely picked Bob MacIntyre or Akshay Bhatia to go lowest of the tournament-record eight left-handed golfers. Or perhaps Brian Harman, coming off a victory, or Phil Mickelson, showing some form in the lead-up to his favorite tournament.

How’d those guys do? Harman finished T36. Bhatia finished T42. MacIntyre and Mickelson missed the cut. And your low lefties were instead Bubba Watson, who has cracked the top 10 just once in his LIV career, and Matt McCarty, playing in his second career major. They finished T14. Good on ’em both.

3. Ludvig Åberg lost a boatload at the end.

When Ludvig Åberg walked to the 17th tee at 10 under par it felt like he could still win the golf tournament. At risk of spoiler: he didn’t. Instead he made bogey at 17 and then, after finding the fairway bunker at 18, tried to get aggressive and got ejected instead. What turned into a triple bogey sent him from solo third to solo seventh, costing himself just north of $700,000.

What’s the point? These guys play for a lot of money, for one thing. Late misses have consequences.

But it was also a pretty clear sign that Åberg wasn’t content with another near-miss. Forget the money — he made $4 million by winning the Genesis. He wanted that jacket and, for a moment, he could probably picture slipping it on. Even though the final leaderboard won’t make it look that close.

4. Shane Lowry rebounded for his buddy.

If you saw Shane Lowry early in his final round, 1 under through two holes and just four back of the lead, and then you saw him again greeting McIlroy with a wide grin and a massive hug, you would have fairly assumed that he’d had a proper golf day and finished near his mate atop the board. In reality his day turned to misery; he somehow piled up seven bogeys and two doubles en route to 81 and slipped to T42.

Anybody who has ever played a bad round of golf knows how tough it can be to shake off, but when one of your closest friends in the world is on the brink of a Grand Slam you have to rise to the occasion. Credit to Lowry for doing just that…

5. Xander Schauffele’s streak continues.

You likely remember that Xander Schauffele won two majors last year. What you may not know is that his Sunday 71 moved him up to T8, his fifth consecutive major finish of eighth or better and his 12th (!) consecutive major top-20. The last time he finished worse than T18 at a major was the 2022 Masters. That was also the last time he missed a cut.

6. Max Homa earned a return visit.

Hopefully this week was a sign of things to come for Max Homa, who had not made the weekend at a tournament with a cut since last year’s Open Championship and had slid outside the top 80. After rallying Friday to make the cut he kept climbing with a 69-71 weekend to finish T12 — just inside the top-12 threshold that guarantees an invite back for next year.

7. Justin Rose and Zach Johnson converged — for a moment.

Heading to the weekend Justin Rose was the solo leader while Zach Johnson was tied for last place of guys who’d made the cut. But then Johnson’s surprise 66 on Saturday shot him up the leaderboard. When Rose fired 75, the two 40-something major champs had played their way into the same final-round pairing. Johnson actually played quite well; his 71 left him T8, his best result at a major since the 2020 U.S. Open. But Rose’s 66 nearly won him the golf tournament.

8. Hideki proved you can do it all.

On Saturday Hideki Matsuyama shot the highest score in the field, a seven-over 79. Sunday? He tied Rose for the low round of the day, shooting six-under 66. Get you a man who can do both. He finished T21.

9. Rory McIlroy’s 15th-hole iron shot went much better this time.

You’ll recall that the beginning of McIlroy’s undoing at last year’s U.S. Open came when he flushed an iron over the back of the par-3 15th green. The consensus was that it was a well-struck shot — it was just the wrong shot, or at least wrong club for the moment. This time around? McIlroy hit one of the most spectacular shots in Masters history, sending a high, slinging 7-iron to six feet with his second shot at the par-5. (Even though he missed the eagle putt.) That’s year-over-year improvement.

10. …and he didn’t say much to DeChambeau.

DeChambeau was asked in his press conference — post-round, though pre-playoff — how he thought McIlroy was doing.

“No idea,” he said. “Didn’t talk to me once all day.”

How was the atmosphere?

“Electric. I loved it. But he was just like — just being focused, I guess. It’s not me, though.”

I don’t think there’s necessarily animosity between these two. McIlroy spoke glowingly about DeChambeau in the months following the U.S. Open last year, praising him as a worthy competitor as well as a needle-mover. DeChambeau said he felt for McIlroy mid-meltdown on No. 13, too.

“I wanted to cry for him,” he said.

But I do think there’s a fierce, healthy, game-recognize-game on-course rivalry now officially underway. DeChambeau won the U.S. Open, crushing McIlroy’s dreams. Now McIlroy’s won the Masters while playing alongside DeChambeau. Will the next chapter come at Quail Hollow? Oakmont? Augusta National?

RYDER CUP WATCH

Big-time Masters moves.

On the U.S. side, a couple familiar faces made big moves — Jordan Spieth‘s T14 jumped him from No. 43 to No. 32 and Homa’s T12 took him from No. 36 to No. 23 — but another familiar face outdid them. Reed, one-time partner to Spieth, zipped up 53 spots to No. 20.

DeChambeau moved up a spot to No. 4; I’d consider him an unofficial lock alongside Nos. 1-3: Scottie Scheffler, Xander Schauffele and Collin Morikawa.

Team Europe’s core got a shakeup in the form of a familiar face, too: Rose leapt from No. 28 to No. 4. The Englishman represented the old guard in Italy in 2023, which felt like it could be his swan song. But if he can bottle up some more of what he felt this week, they’ll be glad to have him back for Bethpage.

ONE THING TO WATCH

Sahith rooting for Rory.

Something extremely cool and relatable about Sahith Theegala rooting this hard for McIlroy — you can feel his pain after the first miss and you can feel his joy a minute later.