2025 Masters Preview: Everything you need to know ahead of Augusta’s blockbuster action
Last updated:
The season’s first major is here! Get up to speed with everything worth knowing in our Masters preview.
It’s time to head back down Magnolia Lane for the 89th Masters Tournament in what promises to be one of the most fiercely contested quests for the Green Jacket ever.
Defending champion Scottie Scheffler may be winless in 2025, but an ominous T2 finish in his last PGA Tour outing suggests the World No.1 will be more than ready to compete for a third Augusta title.
So, too, is a reinvigorated Rory McIlroy, coming in hot off the back of a landmark start to the season that has seen him win twice before April with masterclasses at Pebble Beach and Sawgrass. Could this be the year Rory gets the career Slam over the line?
Throw into the mix a dangerous chasing pack of PGA pros, including Ludvig Aberg, Collin Morikawa and Xander Schauffele, plus LIV threats in Jon Rahm, Bryson DeChambeau and Joaquin Niemann, and we can be hopeful of fireworks when play gets underway on Thursday, April 10.
Can anyone stop Scottie Scheffler?
Winning the Masters is tough, defending the Masters is even tougher. Only three players have done so since its inception in 1934 and their names are Jack Nicklaus, Sir Nick Faldo and Tiger Woods.
Scottie Scheffler had his chance before in 2023, but went and shot the single worst score of his Masters career, a three-over 75 in the second round, while ranking last in the field for strokes gained: putting.
Back then, Scheffler’s short game woes used to give people a chance, but that’s barely been the case since he hired Phil Kenyon as his new putting coach. He’s gained strokes on the putting green in 19 of the 27 events he’s played with Kenyon on his payroll, winning nine of them.
At last year’s Masters he shot two rounds in the 60s and won at a canter despite not having his best stuff tee to green. It’s a mark of his comfort levels around Augusta that his scoring average now sits at 70.4, which puts him way out in front among players with 20 rounds or more under their belt at the Masters.
By that metric, it’s going to take something – or someone – very special to beat him, which brings us nicely onto everyone’s favourite topic of conversation at this time of year…
Will Rory McIlroy complete the career grand slam?
Yes, this same question has featured in every Masters preview you’ve read over the last 10 years. We weren’t going to include it this year, but then he won the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am and the Players Championship, and we jumped aboard the Rory bandwagon again.
We can all cling to the fact that no one has been in better form over the last six months, but that’s also been the case previously and he’s still failed to break 70 in 11 of his past 12 rounds at Augusta.
The key will be his start.
Over the last 10 years, his scoring average through the first two rounds is 72.3, compared to 69.69 through the final round. Only once in his last eight visits has he been inside the top 10 heading into the weekend, which is a bit of an issue when you consider that only one of the last 37 winners have come from outside the top 10 after two rounds.
A lot of his struggles are often blamed on his putting, but dig a little deeper and his approach play stands out as the bigger culprit for his shortcomings around Augusta. He’s almost always middle of the pack according to strokes gained metrics, which isn’t very helpful on a second-shot golf course.
He’s been saying all the right things about being more disciplined and improving his wedge play, but Augusta does funny things to some people. Especially, it seems, to Rory McIlroy.
Is Jordan Spieth a contender or a pretender?
One only needs to look at Jordan Spieth’s record at the Masters to get excited about his chances of contending again. He has six top-four finishes in his last 11 visits to Augusta National, including his victory in 2015.
Surgery and a six-month lay-off after wrist surgery have understandably lowered his expectations coming into the new Major season, but golf places great value in course specialists – and the numbers show that Spieth ranks second in Masters history for both strokes gained: total and for lifetime scoring average.
His inconsistency – and ability to imitate Seve Ballesteros at any given moment – means you can almost get the same odds on him winning the event as you would for missing the cut, but that’s what makes him so much fun to watch. You never really know what to expect.
Can the ‘Master of Disaster’ crack the code at Augusta?
Bryson DeChambeau is not a villain of Augusta National, maybe he never was. But he has been the butt of jokes ever since he claimed, in 2020, that he viewed the course as a par 67 because he could “reach all the par 5s in two”.
The golfing gods promptly got their own back as he shot rounds of 70, 74, 69 and 73 to finish one over par. Or, to apply his logic, 18 over par.
He fared even worse in 2021, which was the last time he made it to the weekend prior to last year’s dalliance atop the leaderboard. A first-round 65 was just the fourth time he had shot in the 60s in 25 attempts, so we probably shouldn’t be surprised that he followed it up with three rounds over par to slip back into a tie for sixth.
In his 12 rounds since making those comments, he’s tallied 13 double bogeys or worse, including three on par 5s.
One publication even branded him the ‘master of disaster’, which is probably going to happen when your brashness comes back to bite you on the azaleas. Augusta doesn’t forget – and Bryson now has the scars to prove it.
Is Ludvig Aberg about to break through in a major?
Two of our TG tipsters think he will. The Swede is over the knee issue that required surgery in September and has already threatened to win a Major twice before; once on his debut at Augusta last year when he finished solo second, and again at the US Open when he held the lead after 36 holes.
On both occasions, he was left counting the cost of big errors that derailed an otherwise great week, a theme that continued throughout 2024 as he posted nine top 10s and no victories.
Sundays had been a bit of a problem for the 25-year-old up until the Genesis Invitational, when he came from three back with six holes to play to snatch victory at Torrey Pines. The manner of it all – with an out-of-bounds tee shot on the front nine and a birdie blitz on the back – was all very Spieth-like, which felt fitting when you consider the parallels between their careers so far.
Both men won during their rookie season on the PGA Tour and then finished runner-up on their first visit to Augusta. Of course, Spieth went and won on his return there 12 months later. Can Aberg do likewise? It would come as no surprise if he did.
Can Brooks Koepka rediscover his big-game pedigree?
One of our favorite stats doing the rounds after the 2023 PGA Championship was how Brooks Koepka had finished first or second in nine of his last 22 Major starts. He was a combined 80-under-par in that time, which is what makes his downturn in form since then all the more surprising.
He’s currently on the longest run of his career without a top 10 in a Major Championship, having been relegated to the role of a mid-carder for much of 2024.
A quiet start to the 2025 LIV season means no one is really talking about him as he heads into the Masters, which is almost certainly going to motivate him in his ongoing fight for greater recognition and appreciation.
It’s already worked in his favor on five occasions before in the biggest events, and given that he’s finished second twice in the last six years at Augusta, we should probably know better than to write him off.
Will Tyrrell Hatton learn to love Augusta?
Most golfers love Augusta, but Tyrrell Hatton isn’t like most golfers. He should be one of the favourites on current form, but he won’t be for one simple reason: he really dislikes the place. He’s previously raged about how “unfair” the set-up is and even claimed that he had “no chance” of winning it because of how much the course – and one hole in particular – really doesn’t suit his eye.
“I was trying not to think of 15 until I got there,” Hatton said after his final round last year. “That hole lives rent-free in my head. I hate it. I absolutely hate it. And I think it hates me with the scores that I end up producing.”
Oddly enough, he still finished inside the top 10 for the first time last year – and that was despite playing the 15th in four over par across the four days. Judging by his assessment afterwards though, it’s going to take some drastic changes for Augusta to finally win him over.
“I’ve doubled my tally now for rounds in the 60s,” said Hatton. “I don’t think there’s another golf course in the world that I’ll play 25 times and only shoot in the 60s twice. It’s a really hard golf course, one that I’ve always really struggled on. It’s just more down to the fact of my shot shape, and I’m not going to change my golf swing or how I want to play golf just to try and get around one golf course.
“Around most courses it’s fine. It’s just here, they just love having trees on the front left of tee boxes. It would be nice if we come back and they just put a few on the right just to take out some of the people that draw it, mess them up for a change.”
2025 Masters Preview: Key details
Venue: Augusta National Golf Club, Georgia (Par 72 – 7,545 yards)
Format: 72-hole strokeplay with 36-hole cut
Purse: $20 million with the winner receiving $3.6m
FedEx Cup points: 750
Favorites: Scottie Scheffler 4/1, Rory McIlroy 6/1, Collin Morikawa 14/1
Defending champion: Scottie Scheffler (USA), -11
Most wins: Jack Nicklaus (USA), 6
How many players are in the Masters?
A total of 95 players will tee it up at Augusta National (90 professionals and 5 amateurs), including a dozen LIV stars, 17 past champions, and 20 players making their debuts on the hallowed Georgian turf.
How to watch The Masters
The 2025 Masters coverage is set to be the most extensive to date and will be broadcast on ESPN, CBS, and Paramount+ in the US, and on Sky Sports in the UK from Thursday, April 10, with additional build-up through the week.
Head over to our full 2025 Masters TV schedule for all the key timings you need.
The Masters tee times
Dive into daily Masters tee times here throughout the week to ensure you don’t miss your favorite players in action.
-
Get up to speed with our 2025 Masters preview.
