Good morning, I’m Dan Gartland. I will not be listening to the Masters app’s creepy AI announcer.
In today’s SI:AM:
⛳ The new-look 13th at Augusta
👟 Speed kills in MLB’s new era
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What to look for at the Masters
The 2023 Masters is underway. This email should hit your inbox right around the time that Tiger Woods tees off for his first round at 10:18 a.m. ET. (Click here for a full list of tee times.)
The year’s first major is always a good one, and there are a few things about this year’s tournament that make it different from others. Let’s get into it.
The weather
You never want the most important piece of information about a sporting event to be the weather report, but here we are. There won’t be any problems today, with temperatures in the mid-80s and no threat of rain. The danger lies mostly with tomorrow and Saturday, with rain moving in tomorrow afternoon. The threat of thunderstorms tomorrow means lightning could force organizers to pull players off the course. Saturday is supposed to be even worse, with rain expected to be heavy at times and temperatures barely cracking 50. The rain is expected to carry over into Sunday morning. It’s not just precipitation that will cause headaches, either. The rain will come with gusty winds that will challenge players’ shotmaking abilities.
Squeezing in a full four rounds by Sunday afternoon under those conditions could be tough. Organizers could speed things along by having some players start on the back nine or by utilizing three-person groups on the weekend instead of pairings, but there still needs to be a large-enough window of acceptable weather to get every player out there at all. It’s possible the weather could force the tournament to finish Monday, which has happened only twice in the past 50 years (in 1973 and ’83).
The elephant in the room
This year’s Masters has a bit of an awkward high school reunion vibe, with the rival cliques of PGA Tour and LIV Golf players back together again. This is the first Masters since players began jumping to the rival tour last June. Because the Masters, like the U.S. Open, Open Championship and PGA Championship, isn’t organized by the PGA Tour, LIV players are given a now rare opportunity to compete alongside their former colleagues. (There are 18 of them in the field this week.) The club tried to minimize the impact of the rivalry by declining to invite LIV CEO Greg Norman (a three-time runner-up at the Masters) to this year’s tournament, but there’s still some simmering discontent. “There is more tension than some players will let on,” Michael Rosenberg writes.
Changes to the course
Erick W. Rasco/Sports Illustrated
One of Augusta’s most famous holes underwent a makeover before this year’s tournament. The par-5 13th (named Azalea) is perhaps the course’s most iconic. You know the one—with Rae’s Creek running in front of the green and four bunkers behind it, where Phil Mickelson hit his famous shot from the pine straw in 2010. The hole is perhaps Augusta’s most well-known, and statistically its easiest. The historical scoring average is below par at 4.775. To make the hole more challenging, the club moved the tee box back by 35 yards, extending the total length of the hole from 510 yards to 545. (The new tee box is on land Augusta National purchased from the neighboring Augusta Country Club in ’17.)
The idea is that players will have a harder time driving the ball through the corner of the fairway’s right-to-left dogleg, thus making going for the green in two shots much more difficult and far more risky.
The renovations at 13 are the subject of Bob Harig’s Daily Cover story today:
The idea is not to make the 13th among the hardest holes on the course; as a par-5, that is unlikely. But it was to restore some of the shot values that have gone missing, such as forcing players to hit a driver off the tee or requiring them to hit longer clubs into the green.
The possibility of a repeat
So who’s going to win it? Rory McIlroy and defending champion Scottie Scheffler are the co-betting favorites. If Scheffler is able to repeat, he’d be the first back-to-back Masters champion since Tiger Woods in 2001 and ’02. Jon Rahm, who has won three tournaments since January, is another popular pick, with the third-shortest odds to win at SI Sportsbook.
The best of Sports Illustrated
- Tom Verducci explains how speed is becoming one of the most valuable assets in baseball.
- In his latest mailbag, Albert Breer addressed Mac Jones’s future with the Patriots in light of the revelation he was offered up in trades earlier this offseason.
- Gilberto Manzano’s latest NFL mock draft has five quarterbacks going in the first round and a running back going in the top half of the round.
- Conor Orr believes these nine NFL general managers are under the most pressure at this year’s draft.
- White Sox closer Liam Hendriks is cancer free after being treated for lymphoma.
- Kansas’s Bill Self says he will return to the sidelines for the Jayhawks after his health scare.
- The Rays are off to what is by one measure the best start any modern MLB team has ever had.
- Mavericks sharpshooter Reggie Bullock bought his own private island.
The top five...
… things I saw last night:
5. Luka Dončić’s heave at the buzzer from the opposite free throw line to cover the spread against the Kings, which ended up not counting.
4. Myles Straw’s catch at the wall.
3. Mika Zibanejad’s between-the-legs deke, leading to Chris Kreider’s goal.
2. Clint Capela’s behind-the-back steal.
1. The Grizzlies’ comeback from six points down with 11 seconds to go to force overtime. (The Pelicans won in OT, though.)
SIQ
Which former U.S. president had a tree at Augusta National Golf Club named after him?
- Harry Truman
- John F. Kennedy
- Jimmy Carter
- Dwight Eisenhower
Yesterday’s SIQ: The Washington Nationals played their first game 18 years ago this week. Who started the first game for the newly relocated franchise?
- Tomo Ohka
- Liván Hernández
- Esteban Loiaza
- John Patterson
Hernández was a rare bright spot for the Nationals during their inaugural season. Washington finished 81–81 and sent two players to the All-Star Game: Hernández and Chad Cordero. While Hernández’s 3.98 ERA and 1.429 WHIP were nothing to write home about, he continued to do what he did best: eat up innings. For the third year in a row, Hernández led the NL in innings pitched. His 246⅓ innings were the most in the majors (the second year in a row that he led the majors in that category). He threw 114 pitches per start, which is unheard of today. Since 2000 (the first year for which data is available), there have been only seven instances of a pitcher averaging 114 pitches or more per start—three by Randy Johnson, two by Justin Verlander and two by Hernández. No one has averaged 110 per start since ’14.
