Masters round table: missing Woods Tiger, long blows to win and favorites to lose

Augusta, Ga. – It’s masters’ week.

The Azaleas burst, the gnomes fly shelves in the goods building and sandwiches with egg salads are in abundance. The Golf World went down to Augusta National Golf Club for the Masters 2025 tournament, including Athletics.

To start the week, three of our golf screenwriters – Brody Miller, Gabby Herzig and Hugh Kellenberger – answered questions, from what they thought of Augusta to find out if they will miss Tiger Woods (outside, torn Achilles) to whom and who may not serve the owner of a new green jacket on Sunday afternoon.

What excites you most in these masters?

Herzig: The scenarios are abundant in the masters of this year, but for some different reasons, it seems that we can be due to emerging an unexpected main character. It is difficult to underestimate Scottie Scheffler, but his game only takes shape after a ravioli manufacturing incident has derailed the start of this season. Rory McILroy plays some of the best golfs at the start of the season of his life, but Augusta National brings something of him that can be unpredictable. Xander Schauffele would have been an automatic favorite without an injured intercostal muscle that put it on a temporary ball count.

Liv players enter Augusta having played only one tournament in the United States, and courses abroad do not compete entirely with the Alister Mackenzie test, to say it well. The combination of prowess and uncertainty at the top of the male game makes anticipation around this masters particularly palpable. It is a familiar phenomenon, but this year, more than others, I feel the everything that could affect atmosphere.

Kellenberger: As a Florida resident, I had the opportunity to meet many Disney adults and may be linked to one or two. Although it is not for me, I understand the call. You cross the doors and the outside world seems to fall by the way, the “magic” intended to proclaim you as your mother did once. It is a comfortable escape. Well, I always argued that the Masters is a Disneyland, exchanging wacky ears for this classic yellow logo and a turkey leg for a pepper cheese sandwich. I am happy to have fun.

Miller: There are so many potential epic and epic stories that could come from this week. McILroy, playing some of the best golf courses in his career, finally ended the big career chelem 11 years after his last major victory? Does Xander Schauffele get a third major in four starts? Does Jon Rahm become a winner on several occasions or Scheffler winning three of the four masters to reach the national grandeur Augusta God-Tier? Or has a new budding star like Ludvig Åberg put in history books as we all expect?

And if all this does not happen, it means a new icon that we do not plan. This is the coolest thing about masters. We will all remember who are Charl Schwartzel and Danny Willett because they won here.

Will you miss Tiger Woods?

Miller: Yes. Even if I have tired during the attention we have to pay each turn, a golfer who is no longer a real competitor, that’s story. I don’t care if it’s cheesy. It may be the biggest golfer to play, to do so in the most emblematic place, and seeing that it should never be taken for granted. The presence of Woods adds severity and relevance which is significantly absent when it is not there.

(And if I want to be a selfish sports editor, it’s always pleasant when Woods attracts large galleries and breaks how many people follow the other stars.)

Kellenberger: A year ago, I made a duty to be behind the 18th green while Tiger rose the fairway. I watched his turn before the leaders even got rid of, while the customers bathed him with admiration and praised a man from his record and not the 77 he had just fired to finish on the field. “Just in case” was my reasoning to be there, because if the last decade has taught us something about Tiger Woods, you never know what will happen next.

There is a good chance that he will play the masters again, but he should be according to his conditions, for his reasons and without external expectations imposed on him. A masters without Tiger Woods will not feel familiar, but we will continue.

Herzig: Will I miss the energy in the Masters press conference room when Woods released, settles in its chair and adjusts the microphone with 200 people by the seats while waiting for it to open their mouths? Or the superb increase in the number of decibels when he struts from the clubhouse to the first tee Thursday morning? Absolutely. Woods and Augusta National make a dynamic duo, the one that no player will never reproduce in the modern era – at least no player which we are currently aware. I will miss the show that Woods provides to the Masters.

That being said, there is nothing worse than a relationship that seems forced. No matter how confidence he says, Woods has not been in good shape to win this golf course since the car accident. I will not fail to see the soft on these hills, nor to climb at the sight of its ball entering the deepest bunkers of the property – it is simply not fun to watch someone who dominated this game through pain. It is not worth it.

Name a long time to win

Kellenberger: A list of long shots at the Masters will always intrigue, filled with stars of the second level of the PGA and a heavy list of former champions who could theoretically draw a jack in 1986 and find magic once again.

Russell Henley begins the week more-5000 and is a month deleted from a victory on the signature event. Cameron Smith and Wyndham Clark are still fairly recent major champions. Keegan Bradley is a choice for chaos. Phil Mickelson? Patrick Reed? Oh my, the catch. Robert Macintyre has not been to the Masters since 2022, but his performance at the time was better than his CV. He is a different golfer, better now, and a Scottish who knows how to shape his shot in the wind is not like the craziest thing ever to the master.

Miller: Sepp Straka. He is one of the 10 best iron players in the world, and this year it was better than ever. He won the American Express in January and already has seven top-15 in this short season. Add to what it finished T16 at the Masters last spring, so there is not a ton of reasons to doubt that he is able to win here. If there was a connection, it is that Augusta National is a place where you often need a short creative game, and Straka is a player lower than the average around the Greens, but hey, that’s why it is long term.

Herzig: Will Zalatoris. It is not only a blow in the dark. In 2023, Zalatoris had to withdraw from the masters after undergoing a back injury which led to column surgery, and that devastated it. But before that, Zalatoris was preparing a CV of masters who felt intended to include a victory soon. He finished solo second in 2021 and equaled the sixth in 2022. A year later, his back merged and still adapting to the four -day burden, he posted a T9. Now, with the 2025 season in progress, you can look at Zalatoris’ results and convince yourself that he is not in the form of winning a masters.

I would say that the world No. 63 has played much better than it has marked this season, the first blatant example being its roller coaster in a players’ championship. In some of the most windy conditions we have seen this calendar this year, Zalatoris reached equality for second place on Saturday at TPC Sawgrass after spending 10 sous in its last 27 holes. Then he made a quadruple Bogey, and everything took place from there. All we see is the T30, but he executed a stellar golf course in ridiculous conditions on a massive scene in this result. In addition, man likes Augusta National – let’s see what he can do.

A name that you are sure will not win

Miller: BRYSON DECHAMBEAU. Although it is pleasant to see him play well last week in Liv Miami, he was average this Liv season and has generally regressed since this epic victory of the United States. And although we should in no case ignore his impressive T6 last year, his overall career of the masters was a ton of missed cuts and ends outside the Top 20. I respect a ton of dechambeau, but he does not win.

Herzig: He talks about the city, but Rory McILroy will not win the Masters this year. I am also convinced that anyone that McILroy plays some of the most complete and disciplined golf course of his career. He has controlled that the iron flight through an iron shot on the test for windy conditions and tiny landing areas. Creativity and versatility in its game seem unrivaled. And McILroy enters the masters with the best Big Dogs CV 2025 on the field: a victory at Pebble Beach and a championship of players. Difficult to beat them.

But yet, I am convinced that we will see McILroy Miss the Cut by Three or Break Hearts on Sunday with a quasi-failure. I don’t think it will be something between the two, and I don’t think it will be a victory either.

Kellenberger: Jordan Spieth has a better chance of winning the masters 2025 that Hideki Matsuyama is wild. Savage. He has played in six tournaments since his return from the intersane wrist surgery and has two top 10, but his performance against signature event fields (when he is in them) was not as encouraging. Although he does not lose in any of the four categories, according to Data Golf, he also does not outdo an important part of the field.

I would love Spieth to be back at some point, but it is the name of the top 5 with a top 5 match. Spieth and the Masters will always have a certain call, but he has missed the cup of two of the last three years. I’m on that one.

(Top photo of Scottie Scheffler with his shopping cart, Ted Scott: Michael Reaves / Getty Images)