Road to Masters 2026: Things to watch as major victory approaches at Augusta National

A lot of effort has gone into predictions, but over the past few years figuring out the Masters has been incredibly…easy. The process is as follows: Pick your best players for the first three months of the season, then sit back and tell your friends and family how smart you are. Praise, rewards, wealth, and self-gratification all quickly follow.

By the time Rory McIlroy arrived at Augusta National Golf Club in 2025, he had won twice. It was his third title of the year wearing the green jacket. The previous year, Scottie Scheffler won the Arnold Palmer Invitational and The Players Championship, finished runner-up at the final round of the Houston Open, and advanced to the Masters.

Going back even further, Jon Rahm won the Sentry, American Express, and Genesis Invitational before winning the Masters in 2023. Scheffler arrived in 2022, and his first three career wins were an appetizer to his first major title.

This is four consecutive champions who have basically stared everyone in the face. You could also include Dustin Johnson in this group — he had two wins, two second-place finishes and one sixth-place finish in six races leading up to November’s Masters, with Hideki Matsuyama being the only outlier in the past six Masters. But even calling Matsuyama a freak seems a little disrespectful.

Still, heading into the 2026 Masters, for the first time in what feels like a long time, we don’t have a clear answer. At least not yet. There is no dominant force. Only one player has ever won multiple times on the PGA Tour, and he has never played in the Masters.

Despite the wins and a few close calls, Scheffler has struggled compared to his ceiling. McIlroy endured a back injury that forced him to miss the weekend at Ernie’s Place and prevent him from properly preparing for The Players. Collin Morikawa looked ready to break through this opening before exiting the TPC Sawgrass lot after just one hole.

This signature event was a success not only for Morikawa but also for young big names like Jacob Bridgman and Akshay Bhatia. Are they ready for the major stage? Bridgeman will be making his first appearance, while Bhatia has never finished inside the top 30 in his two trips to Augusta National.

Add in the already mentioned two-time winner (Chris Gottapp) and Players Champion Cameron Young, and the table is starting to fill up. Let’s add an invitation to Ludvig Åberg and Viktor Hovland, who are known for eating (both literally and figuratively).

And there are former major champions like Xander Schauffele, Matt Fitzpatrick, Patrick Reed, Brooks Koepka, Jordan Spieth, Shane Lowry, Justin Rose, Justin Thomas and Matsuyama. Other potential candidates include Russell Henry, Tommy Fleetwood, Tyrrell Hatton, Robert McIntyre and Si-woo Kim.

For now, extra chairs will need to be borrowed from other tables, and additional silverware will also be needed as Bryson DeChambeau has won his last two LIV Golf matches in Singapore and South Africa. Lahm always has a seat reserved for him, but the waitstaff was informed that he would actually make this reservation after returning to the winner’s circle in Hong Kong and falling short to DeChambeau in the playoffs in South Africa.

This candidate’s table is officially crowded, perhaps even overcrowded, to the point where you have to sit at the corner of the table and can’t spread your elbows wide enough to enjoy your meal. It’s the type of crowd that forces you to pay a 25% service charge, so someone is bound to complain. Will Matt Kuchar be on the field?

So many people are having so many different conversations on so many different topics (see Hovland) that when a bill is introduced, half of them don’t notice and the other half have very important questions.

“Who’s going to pick this up?”

Different paths to the same destination

Scheffler said “undecided” when asked what tournaments he might add to the schedule before Augusta National, while McIlroy said at the champion’s press conference:

“I was really happy with how my body responded to that little setback and was determined to do a good job here at home over the next few weeks,” McIlroy said. “Go down to Augusta National a few times and play. Obviously, I’m really looking forward to going and defending the tournament week. I know it’s a pretty rare feat to defend the Masters Tournament, and it’s something I would love to do.”

All signs pointed to the Houston Open as the final destination for Scheffler — he had finished runner-up in three of the past four seasons and had never missed a tournament, even when it was held in the fall — and with the tournament just around the corner, he would officially be taking off.

Meanwhile, McIlroy is adjusting his preparation for the Masters depending on his mood. He chose the Houston Open in 2025, but the year before that he chose the Texas Open, where some thought he might play, adding wrinkles due to his stocky back.

Both recorded top-five finishes, but only one game saw McIlroy don the green jacket, a few weeks later. Working from home may sound prudent, but it’s been more than a decade since McIlroy took both weeks off for his first major league game.

why this Stretching is important to Koepka

After toiling on the West Coast, Koepka returned to the friendly soil of Florida and returned to being the golfer he was known for. A top-10 finish at the Cognizant Classic replaced a top-15 result at The Players Championship. Now he can get serious about the runway of events he uses to prepare for the Masters.

For Koepka, who was at LIV Golf, being able to choose his schedule was not a luxury he had, as he is eligible for all three remaining PGA Tour events leading up to the Masters. However, this may not last long heading into the PGA Championship.

Are you getting ahead of yourself? Sure, but this is an important run for Koepka, not only for his Green Jacket ambitions, but also for the month between the first and second major of the season. The PGA Tour schedule after the Masters consists of four weeks of golf featuring three signature events, a team-style tournament, and an opposite field event. As it stands, Koepka will only be able to play in the latter two games.

How are you all doing?

Here’s a fun fact. Only two players in their 30s have won on the PGA Tour this season. That’s Nico Echavarria and Matt Fitzpatrick from the Valspar Championship. With the exception of 45-year-old Justin Rose, the rest are in their 20s, and he continues to defy conventional wisdom and peak at the things that matter most to him.

The under-26 team accounted for most of this damage with Gottarup, Bridgman and Batia winning the tournament, as well as Oberg, Michael Thorbjornsen and Aldrich Potgieter. In 2022, Scheffler becomes the fourth player in this age group since 2000 to win the Masters before his 27th birthday, and the first since Spieth in 2015.

spies season

Speaking of Spieth…it’s his time this year. If the three-time major champion is going to make more noise than his T12 and T11 finishes at the Genesis Invitational and Arnold Palmer Invitational and a few hours of fun at the Players Championship, you have to expect it to happen within the next five weeks.

Four of Spieth’s 13 PGA Tour wins include the Valspar Championship, Texas Open, Masters and RBC Heritage (to which he has yet to qualify). Those account for four of the next five tournaments on the PGA Tour schedule, and lo and behold, Spieth just happens to be showing some signs.

There are some things that need to be fixed, such as the double bogey, but based on the numbers, this is Spieth’s best play since the 2021 season and his best putt since 2019. I can’t promise you won’t get caught up again.

mr worldwide

After starting the season with two wins on the DP World Tour and a runner-up finish in the Middle East, Reid experienced a relatively quiet swing in South Africa. The 2018 Masters champion finished in the top 10 at the Joburg Open and is now heading to Asia, where tournaments will be held in China and India before the Masters.

Reed’s play-in form is noteworthy. All five of his top-10 finishes (including wins) at the Masters followed at least one podium finish somewhere in the world, including Macau, Dubai, Wentworth and San Diego. The finish was completed and I also earned airline points.

The remaining top two are…

It’s clear that the PGA Tour will pass Scheffler and McIlroy, but the same goes for Rahm and DeChambeau at LIV Golf. Please do not show this to the Torque GC social team.

After taking a five-shot lead at LIV Golf Adelaide, both players rallied to break into the winner’s circle and claim their first win of the year. In South Africa, No. 2 was at stake for both players, who faced each other in a playoff between rhino jives, with DeChambeau winning with a birdie on the first extra hole.

Among golfers who have played at least 20 rounds at Augusta National, Rahm ranks behind Scheffler and Spieth in total strokes gained per round of +2.44, but DeChambeau has solved the mystery in recent years with finishes of T6 and T5, the latter of which was named atop the leaderboard at one point Sunday.

bubble watch

Last season, Ben Griffin played every week leading up to the Masters in hopes of earning an invite. However, after Lee Min-woo won the Houston Open, Griffin blasted the predictions on social media, believing he had done enough to jump up the rankings in the Official World Golf Rankings and eventually make it into the rankings.

Well, don’t worry, Ben, you’re going to enroll this year. do not be afraid.

The three-time PGA Tour winner is guaranteed a tee time at Augusta National, but a number of prospects have instead taken a spot on the top-50 bubble. Anyone who sneaks into that number by the end of the Houston Open will sneak into the gates of Augusta National. Earn your spot in the field instead of literally sneaking in. There is no need to increase security. Anyway, here are some names to keep an eye on.

Notable players near the top 50 bubble are not yet eligible.