The 90th Masters Arrives

The 90th Masters Tournament kicks off the 2026 major-championship season with question marks circling the top of the game. 

The World's No. 1 player, Scottie Scheffler has not played a competitive round of golf since finishing T12 at the Players' Championship completed 24 days prior to the Masters' first round. He tuned up for each of his two Masters victories with a PGA Tour event two weeks prior. 

Add to that the less-than-precision iron play that has plagued Scheffler in his two most recent tournaments, and it pokes a bit of a hole into the argument that Scheffler deserves to be the favorite to win the Masters for a third time.

Nonetheless, Scheffler having won three of the last eight majors and two of the last three Masters tells us otherwise. Scheffler has failed to shoot par or better only twice in his 24 rounds over Augusta National. 

The World's No. 2 player, Rory McIlroy, finished T46 at the Players after withdrawing from the Arnold Palmer Invitational with back issues. And he has not played since. Last year, he played the week before winning. 

The Masters' defending champion has a win, a second-place finish, a T21 and two missed cuts in his last five tries at Augusta National so almost anything is possible going into Masters Week for the owner of golf's career Grand Slam.

The sneaky pick for 2026's first major might be Xander Schauffele, who after an injury and a down year in 2025 is trending in the right direction. He arrives at the Masters off a T3 at the Players and a T4 at Valspar thanks to a final-round, 6-under-par 65. He also finished T7 at the Genesis Invitational. 

The two-time major winner in 2024 has finished T10 or better in his last three Masters, with a T2 in 2019 and a T3 in 2021. 

The other player reaches this Masters with a case that puts him in the favorite conversation is Cameron Young, who not only comes into the Masters off the biggest victory of his career at the Players Championshiop but has two wins and nine finishes T11 or better in his last 12 PGA Tour events. 

Just as impressive has been Young's major-championship record, which includes six top-10 finishes in his last 15 majors with three top-5s thrown in that include a second-place finish at the 2022 Open Championship and a T3 at the 2022 PGA. Young has two top-10 finishes in his four tries at the Masters. 

However, unless your name is Scheffler, McIlroy or Tiger Woods, winning the Players Championship in no way predicts success at the Masters.

Sure, Rory pulled off the Players-Masters double last year, matching Scottie won the Players, then the Masters in 2024.

Before that? We have to go back to Tiger in 2001 for the previous season in which the Players and the Masters went to the same player.

The 90th Masters will also be played with a field unlike any other in generations.

With both Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson pulling out of the field for personal reasons, this will be the first Masters since 1994 without either one or another in the field. 

Even crazier is that this edition of the Masters will be the first Masters since 1954 that did not include either Woods, Mickelson, Jack Nicklaus or Arnold Palmer in the field. 

No player is closer to the top of his game than Matt Fitzpatrick, who arrives at 2026's first major off a tournament win and a second-place finish at the Players. The 2022 U.S. Open champion, however, has never finished better than T10 at the Masters and has failed to break 70 in any of his 24 rounds during his last six Masters appearances. 

Nobody would be surprised if Justin Rose contends next week. Rose comes off losing a playoff to McIlroy a year ago, his third runnerup finish in his Masters career. In 20 appearances at the Masters, Rose has eight finishes T11 or better. 

Rose won convincingly at the Farmers, posting a 23-under-par score over a difficult Torrey Pines setup, and comes off a T13 at the Players. 

Also worth mentioning are Tommy Fleetwood and Ludvig Aberg. 

Fleetwood finished T8 at the Players and has finished in the top-10 in three of his four PGA Tour finishes this year. He finished T3 two years ago for his only top-10 finish in nine tries over Augusta National. 

Aberg led the Players for three rounds before a final-round 76 dropped him to T5. He closed with a 5-under-par 67 to finish T3 at the Arnold Palmer Invitational. 

And always worth mentioning when a major championship is contested are Jon Rahm and Brooks Koepka. 

Since winning his second major at the 2023 Masters, Rahm has posted six finishes T14 or better in the 10 major championships he's played, including a T8 and T7 at last year's PGA and U.S. Open, respectively. 

Not only does Koepka have five major championship victories, he has a pair of runner-up finishes at the Masters. Koepka has posted three top-25 finishes in his six PGA Tour events this season.

Two other former Masters champions are playing in good form: Hideki Matsuyama and Jordan Speith. 

Going into this week's Valero, Matsuyama has finished T11 or better twice in six starts this year, including a playoff loss at Phoenix. 

Also trending in the right direction is Jordan Speith, who had three finishes T12 or better in four starts heading into Valero.