Rory McIlroy headlines Masters but field features many challengers
· Yahoo Sports
AUGUSTA, Ga. ― Let the Rory McIlroy watch begin ― again. The stakes this time are still high, but they are more Masters Tournament-centric.
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Instead of needing a victory at Augusta National Golf Club to complete the career Grand Slam – which he did in dramatic fashion last year – the world’s No. 2-ranked player is attempting to be the third player in the 90 editions of the event to win it back to back.
To do it, he’ll have to contend with a 91-player field that includes the top 53 players in the world taking on a fiery golf course that is fast and furious – and expected to stay that way.
“It's arguably maybe not the largest field in golf, but it's the strongest,” McIlroy said earlier this week. “There's so many great players and so many players with so much experience on this golf course, it's not quite like some of the other major championships.”
As for the back-to-back Masters quest, Tiger Woods, who is missing his second consecutive Masters, is the last one to do it, in 2001-02.
“I think the nice thing now is instead of it being come on, Rory, you know you can do this (complete the career Grand Slam), it's back to back. There's a real positive connotation to it instead of, geez, Rory, we've been waiting a while. When are you going to get this done?”
He did get it done, besting Justin Rose on the first hole of sudden death last year.
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And now, what a better time to repeat? It would be his 30th career PGA Tour win. He begins the quest Thursday at 10:31 a.m., alongside Cameron Young and 18-year-old amateur Mason Howell.
It’s not easy to repeat. Just ask two-time Masters champion Scottie Scheffler, the world’s No. 1-ranked player, who has had two cracks at it. In his two defenses, he tied for 10th in 2023 and was fourth in 2025.
“I think defending can always be difficult, but I think that's mostly just the odds of winning a tournament in back-to-back years. I think that's just extremely challenging, especially when you look at these major championships,” said Scheffler.
McIlroy’s Masters win came in his 17th appearance in the Masters, and it was his 11th try to complete the career Grand Slam here.
Because of the magnitude of what he did last year, McIlroy has embraced his defense more so than any champion since Zach Johnson in 2008.
“I think for the past 17 years I just could not wait for the tournament to start, and this year I wouldn't care if the tournament never started. That's sort of the difference,” said McIlroy, who has been on the grounds since Saturday.
While the focus has been on McIlroy and his accomplishment last year, little has been said about the state of his game right now. He’s only played four times on the PGA Tour, with his best finish a tie for second at Riviera on Feb. 22. In one of those starts, the Arnold Palmer Invitational, he withdrew after 36 holes with a back injury. His 2026 resume is in contrast to last year, when he had won twice coming into Augusta.
Plus, partially to rest his back, he hasn’t played in three weeks, last competing in the Players Championship, which ended March 15. Scheffler also hasn’t played since the Players as he welcomed his second child. But, unlike McIlroy, he has won the PGA Tour this year, at the American Express.
“That's a tough one,” Scheffler said when asked about the state of his game. “I don't know. I try not to look too far in the past, I try not to look too far in the future. For me to think about that, that would take a little bit of work, which I don't want to do right now.”
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It is almost a Masters tradition that the winner is someone like McIlroy last year, who is on top of his game. That category this year includes Rose, Bryson DeChambeau and Patrick Reed – who all play on different tours.
Rose, the only player to lose twice in sudden death in the Masters, won on the PGA Tour in San Diego on Feb. 1.
“The key is showing up,” Rose said Monday. “The key is to try to be as free as you can in those moments. Yeah, you kind of have to hope a little bit along the way that it's your day. There's definitely been - it could have been my day in a couple of major championships that I wouldn't have had to have done anything different really to be the winner as well. Hopefully with that mindset, keep chipping away, my day might still happen where a little bit of something goes my way. The point is you've got to put yourself there. That's the hard part.”
DeChambeau has won the past two events on the LIV Tour. In the past two Masters, he’s tied for sixth in 2024 and tied for fifth last year, when played in the final group Sunday with McIlroy.
“I feel like I found something that allows me to be the best of myself, where I've got a little bit of a fire in my belly but an ability to have respect for where I'm at in life and a comfort of knowing where I'm at in life,” DeChambeau said Tuesday.
Reed, the 2018 Masters champion, has two wins and a runner-up finish on the DP World Tour this season.
“I always feel really good coming in (to the Masters),” Reed said Monday. “It's one of these things that, being the first major, you always try to come in and obviously be in great form, but it's very easy to kind of put too much pressure on yourself being the first major.”
McIllroy shot 11-under par 277 to win the Masters. The winning score is expected to be higher this year because of the dry conditions, which are expected to continue. There is no rain in the forecast for the tournament.
“If it's firm and fast, the greens are going to be even more difficult to hit than they already are,” DeChambeau said. “Looking at it from a perspective of hitting the big parts of the greens and sometimes giving myself 30-footers, even though you feel like you're losing a quarter of a shot, kind of sticking up for yourself and going, no, this is a great shot, hitting it over here and having my caddie be on that same level. That's what I did at Pinehurst (where he won the 2024 U.S. Open) that suited me so well.”
“The forecast looks great,” Scheffler said. “It's going to get firm and fast. I would imagine they would like the greens to get fast. I think that increases the challenge of the golf course. Yeah, I'm excited to see how it plays this week. We might get a little bit of wind too. The golf course is shaping up nicely. This is the best forecast I've seen for this tournament in a while.”
David Westin is a recipient of the Masters Major Achievement Award and has covered every tournament at Augusta National Golf Club since 1979 for The Augusta Chronicle. He also caddied at the club for a time.
This article originally appeared on Augusta Chronicle: 2026 Masters: Rory McIlroy leads impressive field at Augusta National