It’s Masters Week

Welcome to The Weekly Slice.

The long weekend is here and the greatest tournament in golf has arrived!

A big hello to our new members. You can check out previous weeks here.

Masters 2023

The Masters 2023 has finally arrived, and in case you couldn’t tell – I’m pretty excited.

It’s one of the best and biggest events in golf, with 88 of the most talented men’s golfers in the world competing.

But this year, The Masters feel a little different, with more drama and potential storylines than ever before:

LIV Golf

The most obvious, of course being the 18 LIV golfers playing this week, including previous winners Phil Mickelson, Sergio Garcia and Dustin Johnson.

A name that won’t be there, however, is LIV Golf commissioner, Greg Norman, who thought it was “petty” to not get an invite.

Perhaps LIV’s best hope of a Masters victory is Brooks Koepka, who picked up his 2nd win last week on the new tour.

Also, the Champions Dinner must have made for some interesting small talk, with 6 previous winners from the LIV Tour in attendance.

I can’t imagine Fred Couples had much to say to Sergio Garcia, having called him a “clown” a few weeks ago.

Personally, I love the drama behind this story and believe the best golfers should be playing in the majors (even if they now play on a pretty irrelevant tour…).

Rory’s Career Grand Slam

It’s McIlroy’s 9th year attempting a career grand slam.

Coming off a 2nd place finish last year, he’s got a new putter in the bag and is arguably in the best form ever going into a Masters week.

Here’s a few interesting stats from Rory’s record at The Masters:

Rory’s played a total of 52 rounds at Augusta. His best round of 64 came when he holed out from the bunker on 18 in the final round of the 2022 Masters.

In contrast, his worst round at Augusta was during the final round of the 2011 Masters. A closing round of 80 was enough to end his title hopes and leave him in a tie for 15th.

Out of the 936 holes played in tournament rounds, 20.7% of those McIlroy has made birdie and he has a total of 10 eagles scored. He’s also only ever managed a birdie streak of 3 holes.

The most birdies he’s made in a round at Augusta is 7 on multiple occasions, and he’s managed to shoot a bogey-free scorecard 4 times.

Although his lowest opening round in The Masters is 65, McIlroy is prone to a slow start with a scoring average of 71.71 for the first round and 71.79 for the second. He always seems to perform better on the final two days, with his round scoring average dropping to 71.5 on Saturday and 70.42 on Sunday (despite including his worst-ever round of 80).

Rory’s lowest tournament round came in 2015 when he finished on 276 shots (-12). Despite it being his best score at The Masters, it was only good enough for a 4th place finish, 6 shots behind the runaway winner, Jordan Speith.

His biggest lead going into a final round at The Masters was back in 2011. However, the 4 shot advantage wasn’t enough to win Rory his first major championship.

Not many players have managed to beat par all four days at Augusta National, however, McIlroy managed this in 2015 with scores of 71, 71, 68, and 66.

McIlroy also has a pretty impressive birdie record at The Masters. On average, he scores a birdie every 4.8 holes in a round.

Tiger’s Back

Nowadays, it’s not often we get the chance to watch one of the greatest of all time compete, so having Tiger playing at Augusta is always a spectacle.

72 holes around a course as hilly as Augusta is far from an easy task and can he still compete with the best in the game?

He certainly believes he can, and if 2019 is anything to go by, expect the unexpected.

Here’s what Tiger is using this week.

Ed’s Golf

Not the start to Spring we were looking for. Another weekend of terrible weather and the course closed all weekend…

However, I’ve got 4 rounds lined up this long weekend, so fingers crossed for some sun.

Watching The Masters always gets me super pumped to go out and play golf.

The top players make it look so easy.

Then I go out and then after about 2 shots, I realise why they’re the ones on the TV and I’m not.

Something Useful

The greens at Augusta are known for being incredibly sloping. They say that most amateurs, even if they placed their ball on the green in regulation shots, still wouldn’t be able to shoot their handicaps.

For most of us, however, playing Augusta National will forever be a dream. But there’s still something we can learn about reading greens properly to help you save a few shots a round.

Here’s a great video for understanding the green reading process:

Something Extra

Also, here’s a few of our recent articles for you to get stuck into.

Ed Welton

Founder, Editor

Ed is the founder and editor at EEE Golf. He’s been playing golf for over 20 years, competing in many top amateur events. He’s played courses all over the world and played with some of the best players in the game. His aim is to help educate people about the game of golf and give insights into the sport he loves most.

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