Imagine, in case you will, this delicious Masters 2023 story: Certainly one of the 18 LIV Golf players competing this week at the Augusta National gets a green jacket draped over his shoulders on Sunday night at the Butler’s Cabin.
Could the plot in golf get any juicier?
Awkward.
There is no such thing as a more fascinating scenario for this week’s Masters than how LIV players fare, because there isn’t a more polarizing topic in golf immediately.
The lines have been drawn in the sand bunkers since LIV’s inception last 12 months, with many high-profile, high-profile players signing up for the Saudi-backed tour for untold hundreds of thousands and thus being barred from competing on the PGA Tour.
There was verbal barrage between LIV players and people whose loyalties are firmly tied to the PGA Tour.
This week’s Masters, which doesn’t ban LIV players who’re otherwise qualified to play on the field, is the first event in 2023 that the PGA Tour and players from LIV Golf are approaching.
None of the 4 majors followed the PGA Tour’s footsteps and banned LIV players.
Of the 18 LIV players competing in the Masters, six are former champions – Phil Mickelson, Bubba Watson, Dustin Johnson, Patrick Reed, Sergio Garcia and Charl Schwartzel.
The others are reigning British Open Champion Cam Smith, Brooks Koepka, Bryson DeChambeau, Abraham Ancer, Talor Gooch, Jason Kokrak, Kevin Na, Joaquin Niemann, Louis Oosthuizen, Mito Pereira, Thomas Pieters and Harold Varner III.
Curtis Strange, an ESPN analyst, wondered aloud last week if any of the LIV players had a practical probability of winning.
“A few of these players have not played much golf, so how smart can they be from a player’s viewpoint,” said Strange. “It isn’t because they play the LIV Tour, the Asian Tour, the European Tour, whatever, they only have not played as much or as often as [Scottie] Schefflers of the world and Cam Youngs.”
The odd thing was related to LIV’s sparse game schedule and the incontrovertible fact that its events span 54 holes as an alternative of 72.
“I feel there are a number of rumors going around internally about these guys not playing real golf anymore,” Smith told reporters last week ahead of the LIV event near Orlando. “Truthfully, I feel it’s BS and we just want to point out it to people. I feel it is important to us [LIV players] to go there, really show the high level of golf that we’re all able to.
“Most of us will get 4 cracks this 12 months [in the majors]and hopefully we’ll have the ability to win it.”
Smith has finished in the top 10 in 4 of his last five Masters starts, including a tie for third last 12 months and a tie for second in 2020.
Asked what he thought the reception from PGA Tour members and players in Augusta this week could be like, Smith said: “Truthfully, I’m really undecided. I hope it’s good. I’ve had a terrific profession around Augusta, and I hope I didn’t piss anyone off. I feel we’ll wait and see.
Niemann, a 24-year-old from Chile, said he enjoys the rivalry that has developed on the PGA Tour where LIV players turn into villains.
“I feel it can be more fun to know that they hate us,” Niemann told Golf.com. “I feel there’s an enormous rivalry between the Tour and LIV immediately.”
The primary real litmus test of how awkward things can get in Augusta will come on Tuesday night when the club hosts its annual Champions Dinner.
“The dinner of champions has nothing to do with me or anyone else on this room apart from Scottie Scheffler – it’s his dinner,” Reed recently told reporters.
“The champions dinner will obviously be something to discuss,” Tiger Woods recently said. “As an entire, we must honor Scottie. Scottie is the winner. It’s his dinner. So, ensuring that Scottie is correctly honored, but additionally realizing the nature of what happened and the individuals who passed away, right where our legal and emotional situation is. There’s rather a lot there.
Mickelson said there are “no expectations” of what the Augusta party might be like for LIV players.
“Lots of the individuals who play and compete in Masters are friends for many years and I stay up for seeing them again,” he said.
Added Scheffler, “Because Augusta National is such a special place, with the history of the game and all that … I feel we will put all our stuff aside and just get together for a fun meal, all together in a room and just rejoice playing golf and Augusta National and just hanging out.”
Amen.