No Tiger, no Phil, angry Rahm, broken Scottie, injured Rory: Questions abound at the 2026 Masters

The last time neither Tiger Woods nor Phil Mickelson participated in a Masters, the Soviet Union still existed, Rodney King had just become big news, and Monica Lewinsky wouldn’t meet Bill Clinton for four more years. Only one of the past five Masters champions was born, and that was reigning champion Rory McIlroy, who, like Taylor Swift, was 2 years old. Jim Courier beat Andre Agassi to win tennis’ French Open. None of the past seven NBA MVPs had been born.

And, for better or worse, Al Gore created the internet.

It was 1991, a year of Nirvana grunge, checkered flannel, and a 5-foot-4 Welshman named Ian Woosnam, who won both of his PGA Tour titles that year: First, the USF&G (now Zurich) Classic in New Orleans, La.; then, three weeks later, a slightly better-known event in Augusta, Ga.

Woosnam finished 13 strokes ahead of Mickelson’s plus-2, 46th-place finish, good enough for the Silver Cup, the low amateur prize, and commendable for a 20-year-old junior at Arizona State.

Woods played his first Masters in 1995, when he was a 19-year-old freshman at Stanford. He also won the Silver Cup, finished 41st, watched Mickelson exit the first round tied for first (he finished tied for seventh), and was at the presentation ceremony when Gentle Ben Crenshaw received the green jacket for the second time.

Since that day in 1995, Tiger has won 15 major tournaments, his first the 1997 green jacket, his first of five. Phil has won six majors, his first the 2004 green jacket, his first of three.

Since that day in 1995, life has dealt each of them a series of cruelties and challenges.

Mickelson’s wife, Amy, heroically battled cancer and won, Mickelson battled arthritis and has managed it, though to what degree we cannot know. Mickelson will miss his second Masters because of a “personal family health matter.” The same issue has limited his availability on the renegade LIV Tour, the controversial, Saudi-funded rival that was built on his image and his defection in 2022. His defection was the reason for his first Masters absence that year.

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Woods’ situation is even more complicated. Infidelity, opioid addiction, injuries on and off the course — he was involved in a nearly fatal car accident in 2021 — have served to truncate his career and tarnish his image. He currently is charged with DUI after a rollover crash in Florida and reportedly is researching rehab options in Europe.

Both also have created close ties with controversial President Donald Trump. On social media, Mickelson continually touts many of Trump’s debunked conspiracy theories and false claims. Woods, meanwhile, is dating Vanessa Trump, the president’s former daughter-in-law, and he actually called the president during his recent arrest, prompting Trump to advocate for Woods’ release on social media.

Writers and broadcasters this week will gild memories of their wondrous moments among the pines and azaleas: Woods crying on the shoulder of his father, Earl, in 1997, as he exited the 18th green; Mickelson’s hilarious victory leap in 2004, when he jumped maybe six inches off the ground. Nostalgia can be warming, but, as the years advance and betray our true character, nostalgia can be chilling, too.

This year, maybe it’s best they both stay away.

There is plenty of other controversy and drama in the perfumed Southern air.

It’s a rather delicious story for anyone who considered LIV defectors immoral and treasonous that Spain’s Jon Rahm stands as the embodiment of LIV entitlement. As others left for LIV, Rahm had been a fierce critic and a fierce loyalist to the PGA Tour and the DP World Tour based in Europe. When Rahm won the Masters in 2023, he was hailed as something of a chivalric knight fighting in the cause of good as he outlasted LIV stars Brooks Koepka, Patrick Reed, and Mickelson.

Rahm then took a reported $350 million to join LIV at the end of 2023. He and other LIV players were banned from the PGA Tour and subject to sanctions from the DP World Tour, sanctions that put their eligibility for the Ryder Cup in peril. Since Rahm and other LIV players were appealing the sanctions in 2025, they were eligible to play in that year’s Ryder Cup at Bethpage Black. In February, the DP Tour granted releases for eight LIV players who agreed to play in at least six DP events if they paid their fines to compete on the LIV tour. Rahm refused. He said he is negotiating with the DP World Tour, and has said he thinks four events, not six, should be the minimum.

“They’re extorting players,” Rahm told reporters last month at a LIV event in Hong Kong.

He has dropped his appeal and now seems to be at more of a simmer than at a boil.

“I didn’t think that going the legal route and going to court was good for anybody,” he said Monday at the Masters. “I think this is not the week to be talking about this.”

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Of course it is. Masters week is the unofficial early-season convention where all of the tours’ dirty laundry gets aired and where the real in-season prognostication begins.

Which brings us to the issue of Scottie Scheffler.

Scheffler’s 2022 Masters win was his first major title and the first time he played as the world’s No. 1 player, a spot he has held for all but 25 of the 211 weeks since and for the last 151 consecutive weeks, the third-longest run in history behind Tiger’s runs of 281 and 264 weeks.

But since a win in late January at the American Express and two other top-four finishes, his powerful but unorthodox swing, especially with his drivers (he’s experimenting), has become shortened and glitchy. Augusta National demands accuracy off the tee to set up optimal angles and distances for approach shots to its funhouse greens. Swing nerds will be all over Scottie this week.

As we saw when Tiger withdrew on Sunday morning in 2023, the hilly, slippery, uneven track in the Georgia foothills is a challenge to the fittest of golfers. This year, it’s hard to believe that Rory McIlroy is among the fittest of golfers.

Back spasms forced McIlroy to withdraw from the Arnold Palmer Invitational in mid-March and hindered him the next week at The Players Championship, where, in defense of that title, he finished tied for 46th. That’s the last time he played.

He completed golf’s grand slam last year at Augusta, but does he have a real chance to be the fourth golfer to defend this title and the first since Tiger in 2002?

Prodigal son Brooks Koepka is playing with restricted access this season in his pioneering return to the PGA Tour from LIV — he’s the first defector to be allowed back in — and he was trending solidly in March, with three top-20 finishes on the Florida Swing. But he missed the cut two weeks ago at the Texas Children’s Houston Open, and, while Koepka won the 2023 PGA Championship while playing in LIV, the five-time major winner hasn’t finished in the top 25 of his last nine starts at majors, and he missed three of four cuts at majors last season. … Bryson DeChambeau, the 2024 U.S. Open champion, is the only player other than Koepka to win a major while on the LIV. He’s been that tour’s standard-bearer at majors, with seven top-10 finishes in his last 11 starts, including a tie for sixth at Augusta in 2024 and a tie for fifth last year. … Collin Morikawa’s back forced him to withdraw from the Players last month and from the Valero Texas Open last week, but he’s at the Masters and hopeful he can compete. … Reigning U.S. Open champion J.J. Spaun, who has missed the cut in four of his eight events in 2026, won at Valero on Sunday. He’s 35 and playing in only his third Masters (2022, 2025). … World No. 3 Cameron Young, idle since he won the Players last month, went cut-T7-T9-cut since his first Masters in 2022.