Georgia’s 2014 Masters contingent includes a number of players who will bring an impressive recent resume with them to Augusta, including four of the state’s talented group of golfers in their 20s making their first appearance in the tournament.
Six of the 11 Georgians in the field have already won during the 2013-14 season, with two others closing out the 2013 season with an appearance in the Tour Championship at East Lake.
Chris Kirk, Harris English and Patrick Reed, all winners during the 2013-14 season, will be making their first starts in the Masters in April, along with Roberto Castro, who earned his spot in the field by qualifying for the 2013 Tour Championship.
Russell Henley and former Masters champions Zach Johnson and Bubba Watson have also won on the PGA Tour in 2014, with Georgians holding down five of the top seven spots in the FedExCup points list going into the Houston Open. .
Joining those seven in the Masters field are 2009 major champions Stewart Cink and Lucas Glover, former Masters champion Larry Mize and 2012 Players champion Matt Kuchar.
Reed, who led Augusta State to back-to-back NCAA Championships in 2010 and ’11, earned an invitation to the 2014 Masters with his victory last year in Greensboro, outdueling fellow PGA Tour rookie Jordan Spieth in a memorable playoff. He added a second win earlier this season in the Humana Challenge, shooting 63 the first three rounds on three different courses before holding on the final day for a two-stroke victory.
In his first four starts of 2014, Reed did not finish outside the top 20,
English, a south Georgia native who has settled on St. Simons Island, is one of three Georgia Bulldogs with a win in the new wraparound season. He won in Mexico to close out the 2013 portion of schedule, his second victory of the year. English also won in Memphis last year, holding off a late charge by three-time Masters champion Phil Mickelson. English also teamed with Kuchar to win the Shark Shootout late in 2013, and has five top 10 finishes in his first nine starts this season, and was 4th in the FedExCup standings.
Kirk, a member of Georgia’s 2005 NCAA Championship team, scored his second PGA Tour win in the 2013 McGladrey Classic, and will be making his first start in Augusta. He almost picked up a second win this season, finishing one shot behind Jimmy Walker in the Hawaiian Open, and was 6th in the FedExCup standings. Kirk, who grew up in Woodstock, has returned to live in the Atlanta area after residing on St. Simons following his college career.
Castro, who grew up in Alpharetta and still lives in the Atlanta area, competed against Kirk as both a junior and collegian at Georgia Tech. He enjoyed an outstanding sophomore season on the PGA Tour in 2013, playing consistently excellent golf the entire second half to finish in the top 30 on the FedExCup points list to qualify for the Tour Championship and Masters. He has not gotten off to a comparable start this year, but closed out the West Coast swing with back-to-back top 20 finishes in Phoenix and Pebble Beach.
Watson, an ex-Bulldog like English and Kirk, scored his first victory since the 2012 Masters with a recent victory at Riviera in the Los Angeles Open. Watson had a chance to win two weeks earlier in Phoenix, bogeying the 72nd hole to miss out on a playoff, and will enter the 2014 Masters as one of the favorites. He did not play particularly well in Augusta last year in the defense of his title, but no longer has that burden to shoulder.
Johnson took a break from the tour after winning the last tournament of 2013 and the first of 2014. Johnson ended last year by defeating Tiger Woods in a playoff in a limited field event hosted by Woods that is not part of the PGA Tour. He holed a wedge shot from the fairway on the 72nd hole to take Woods to a playoff, then won with a par on the first extra hole. Johnson began 2014 with a come-from-behind victory in the Tournament of Champions in Hawaii, shooting 7-under the final day. After a top-10 the following week in the Hawaiian Open, he headed home to St. Simons for a month-long break. His 2007 victory remains his only finish better than 20th in the Masters.
Kuchar has been 8th and 3rd at Augusta the last two years, and recorded top-10 finishes in his first three starts of 2013-14 before a rare missed cut in Los Angeles, snapping the longest made cut streak on the PGA Tour. The former Georgia Tech standout and St. Simons resident has been one of the top players in recent seasons, scoring victories in several high profile events, and is at the top of the list of players who seem poised to win their first major.
Both Cink and Glover have major championship trophies, but neither has enjoyed much success since their triumphs in ’09. Cink, also a former Georgia Tech great and a Dulth resident, was one of the PGA Tour’s best players for more than a decade prior to his British Open title. But he has not won since, and has a total of just seven top-10 finishes since the start of the 2010 season.
Glover, a St, Simons resident, has pretty much disappeared since his win at Bethpage Black in the 2009 U.S. Open. Other than a victory at Quail Hollow in 2010, Glover has struggled to regain his ’09 form, and his five-year exemptions for his U.S. Open expire after this year. Glover did not begin 2014 well, missing the cut in each of his first five starts.
As a past champion, Mize has a lifetime invitation to compete in the Masters. A Champions Tour member since 2008, the Augusta native and Columbus resident has made several runs at making the cut in recent years.
Henley was the last one of the group to earn a spot in the field, winning the Honda Classic to qualify. Henley competed in last year’s Masters as a PGA Tour rookie after winning his first start as a PGA Tour member in Hawaii.