The Masters: Final Thoughts

Every year, I tell myself that I'm going to spend Saturday and Sunday watching the Masters, and most years I do not fulfill that promise.  This year, however, things worked out and I got to see most of the play on Saturday and all the play on Sunday.  Here was the final top ten:

1.  R. McIlroy (NIR):  -12 (67+65+73+71=276)

2.  S. Scheffler:  -11 (70+74+65+68 = 277)

T3.  T. Hatton (ENG):  -10 (74+66+72+66=278)

T3.  R. Henley:  -10 (73+71+66+68=278)

T3.  J. Rose (ENG):  -10 (70+69+69+70=278)

T3.  C. Young:  -10 (73+67+65+73=278)

T7.  C. Morikawa:  -9 (74+69+68+68=279)

T7.  S. Burns:  -9 (67+71+68+73=279)

T9.  M. Homa:  -8 (72+70+71+67=280)

T9.  X. Schauffele:  -8 (70+72+70+68=280)

A few observations:

1.  As you can see, it was a pretty crowded leaderboard.  But the whole story was whether Rory McIlroy would repeat.  After his 65 on Friday, he had a six-shot lead with 36 holes to go.  By the end of the day on Saturday, he had fallen into a tie with Cameron Young at 11 under.  After the 6th hole on Sunday, he was 9 under and several strokes off the pace.  But from there to the end, he was rock solid.  He had a two-shot lead going to the last hole, and took an easy bogey for the one-shot victory.

2.  Rory McIlroy and Scottie Scheffler are the two best golfers in the world, and they had a very strange battle over the weekend.  After two rounds, McIlroy was 12 shots ahead -- 132 to 144.  Over the next two rounds, Scheffler played almost perfect golf -- he was the first man since 1942 to play the third and fourth rounds without making a bogey.  He made up eight shots on Saturday and three more shots on Sunday, outscoring McIlroy 133 to 144 over two days.  But that still left Scheffler one shot behind.  The golfing world will be excited to see the rematch next month at the PGA in Philadelphia.

3.  Rory won four majors between 2011 and 2014 -- and then didn't win another major tournament for 11 years.  Now he's repeated as the Masters Champion, leaving him with six majors in total:  2 Masters, 1 U.S. Open, 1 British Open, and 2 PGA's.  Much has been made of the fact that Rory is one of only six men -- including Nicklaus, Woods, Hogan, Player, and Sarazen -- to win all four majors.  But only eleven men in history have won more than six total majors, and you've heard of all of them.

4.  With six majors in total, Rory is now tied with Lee Trevino, Nick Faldo, and Phil Mickelson.  McIlrooy and Mickelson are the only men to pick up their sixth Major Championship since Tiger Woods did it back in the early 2000's.  Brooks Koepka has five majors.  Scheffler has four.  No other active player has won four majors.

5.  The LIV guys were not competitive in this tournament.  Now that Koepka has left LIV and returned to the PGA, it seems to me that the only truly world-class golfer in LIV is Bryson DeChambeau.  But this year DeChambeau was six over after the first two rounds, and as a result he missed the cut.

6.  The Masters seems to be as popular as it has ever been in my lifetime.  All sports are doing well these days, but even by that standard, the Masters appears to be unusually popular.

The Masters: Day Two

Here's the current top nine:

T1.  S. Burns:  -5 (18 holes)

T1.  R. McIlroy (NIR):  -5 (18)

T3.  K. Kitayama:  -3 (18)

T3.  J. Day (AUS):  -3 (18)

T3.  P. Reed:  -3 (18)

T6.  W. Clark:  -2 (28)

T6.  S. Scheffler:  -2 (19)

T6.  S. Lowry (IRL):  -2 (18)

T6.  X. Schauffele:  -2 (18)

I would normally do the top 10, but there's an eight-way tie for 10th place at 1 under.  Both Jordan Spieth and Justin Rose are part of that tie.

Masters: Day One

Here are the last ten winners of the Masters:

2025:  Rory McIlroy (NIR)
2024:  Scottie Scheffler

2023:  Jon Rahm (ESP)

2022:  Scottie Scheffler

2021:  Hideki Matsuyama (JPN)

2020:  Dustin Johnson

2019:  Tiger Woods

2018:  Patrick Reed

2017:  Sergio Garcia (ESP)

2016:  Danny Willett

Here are the top ten golfers in the Official World Golf Ranking:

1.  Scottie Scheffler

2.  Rory McIlroy (NIR)
3.  Cameron Young

4.  Tommy Fleetwood (ENG)
5.  J.J. Spaun

6.  Matt Fitzpatrick (ENG)
7.  Collin Morikawa

8.  Robert MacIntyre (SCO)

9.  Justin Rose (ENG)
10.  Xander Schauffele

So far this year:

On January 25, Scottie Scheffler won The American Express to pick up his 20th victory on the PGA Tour.

On February 1, Justin Rose (ENG) won the Farmers Insurance Open for his 13th tour victory.

On February 15, Collin Morikawa won the Pebble Beach Pro-Am.  That was his 7th victory on tour.

On March 8, Akshay Bhatia's win at the Arnold Palmer Invitational was his 3d victory on tour.

On March 15, Cameron Young's win at the Players was his 2d tour victory.

And now we are ready to go.

Interesting Tweet from Jalen Rose

I always liked Jalen Rose, even when he beat UK.  This tweet, apparently responding to LeBron James's recent criticism of Memphis, is very interesting:

As a Detroiter, Memphis deserves zero slander.  They are our cousins.  (Like Oakland & Atl).  The cultural history of that town is incredible.

There's a lot to unpack here, and I want to give it some thought.

Wrapping Up

1.  Michigan finished as the Number 1 team on Ken Pom.  Their Net Rating of +39.70 is the highest in his dataset, which goes back to 1997.  They were Number 78 in luck.

2.  UConn finished as the Number 9 team on Ken Pom, and ranked 45 in luck.

3.  Florida was the top-ranked team in the SEC.  They finished Number 6 on Ken Pom, and number 295 in luck.  Last year they were 100 in luck.

4.  Vandy finished Number 11 on Ken Pom, and number 177 in luck.  It's their highest final rating in Ken Pom's dataset.  It's also the first time in the dataset that Vandy has finished the year ranked ahead of every other school in Kentucky and Tennessee.

5.  Kentucky finished number 29 on Ken Pom, and number 213 in luck.  Here are UK's teams since 2019, the last time the Cats reached a Regional Final:

2020:  25-6 (15-3 in the SEC) (29 on Ken Pom) (No NCAA Tournament)

2021:  9-16 (8-9) (49) (missed the NCAA Tournament)

2022:  26-8 (14-4) (6) (eliminated in the first round by St. Peter's)

2023:  22-12 (12-6) (27) (eliminated in the second round by Kansas St.)

2024:  23-10 (13-5) (23) (eliminated in the first round by Oakland)

2025:  24-12 (10-8) (16) (eliminated in the Regional Semi-Final by Tennessee)

2026:  22-14 (10-8) (29) (eliminated in the second round by Iowa St.)

The NYT has UK ranked number 19 in its Way Too Early Top 25.  I think that's about where they will be ranked when the season starts next year.  I don't think that's where they will finish.

6.  This was the 51st time I have watched the NCAA Tournament since I became a UK fan in early 1975.  If you give each team 1 point for every appearance in the Regional Semi-Finals over that period, 2 points for each appearance in the Regional Finals, 4 points for each appearance in the National Semi-Finals, 8 points for each appearance in the National Final, and 16 points for each National Championship, then the top ten teams of this era look like this:

1.  Duke:  295 (1991, 1992, 2001, 2010, 2015)

2.  N. Carolina:  287 (1982, 1993, 2005, 2009, 2017)

3.  Kentucky:  237 (1978, 1996, 1998, 2012)

4.  Connecticut:  228 (1999, 2004, 2011, 2014, 2023, 2024)

5.  Kansas:  192 (1988, 2008, 2022)

6.  Michigan:  154 (1989, 2026)

7.  Louisville:  149 (1980, 1986, 2013)

8.  U.C.L.A.:  141 (1975, 1995)

9.  Michigan St:  139 (1979, 2000)

10.  Florida:  136 (2006, 2007, 2025)

And that wraps up the 2026 NCAA Basketball Season, which was a great one.