Masters 2026: Your winner is probably already at the top of the leaderboard
AUGUSTA, Ga. — You know the old line about how you can’t win the Masters on Thursday, but you can lose it? Turns out you can come pretty close to winning it on Thursday after all … which is good news for everyone from Sam Burns and Rory McIlroy (both -5) down to Xander Schauffele and Scottie Scheffler (both -2).
Why? Because history suggests that at Augusta, a fast start leads to a good finish. Of the 89 past Masters champions, 72 were inside the top 11 after the first round.
Narrow the focus a bit, and the picture comes in sharper: Of the last 19 Masters champions, 18 were ranked in the top 11 after the first round. The only outlier: McIlroy, who won last year after finishing the first round T27, seven strokes off the lead. After the first round of the Masters, nine players are at -2 or better, and 16 at -1 or better.
So it’s a fairly good bet that the winner is coming from that crew. The greatest danger now, ironically, is looking too far ahead. Take it from one who knows: Patrick Reed, the 2018 champion who finished Thursday at -3, with two eagles.
“This is one of those places that the more you think about it, the more you think ahead, the more it bites you,” he said after his round Thursday. “When I won in '18, it was the first year I actually fully bought into just taking it day by day and shot by shot. I think that's what my recipe is, because when you get to the first major, you're always going to put too much pressure on yourself, you're always going to grind a little harder.