Written by Kyle Porter at CBS Sports.com
The reality of playing in your first Masters is always so overwhelming that any talk of winning the thing sounds like the dream of a Hollywood director who has had one too many beverages. In fact, a first-time participant has only won the Masters three times.
The first two came in the first two Masters. Horton Smith won the first Masters in 1934. Gene Sarazen won the next in 1935. Those barely count, though, as nobody had played in the event in 1934 and only a few had played it by the time the second one rolled around in April 1935.
Fuzzy Zoeller did it again in 1979, and that is sort of the touchstone for first-timers these days. Your first four official rounds at Augusta National end in a green jacket. That is an outrageous thought. But then Jordan Spieth nearly did it in 2014 when he played the final pairing with eventual champion Bubba Watson.
“It was an incredible experience,” Spieth said that year. “It was one that I always wanted to have. I’ve always dreamt about it. As a little kid, I always dreamed of playing at Augusta on Sunday and closing out the tournament. To know I was that close and really performed mentally better than I could have anticipated, that’s very reassuring going forward.
“It was so much fun, it really was. Even if I didn’t show it there on the back nine, it was. I took it all in, standing ovations for both of us to each green. It was a dream come true.”
Spieth will be the first to tell you he wasn’t satisfied with just being there in his maiden voyage. He’ll also tell you how difficult it is to grab the win on try No. 1. The average champion has six tries before he grabs his first one. Watson that year was playing his sixth (and he had already won one).
There is an intuitive knowledge you need to play Augusta well for four straight days. It’s why you see so many older players succeed there; from Bernhard Langer, who finished T8 at 56, to Fred Couples, who has five top 20s in his past six appearances. It’s just hard to play Augusta National as a rookie.
But if a rookie were to win, which one would it be? There are 19 first-timers this year, but five of those are amateurs. For a rookie amateur to win, that would be something. I boiled it down to the five I think have the best chance.
Jon Rahm: Rahm won the Farmers Insurance Open this year and rocketed all the way to No. 14 in the world with an appearance in the finals of the WGC-Match Play last week. He has superstar written all over him. Plus he has the length to be a true contender this year.
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