The post The latest Masters TV ratings came with a twist. Here’s why appeared first on Golf.

The post The latest Masters TV ratings came with a twist. Here’s why appeared first on Golf.

Comparison may be the thief of joy, but if you were lucky enough to wind up in the gallery on each of the last two Masters Sundays, it was only natural to spend a little while exploring the parallels.

On each of the last two Masters Sundays, Rory McIlroy stepped to the first tee cast at the center of the gravitational pull of golf’s largest event. On each of the last two Masters Sundays, he endured a final round that featured incredible highs and impressive disaster in equal parts. And, on each of the last two Masters Sundays, McIlroy emerged on the 18^th green at the top of the pack, enjoyed an emotional walk to the scorer’s tent, cruised to Butler Cabin, and slipped his shoulders into a green jacket.

And yet, for all of their spine-tingling similarities, the differences between the two McIlroy wins were even more striking. The crowd on this Masters Sunday seemed excited but not totally euphoric. The winner on this Masters Sunday seemed emotional but not completely overcome. And the larger impact of the victory on this Masters Sunday seemed respectful but not quite earth-shattering.

In nearly all ways, this was perfectly understandable. Rory McIlroy can only end a decade-long epoch in pursuit of major glory once. He can only complete the career Grand Slam with a victory at one of the sport’s holiest sites, Augusta National, once. And he can only deliver a reaction of instant-iconography once.

But then, early last week, the TV ratings came out suggesting something entirely different. According to Nielsen, McIlroy’s 2026 Masters win outrated McIlroy’s 2025 Masters win by a significant margin, delivering 13.995 million average viewers, up eight percent from McIlroy’s win last year.

If you’re like me, you saw those numbers and paused. Nothing about McIlroy’s win this time around suggested the numbers would have outperformed his win from last April, and nothing about the reaction to the victory in the days that followed suggested that TV audiences were salivating for more than they’d gotten last April (when late-night TV spots, morning show hits, a crazed degree of social media fame were fairly standard fare).

So, does that mean CBS has the wrong numbers? Or Nielsen screwed up the ratings? Not exactly.

This year’s Masters numbers come to us courtesy of the new Nielsen Big Data + Panel, a new audience capturing methodology that’s quickly becoming all the rage among sports TV networks and executives. The reason for this is evident in McIlroy’s Masters ratings: Big Data + Panel numbers generally tend to be higher for golf broadcasts than their previous Nielsen counterparts, and higher numbers are good for those who sell advertisements based upon their number of viewers.  

That might sound sketchy, but the reason for it is actually fairly reasonable: By Nielsen’s estimation, Big Data + Panel is a vastly more accurate tool for measuring audiences in the age of modern media, accounting for trends like smart TV watching and streaming. If you are a company like CBS, you rely upon Nielsen ratings to set the profitability of your business, which means you also have a fiduciary responsibility to track the best numbers you can, especially if they just so happen to give your broadcasts an added boost.

For CBS, the decision to report Big Data + Panel numbers might not have drawn any attention at all, had the numbers from McIlroy’s win at the Masters not felt slightly strange relative to the cultural impact of his win a year ago. The Big Data panel is seen among many in the industry as the latest metric in the continued evolution of sports TV ratings in the age of cord-cutting — an effort meant to better understand and capture sports audiences who no longer watch on old-school cable, but still tune in religiously. It’s also quickly become the industry standard, utilized by sales teams across the TV business in negotiating advertising rates and sales opportunities.

Some networks have opted to produce both Nielsen’s old numbers and its new Big Data + Panel numbers, helping to contextualize the difference between the two metrics, but many, like CBS, have opted simply to report the numbers they sell.

In the end, the difference between the two might not matter much at all. For those whose livelihoods depend upon interpreting Nielsen data, the “Big Data bump” is well-trodden terrain by this juncture. And for those whose don’t? A few percentage points in the TV ratings will do very little to change the story of this year’s Masters as you saw it, anyway.

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The post Want Masters Champions Dinner menu thoughts? Charles Barkley has them appeared first on Golf.

The post Want Masters Champions Dinner menu thoughts? Charles Barkley has them appeared first on Golf.

In talking about the Masters Champions Dinner menu, there are two groups of folks. There are the Masters champions who eat its contents with fork, knife and spoon. 

And there are those who poke and prod it. 

With that, we bring you an exchange this week on “The Steam Room” show, hosted by announcer Ernie Johnson and basketball hall of famer-golf junkie Charles Barkley. They’d been asked what they would put on their menu — and what Barkley thought of this year’s, which was developed by Rory McIlroy. Video of the answers is below, and below that are some thoughts. 

What Charles Barkley thought of Rory McIlroy’s Masters Champions Dinner menu  

Before we get to that, here is McIlroy’s complete menu: 

–There were four appetizers: peach and ricotta flatbread with balsamic, hot honey and basil; rock shrimp tempura with creamy spicy sauce; bacon-wrapped dates with goat cheese and almonds; and grilled elk sliders with caramelized onion jam and roasted garlic aioli. 

–There was a first course: yellowfin tuna carpaccio with foie gras, toasted baguette and chives. 

–There was a choice for the main course: Wagyu filet mignon or seared salmon. With either came traditional Irish champ, sauteed brussels sprouts, glazed carrots with brown butter and crispy vidalia onion rings. 

–There was a dessert: sticky toffee pudding with vanilla ice cream and warm toffee sauce. 

Barkley’s thoughts? He took issue with three items: 

–The peach and ricotta flatbread. “It’s a little too foo-foo for me,” he said. “… You got to have meat on your flatbread.”

–The bacon-wrapped dates. “Oh, come on. Stop it. That’s the only way you can up f**k up bacon.”

–The yellowfin tuna carpaccio. “That’s like really thinly like — yeah, no, no, no, no.” 

What about the main course? Barkley said this: “You know, I only eat tilapia. And there’s a couple other fish I eat, but not salmon. Branzino, I love branzino. And there’s one more I eat because fish is too fishy for me. I know that sounds stupid.”

And McIlroy’s dessert?  

“I don’t think you can go wrong with that,” Barkley said.

What Charles Barkley would put on his Masters Champions Dinner menu 

Here’s what Barkley would have:

–The main course? “I’ll take the fried chicken they got at the Masters. It’s some of the best fried chicken I’ve ever had in my life when I was there.” 

–Appetizers? Shrimp cocktail and crab cocktail. 

–What else? A Caesar salad, no anchovies. And “some type of vegetarian bulls**t.”

–Any seafood? A dover sole. 

–Dessert? Key lime pie and apple pie and vanilla ice cream.

Additional thoughts?

Said Johnson: “I don’t even know what to say.”

Said Barkley: “Yummy.”

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The post ‘Wear my heart on my sleeve:’ Robert MacIntyre discusses his Masters meltdown appeared first on Golf.

The post ‘Wear my heart on my sleeve:’ Robert MacIntyre discusses his Masters meltdown appeared first on Golf.

Robert MacIntyre had a week to forget at the 2026 Masters.

The 29-year-old Scotsman arrived in good form, following a T2 at the Valero Texas Open and a fourth-place finish at the Players Championship. But MacIntyre’s week at Augusta National unraveled quickly during the opening round, where he made quadruple-bogey nine on the par-5 15th en route to a first-round 80. Cameras caught MacIntyre flipping off the 15th green after putting two balls in the water, and he was reportedly reprimanded by Augusta National for the gesture. MacIntyre skipped media after both his first and second rounds and then posted an AI-generated image of himself as a Masters gnome making the same gesture after missing the cut.

On Thursday, after the first round of the RBC Heritage, MacIntyre spoke with Sky Sports’ Nick Dougherty about his turbulent few days at Augusta National.

“I know what I did isn’t the best way of me doing things,” MacIntyre said. “But look, I wear my heart on my sleeve. I’m trying my best to control the emotions. I work with someone back home. And yeah, there was a lot going on, and I’m disappointed with that, but I’m very good at putting things behind me. Things that get said elsewhere, it doesn’t faze me. I’ve got my family, friends, part of my team — these guys are the ones that I really listen to. And if I’ve done something wrong, they tell me.

“And that’s how I go about life. I just do what I want, how we want, not just personally but with family and friends. And we go about our business the way we want to do it. Some people like it, some people don’t. But, at the end of the day, it’s a job and I try to come out here and perform the best I can.”

MacIntyre has always been an emotional player. After a poor title defense at last year’s Genesis Scottish Open, MacIntyre explained how he flushes bad weeks by “going mental” for a bit. That allows him to reset quickly and move on.

“I can go as mental as I want for an hour and then after that, just back to life,” MacIntyre said at Royal Portrush ahead of the 2025 Open Championship. “I can do whatever I want for an hour. Just anything I want. You can break things. You can literally do whatever I want for an hour. After that hour is gone, my job’s done. For an hour and a half before my round, two hours before my round, I’m preparing, so nobody gets in my way. It’s warmup, stretching, gym work, all of that. So there’s a five-, six-, seven-, eight-hour window that I’m working.

“If you have a bad day at work, you’re going to be annoyed. It happens more often than not for me as well,” MacIntyre said then, laughing. “It’s just about once that’s gone, it’s been difficult in the past for me to reset, but nowadays, there’s so many golf tournaments and you don’t know what’s coming the next week.”

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Now a top-15 golfer in the world, MacIntyre knows he can’t let his emotions and frustrations consume him. The professional golf hamster wheel is always spinning. A tournament ends, you win or lose, and then it’s quickly onto the next one. It’s important to be able to quickly hit the reset button. Let the steam out and get ready to go again.

But the emotions are also what make Robert MacIntyre who he is. To stamp out all of his fire would be to take away part of the soul of his game. It’s a tightrope he has to walk — sometimes he traverses it cleanly and sometimes he falls.

“I’m fiery on the golf course when I’m in tournament rounds,” MacIntyre said at the Open. “I’ll drop, I was going to say the odd, but a few bad words in there. I’ll hit the bag. I’ll say some harsh things, but that’s what gets me going. If I walk around and I’m all happy I just made a double bogey or people are clapping, thanks very much, that’s not me. I’m needing to smash something up. I want to rip a glove. I do something to get that anger out. It’s better out than in for me. Some people it’s better holding it, but for me it’s get it out and then just do not let it affect the next shot. Simple.”

The poor week at the Masters was frustrating. After a runner-up finish at last year’s U.S. Open and a weekend of contention at this year’s Players, MacIntyre is more confident than ever that he’s made of the right stuff to win major championships. He left Augusta National disappointed in a showing that didn’t reflect the current state of his game.

But after two days at home, Robert MacIntyre was ready to flush a Masters to forget and get right back on the horse at Harbour Town.

In pro golf, there’s very little time to stew over shots you can never get back.

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The post Padraig Harrington makes BOLD Rory McIlroy Masters prediction appeared first on Golf.

The post Padraig Harrington makes BOLD Rory McIlroy Masters prediction appeared first on Golf.

For 38 consecutive major starts that spanned a decade, Rory McIlroy didn’t win a major. Now, after his back-to-back Masters titles, he has won two in his past five starts.

So, what’s next? Another Irish star is predicting big things.

“Rory could win 10 of them at this stage, or five of them, anyway,” said Padraig Harrington, speaking at Concession Golf Club in Florida on Tuesday ahead of this week’s Senior PGA Championship. “He probably will still be competitive at 50 years of age around that golf course. For him, it was interesting that he won that one with his short game, which makes him even better a player.

“He’s always been a superb chipper, but now it’s with the putting and things like that,” he continued. “A very rounded game and a game that looks like it has a lot of longevity in it. So he’s in a very nice place going forward, particularly at that tournament that you would think. It’s amazing when you win one, that he’s now got two, and we’re thinking that maybe two or three or five would be realistic around that golf course.”

Harrington’s point that McIlroy, who turns 37 next month, could compete at Augusta National past his prime isn’t crazy. Jack Nicklaus famously won at Augusta National at age 46 in 1986. Tiger Woods was 43 when he won in 2019. Even Fred Couples, who plays little golf these days, became the oldest player to make a Masters cut when he made the weekend as a 63-year-old in 2023.

Last week, McIlroy held a six-shot, 36-hole lead at Augusta but lost it all in the third round Saturday. He started Sunday sharing the lead with Cameron Young but fell back after a double-bogey 5 on the par-3 4th hole, but he took control with back-to-back birdies on 12 and 13 and beat Scottie Scheffler by one.

“He showed some real good character there,” Harrington said. “You know, psychology-wise he really won that tournament. His mentality and how he went about things, that’s a very strong showing for him. He obviously still has the physical side of the game, but to show that short game and the mental side of the game means he looks like he would be a very strong force for a while to come in the game.”

While we won’t make our own claims regarding how many more Masters titles McIlroy might win, we will say he has work to do. Nicklaus holds the record with six Masters victories. Woods has five, and Arnold Palmer won four. If McIlroy wins one more, he’ll be the sixth golfer to win three.

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The post ‘Dejected’ Shane Lowry reveals surprising Masters text to Rory McIlroy appeared first on Golf.

The post ‘Dejected’ Shane Lowry reveals surprising Masters text to Rory McIlroy appeared first on Golf.

For the second consecutive year, Shane Lowry contended at the Masters only to fall short on Sunday and watch his good friend Rory McIlroy slip on the green jacket.

But unlike last year, when Lowry celebrated McIlroy’s victory in style, a “down and dejected” Lowry couldn’t stomach the party aftet this year’s final round. He broke the news to the now two-time Masters champion via text message, as he revealed to Golf Channel on Thursday.

Why Shane Lowry didn’t party with Rory McIlroy on Masters Sunday

Heading into the final round of the 2026 Masters, Lowry was at nine under and just two shots behind co-leaders McIlroy and Cameron Young.

But in a grim replay of last year’s Masters, Lowry struggled mightily on Sunday at Augusta National, shooting 80 to fall to one under and a T30 finish.

It was one shot better than he did last year. Also in contention on Sunday at the 2025 Masters, Lowry shot a final-round 81 to finish T42.

Though he was able to stifle his pride and celebrate McIlroy’s first Augusta victory, this year the wounds hurt too much, as he explained to Golf Channel Thursday at the RBC Heritage.

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“Obviously, you know the stories from last year. I called over to his house with a case of wine and all that,” Lowry began.

Lowry did hang around the Augusta clubhouse to give McIlroy a hug following his win. But feeling “dejected” after his second Sunday collapse, he later texted McIlroy to tell him not to expect him at the celebrations.

“I texted him on Sunday night, and I said, ‘Honestly, I’m so happy for you, but I don’t have it in me tonight to go over and celebrate’,” Lowry said.

Instead, he stayed at home to once again imagine what could have been.

“I was feeling a bit down and dejected a little bit, so I just stayed at home with my crew, but I’ll see him in a couple of weeks in Florida.”

“I felt like I played a lot of good golf last week and got really nothing out of it,” Lowry continued. “It’s always hard to do that when you prepare so much for a tournament like that and perform as good as I did for a few days. But I try to take as many positives as I can.”

The Masters meltdown was not Lowry’s first this year. He held a three-shot lead late on Sunday at the 2026 Cognizant Classic, then made double bogeys at 16 and 17 to hand the victory to Nico Echavarria.

“This game has given me a lot of punches in the gut this year,” Lowry said Thursday. “It’s testing me a little bit, but, you know, I’m not going to stop working hard. I’m not going to give up, and I’m going to give my best for as long as I may be playing this game.”

Though he admitted that “Thursday came around pretty quickly this week” after a “tough few days,” Lowry managed a one-under 70 on the opening round of the RBC Heritage.

“I feel like it was always gonna be a tough enough round to get my kind of mojo back, and I felt like I played nice today,” Lowry said.

So Lowry plows ahead hoping that if he keeps knocking on the door, eventually he’ll end his individual PGA Tour winless streak, which dates back to his emotional win at the 2019 Open Championship.

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The post 5 untold Masters stories from our reporters’ notebooks appeared first on Golf.

The post 5 untold Masters stories from our reporters’ notebooks appeared first on Golf.

At the Masters last week, our fleet of content producers told a lotof stories — but not all of them! As ever, they came home with unused material still in their notebooks and noggins, which we’d couldn’t bear to see to go waste. So kick back, pour yourself one last Azalea and enjoy a few of our untold tales.

What Rory’s nervy moment looked like up close  

by Dylan Dethier

Rory McIlroy’s most stressful moment on Masters Sunday? It didn’t come until after he’d hit his tee shot on the 18th hole.

“I’d say walking off the 18th tee not knowing where my ball was,” McIlroy said post-round. “It could go anywhere. It could be anywhere.”

He was right to be concerned; he needed just bogey to win but had blasted driver so far right that it was well out of his sight and, as social-media griping will tell you, out of the reach of CBS’s cameras, too.

But based on sheer luck I was, at that moment, wandering up the right side of the 18th hole with a couple writers, including our James Colgan. A spotter found the ball first, a crowd began to swarm and form around it, and we joined the fray. 

When McIlroy arrived on the scene he seemed to sigh with relief. His ball had traveled so far right that he had a window. Punching back to the 18th fairway would have been treacherous, but an easier line existed: He could look up the 10th hole instead, allowing him to hit a high hook around and over the trees (and the massive leaderboard by the 18th green) to settle somewhere around the putting surface.

Two problems remained. The first was there were suddenly about a thousand people in his way. McIlroy and caddie Harry Diamond walked up their target line, working with marshals to try to push back the patrons. But McIlroy’s start line was so far right, and so many more people were flowing into the area, that eventually he seemed to just give up. He and Diamond had a short discussion: McIlroy confirmed that his ball would come out spinny, because it was sitting on pine straw. And then he readied to hit.

Then came the second problem: Actually executing that high hook, off pine straw, starting it over the heads of a massive group of patrons. I’m sure I see worst-case scenarios differently than one of the best golfers in the world, but I wondered if there would be any flinch from McIlroy, knowing that if he slipped and thinned one — or something similarly catastrophic — he could drill someone and blow the Masters all at once.

But McIlroy played quickly, as he had all Sunday afternoon. He hit a high hook, definitely a little hookier than necessary; I wondered if he’d started it a little further left, subconsciously, to avoid my catastrophic scenario. And then, as he strode after his ball, following its flight, the crowd began to close in around him.

This sort of swarm never really happens at the conclusion of the Masters, at least not in recent decades; the rope lines are well established. (Granted, Tiger Woods was nearly taken out at the knees in a similar situation in 2019.) But quickly, almost from nowhere, security appeared from the crowd and the trees, and an informal barrier went up to give McIlroy a lane to hustle back to the fairway. We headed up the right side of the hole and around the green, hoping for a glimpse of the final putt, glad to have had a front-row seat to the final full swing of an historic Masters.

The *other* happiest place on Earth

by Josh Berhow

At the Masters, you’ll find cheap sandwiches, really green grass and well-behaved patrons. Those are givens. But what always gets me is that everyone is so happy. 

And they should be! Think about it — where else on Earth is everyone universally thrilled to be in one place? (As a parent who went to Disney World a week before the Masters, I can promise you Magic Kingdom is not the answer.)

And that blissfully hypnotic state lingers well after patrons leave Washington Road. Because the second-happiest spot I found last week? It was the tiny bar at the Augusta Regional Airport, where, as I waited for my return flight home, a Masters after-party was in full swing.

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Few of the revelers knew one other but happily mingled at shared tables. Drinks were flowing, and the bartender generously poured doubles. Everyone shared stories about where they went and what they saw and what they ate and how it felt. Most were sunburned, several were clad in Masters gear and everyone agreed the course is — stop us if you’ve heard this one before — way hillier than it looks on TV.

One guy from Iowa paid John Daly $100 to sign his brother’s stomach and had the video to prove it. Another from Minnesota raved about his first time in swanky Berckmans Place. Plastic bags stuffed with thousands of dollars’ worth of Masters merchandise — hats, mugs, polos, posters — lined the floor.

“The only thing I didn’t get was a gnome,” one man said. “I’d offer anyone $200 for one right now.”

I smiled and nodded. He seemed so happy I didn’t have the heart to tell him what was hiding in my backpack. 

My favorite Masters Sunday tradition

by Alan Bastable

At a tournament defined by traditions, my colleagues and I have one of our own: Masters Sunday lunch in the Augusta National clubhouse.

Around 11:30 a.m., before the leaders have put their pegs in the ground in earnest, seven or eight of us pile into golf-cart shuttles outside the Press Building for the short ride to the shuttle drop-off by the leader board near the golf shop. From there, it’s a short hike up a tightly mown slope, a hard left turn at the famed old oak where golf’s sparkly people convene (is that . . . Sir Nick?!) and in through the back door of the clubhouse where a guard carefully eyes our credentials. Then it’s a few paces through a well-appointed dual-winged reception room and up a spiral staircase to a floor that houses, to your left as you exit the stairwell, the Champions Locker Room, and, to your right, a rectangular dining room that spills out on to a veranda that offers bird’s-eye views of all the sparkly people and even glimpses of the first tee.

If there’s a better way to start your Masters Sunday (other than smoothing balls on ANGC’s range in preparation for a starting time), I’d like to hear it! Some years we get a table outside; other years, like this one, the only available tables are in the dining room, which lacks the more casual al fresco appeal of the balcony but comes with its own perks such as having a front-row (table?) seat to such miscellany as the names on the Augusta National Jamboree honors board or the display case with President Eisenhower’s stylish knit polo.

The menu, like just about everything else at the club, is clean, simple and elegant. Green ink on white stock. The kitchen’s offerings aren’t fancy, either. Cheeseburger, flounder sandwich, spicy chicken nachos, a sampler plate with three of Augusta’s signature sandies, etc. In one of the dining room’s corners, a door leads to a small men’s room, where you’ll find a framed print of “Comme nos maîtres,” a famous cartoon by the French artist Boris O’Klein that playfully depicts seven dogs doing their business on their hind legs. The name of the piece translates to “Like their masters.” That’s another thing about Augusta, you notice something new on every visit.

But back to our meal. It’s always an in-and-out affair — maybe 45 minutes tops — but in the quiet of the clubhouse, away from the pressures of our keyboards and cameras, time has a way of slowing down. We share stories from the week, toast with Azaleas (pro move: swap out of the vodka for tequila) and generally enjoy one another’s company in a setting unlike few others. Then the check comes. Back to work.

Loitering with intent (around Tommy Fleetwood!)

by Michael Bamberger

Over the past maybe eight years I have noted, in the pages of this website, that my three favorite golfers are Tommy Fleetwood of England, Franceso Molinari of Italy and Jordan Spieth of Dallas. My guess is that Molinari knows my face and name, that Spieth knows my face but not my name and that Fleetwood knows neither, despite my various efforts. Once, for instance, I told him that, by coincidence and during the last British Open there, I was seated next to his aunt at an outdoor café on a Sunday in downtown, Birkdale, England, during a British Open. Tommy said he knew the café and that she likely was eating there after church. You may know that the Open is returning to Birkdale this year.

On Sunday, Fleetwood went off a full two hours before Rory McIlroy, his Ryder Cup teammate, but Fleetwood stayed around after his middle-of-the-pack finish to see how the whole thing would play out. When McIlroy won, Fleetwood was among the players hanging by the clubhouse to congratulate him. What a lovely thing to do — but what else would you expect from this golfing gent? There’s a reason he’s in my Top 3. By the way, and a quick aside, his final-round 63 at Shinnecock Hills at the 2018 U.S. Open has to be one of the best rounds of golf ever played. I would say that’s like shooting a 60 at Augusta National on Masters Sunday. You may know that the U.S. Open is returning to Shinnecock in June.

Maybe 20 or 25 minutes after McIlroy made his winning six-inch putt on Sunday, Fleetwood was standing on front of the clubhouse, waiting on a ride. By the front I mean the side of the clubhouse at the end of Magnolia Lane, facing Washington Road. I have heard some people refer to this as the back of the clubhouse, which I don’t understand, except that it is back if you have a course-centric view of the world. That part I do get.

Gear

Anyway, Fleetwood was standing there, by himself, waiting on a ride and not wearing anything with a Swoosh, as he is no longer a Nike brand ambassador or whatever the right term is for that. He was wearing what seemed to be a custom-made pair of sort of beige beltless pants with a billowy legs. The Eisenhower Era meets the Jerry Ford years.

“In the ‘70s a lot of guys used to wear pants like that,” I said. I was loitering with intent, looking for something to write about. That is, something to write about related to the winner. They did wear pants like that, to a point. The pants then were much tighter, often garish in color and made of polyester. Fleetwood’s pants seemed to be made of a fine lightweight wool. “They were called Sansabelts. Johnny Miller wore ’em. Tom Weiskopf. Lot of guys.”

“Sansabelts,” Tom said.

“From the French, sans belt.”

That is, without.

Tom nodded, with ever-so-modest enthusiasm. Soon, his ride arrived. He finished T33. — Michael Bamberger

Rory McIlroy’s good luck charm

by James Colgan

One of the unusual pleasures of watching the Masters broadcast is that most of the views are totally unobstructed. Nobody other than the players, the caddies, the camera crews and Dottie Pepper fill the camera shots inside the ropes — the throngs of golf dignitaries, sponsors, agents, managers and scribes are left outside the ropes with the rest of the people.

Pepper has an unusual honor in the center of the fold. Since 2020, she has served as the only inside-the-ropes broadcaster in Masters history, tracking the highest-leverage groups for the network and collecting datapoints from the middle of the action.

But that’s where this story gets funny. Over the last two years, nobody has seen more of Rory McIlroy at the Masters up close than Dottie, who followed the back-to-back green jacket winner for the seventh time since the start of the 2025 Masters on Sunday afternoon.

Yep, you read that right, Pepper has been on McIlroy’s bag for seven of eight tournament rounds since the start of his star-crossed 2025 Masters start, seeing all but Friday’s second-round rebound in 2025 from the best seat in the house.

In that time, she’s seen some underrated gems — like McIlroy’s second on the 5th on Sunday in 2025 — and some true stinkers, like his tee shot on the 18th with the tournament on the line last Sunday. That’s when Pepper and the rest of the CBS team were thrust into an unenviable position, when McIlroy’s mega-right drive resulted in a mad search for his chunky second-shot, which the broadcast team briefly lost as it traveled from the pine straw into the front-left bunker.

The moment was a reminder of the vagaries of golf TV broadcasting, though nobody at home struggling to make sense of the most consequential moment of the tournament had much patience for it. McIlroy didn’t help matters by playing his second and third shots as if he was worried the meter in the Champions Parking Lot was about to expire.

Eventually, Pepper restored order with a quick blurb on the location, the forthcoming shot and the quality of the lie. And McIlroy soon delivered a tournament-clinching tap-in.

No guarantees that Pepper will be on McIlroy’s bag at the beginning of next year’s Masters, but McIlroy surely won’t squeal if she is. They have a good thing going.

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The post ‘I crossed the line’: Kevin Kisner apologizes for unusual CBS Masters criticism appeared first on Golf.

The post ‘I crossed the line’: Kevin Kisner apologizes for unusual CBS Masters criticism appeared first on Golf.

In the aftermath of Rory McIlroy’s Masters victory, Kevin Kisner made a guest appearance on Barstool Sports’ Fore Play podcast to break down the week that was.

The nearly two-hour conversation covered a lot of bases: Rory’s triumph, Scottie Scheffler and Justin Rose’s near-miss, and other big moments. But when the discussion turned to the broadcast, Kisner went on a viral, profanity-laden rant about what he believed to be CBS’ shortcomings.

“I have a very biased opinion so I want to go ahead and put that out there before I start since I work for the other network,” Kisner began. “And I was so f—ing confused the entire time by trying to keep up with the behind-the-scenes CBS feed. They’re literally showing s— that I knew happened ten minutes ago all day long. It was so bad that I in fact texted Colt Knost during the show and said, ‘Do you all ever show a live shot?’ I’m better off following the f—ing app than following your feed.’”

“So your entire Masters coverage is a fantasy world. It’s bulls–t,” Kisner continued. “Whatever we all watch has already happened seven minutes ago. Could you imagine watching the f—ing Super Bowl and being like, ‘Oh yeah, Tom Brady threw that touchdown seven minutes ago, we’re going to act like it’s live here so our announcers can sound really smart and we’re going to sit here and he’s going to throw it wide open down the middle but it actually happened seven minutes ago and everyone in the stadium’s taking a p—. What are we doing, man?”

Kisner, who became a lead golf analyst for NBC in 2024, was onsite at Augusta National working as a lead analyst for Sirius XM’s Masters broadcast team. Beyond serving as an incendiary bit of post-Masters commentary, his comments were extraordinarily unusual for a man serving as an employee of one of the PGA Tour broadcast partners, who rarely, if ever, air public criticisms of one another.

“You have no commercials,” Kisner said. “Play live shots. I don’t know. Our production team at NBC prides themselves on playing every shot that they possibly can live. And we talk about with Dan Hicks, when we can’t, we have to say a moment ago, because we’re trying to make the whole movie make sense, right? We don’t want to show you a tap-in on 16 and go ‘Oh yeah, he’s already hitting his shot on 17’ because obviously he has to walk over there. I have no idea what they’re doing. Literally no idea. They’re showing every shot on tape. It’s incredible. I don’t even know how the announcers call it.”

On Thursday, Kisner returned to the Fore Play podcast to issue an apology.

“It’s been an interesting few days, but it is what it is,” Kisner said. “I just have to apologize to the the golf team at CBS. I crossed the line probably, too much by talking about that whole content. And I know from my short time in the business how wild production is, right? It is a very difficult thing to produce a live show and make it all work and everybody does their best.

“NBC screws up all the time, and we’re just trying to do our best, and I went too far on being critical on them, and I just want all the people associated with it to know I apologize,” he continued. “They’re our partners with the PGA Tour and they continue to showcase in a great way the game we all love, and they’re all trying to do their best, and I was too critical of them.”

You can watch Kisner’s apology in the video above, or the Fore Play podcast episode in its entirety here.

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Harry Hall was trying to will his way into two more Masters rounds. He had shot five over through two mentally exhausting days when, on Friday afternoon, he promised reporters, “It’s not over yet.” He felt he had a 50/50 chance of making the cut.

Hall did not have coin-flip odds, not even close. But that wasn’t the point. He had labored through the toughest test of his golfing life, looking and sounding completely broken after the first round, explaining how he needed two drivers in the bag, a new putter and irons he could spin better. 

By the time he stepped down from the podium Friday, his wife was waiting for him with a big hug. She threw her arms around Harry’s side as he stared off into the distance. All I could think was, That man chose this profession, and, at this moment, the game is beating him.

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The next time I thought about Harry Hall was Tuesday, as I turned my gaze to this week’s PGA Tour event in Hilton Head Island, S.C., the RBC Heritage. The remnants of all those missed cuts at Augusta showed themselves in who was grinding at Harbour Town — Hall among them.

The Englishman hit 266 shots on the range Monday, 46 more than anyone else, at least 50 of which were drivers. Some missing left, others right. His search was evident in the data, but you also could see it in the final question I asked of him in Augusta. 

What are you fighting with the driver? 

“Fighting to hit it where I’m looking,” he said. 

Only J.J. Spaun, Rickie Fowler and Andrew Novak joined Hall in the 200+ range balls department Monday. Fowler didn’t qualify for the Masters, Spaun missed the cut on the number and Novak, well, he walked up the 18th hole wondering if it was the last time he’d play in the tournament. 

That’s the headspace pros can find themselves in at Augusta National. And before they’ve even have had a chance to absorb what happened, it’s on to Hilton Head and its $20 million purse. 

As mind-numbing as it may be to be a regular PGA Tour TV viewer to have to tune in for more significant golf this weekend, my advice would be to view this week through a different lens. While Scottie Scheffler may walk away with the title (and tartan jacket) given the form he seems to be in, other players are thinking scary thoughts — and a more laidback week in Hilton Head might be just the warm embrace they need.

3 things I’m hearing…

1. Uber . . . Green? 

An Uber driver of mine last week told me he had the pleasure of picking up Nick Faldo and his wife a few weeks before the Masters. That meant he could make the drive down Magnolia Lane without ever getting an invite to play the course. Maybe we all should start driving Ubers in Augusta? 

2. Koepka’s coming

As of this typing, Brooks Koepka is the first alternate for this week’s Signature Event in Hilton Head. That matters a lot because the only way he can qualify for these events is not via sponsor exemptions but by playing good golf. Koepka’s recent run of four top-20 finishes in his last five starts has earned him enough FedEx Cup points to be on the verge of playing his way back to the Tour’s top events. Is anyone surprised? 

3. So bad it was good 

At the Masters, I often find myself spectating from where Rory McIlroy’s final tee shot ended up Sunday, on the edge of the 10th hole. It’s a fun spot. Most shots with that much spin clank around in the pine trees and can drop into all kinds of crazy lies. I’ve watched numerous players have to pitch out with 4-irons just to reach the 18th fairway. McIlroy’s first shot was so bad it gave him enough room to rip a 6-iron at the green, making for an easy bogey. But I keep thinking about an alternate universe in which he had to work a lot harder to make 5. 

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Here are the other winners from the 2026 Masters. The Participation Jackets, if you will. Let’s get to ’em.

Honorable mention: All of us

After a week at Augusta with gloriously limited screen time I buzzed back through social media on post-Masters Monday to catch up on what I’d missed. This proved a spectacularly stupid way to process the golf tournament; somehow the conversation had shifted to burning topics like whether Rory McIlroy should be keeping score or what Florida’s governor thought of his scouting trips to Augusta.

Look, petty gripes are encouraged. I’m more than happy to hear nit-picking about golf course setup or TV production or bird selection on Jason Day’s vest or anything your heart desires — as long as we’re keeping in mind that, as far as golf tournaments go, this one was pretty damn good. So this is a reminder to myself, and I suppose to you, dear reader, that we’re all winners for how this all went down. Augusta National showed out, the weather cooperated and we got a legitimate back-and-forth, plot-twisting Masters Sunday between a handful of the very best golfers in the world.

10. Michael Brennan

Brennan announced his arrival in an improbable win at last year’s Bank of Utah Championship, where he got into the field via sponsor exemption and — in his first PGA Tour start as a pro — won the whole thing. It’s been uneven since then, but Brennan held his own in his first major as a pro; his T24 at Augusta National is his best finish anywhere in 2026.

8. Maverick McNealy

He’s not a flashy personality, doesn’t play a flashy game and doesn’t have a flashy resume in major championships. But Mav McNealy logged his first career top 20 thanks to a typically hot putter and a Sunday 67; it was a particularly impressive result given he shot 77 on Thursday.

9. Russell Henley

When Henley birdied four of the first eight holes on Sunday to get to 10 under par he suddenly had a legitimate chance to win his first major championship. Instead he couldn’t make a birdie putt and played the final 10 holes even par. The good news: that was his fifth top-10 finish in his last seven major starts and the first top-three of his career. Trending up at age 37.

“I hit it amazing today. I gave myself a bunch of looks. Unfortunately, I didn’t capitalize on those looks on the back like I would have liked to,” he said. “I felt like I handled the pressure well, handled the conditions well. It was tricky out there.”

7. Tyrrell Hatton

LIV Golf had a largely disappointing week; just one of its players finished under par or inside the top 30. But even though that golfer, Tyrrell Hatton, saw his chances to win all but vanish in a Saturday 72, his splendid Sunday 66 left him T3 and immensely satisfied with the way he finished. By finishing top 12 he also guarantees a return visit next year, which he said was on his mind with a baby on the way.

“To be honest most of the back nine I just wanted to make birdies because my wife is due in six weeks and I was thinking about it would be cool to come back next year, and our little girl will be pretty much 11 months, so it would be amazing to see her in a boiler suit,” Hatton said, referring to the caddie uniforms families wear at Wednesday’s Par-3 Contest. “Obviously you see all the other dads and their families and the little ones in boiler suits is so cute.”

6. Scottie Scheffler

There’s no chance the World No. 1 is interested in a Participation Jacket (the times more I type that phrase the more I’m planning to trademark it) but Scheffler entered the week as a new father, was coming off his “worst” two starts in over a year and sat 12 shots back at the halfway mark; if he was anybody else he’d be No. 1 on this list. (Instead we’ll slot him semi-randomly at No. 6.)

A bogey-free weekend left Scheffler solo second, just one shot off McIlroy’s winning number, and will more than silence the doubters. McIlroy won the tournament; Scheffler’s still the best golfer in the world. Between the two of them they’ve won four of the last five majors as well as four of the last five Masters, and McIlroy now has six majors to Scheffler’s four. Game on.

“I think the major championships bring out the best in me sometimes, and I had some good starts last year and I obviously had a good week this week,” Scheffler said. “There’s a few shots I’d like to have back, but overall put up a good fight.”

5. Jordan Spieth

Speaking of trending iron play: Jordan Spieth is flagging it right now. His T12 is his best result at a major in three years and came largely thanks to his approach game, which DataGolf had as fifth best in the field. Spieth remains remarkably dependable at Augusta National, where he has nine top-15 finishes in 13 career starts. He’s trending towards dependability everywhere else, too, if he can get his putter to cooperate.

“I hit it better [this year] than the year I won and I hit it way better than any of the second places or fourths,” he said. “Probably the best I ever hit it here and I typically putt these greens very well. That part is a bit frustrating. Again, putting can be streaky so just get on the right streak and go try to win next week.”

4. Jake Knapp

Knapp has played eight tournaments in 2026. He has now finished T11 or better in seven of those eight after a relatively quiet seven-under-par showing. It felt like a particularly significant finish because Knapp had played just four prior majors as a pro (three MCs and a T55), making this by far his best result.

3. Cameron Young

If you take Young at his word, he left the Masters disappointed in the result but pleased with his play.

“There is no negative to take away other than obviously I would’ve loved a different result,” he said. “But in terms of the golf, I played plenty well enough to win today and plenty well enough to win by a couple I think. So, just one of those days. If you go through the back nine I pretty much had a birdie chance on every hole and didn’t make any. That’s how it goes sometimes.”

The tournament felt like Young’s to win when McIlroy, his playing partner, three-putted from five feet at No. 4 and gave Young a two-shot edge. But there was still so much golf to be played; Young went bogey-bogey-birdie-bogey at 6-7-8-9 and then strung out nine consecutive pars on the back as McIlroy slipped past him.

So why does he get a Participation Jacket? Because he just clutched up to win the Players, because he’s just gone T3-win-T3, because he’s No. 3 in the world — and because this time last year he missed the cut at the Masters and fell outside the top 60 in the OWGR. That’s a hell of a few weeks and a hell of a year.

2. Max Homa

Max Homa didn’t win the 2024 Masters but he did finish T3, which meant he got an automatic invite to the 2025 Masters, where he finished T12, which meant he got an automatic invite to the 2026 Masters, where he finished T9 thanks to a bogey-free Sunday 67 — and secured an invite to the 2027 Masters. Things could be looking up for Homa, whose iron play and putting have both been trending up since the start of the season. Now it’s just a matter of pretending that every other course is Augusta National…

“Yeah, it feels high,” Homa said of his result, with a smile. “I would like next time to be in contention earlier, not need a miracle on Sunday. “But for not having it all and feeling like I left some out there, I’m really proud of just the golf, [and] my brain was so good. Yeah, it was fun.”

1. Collin Morikawa

It takes a very specific set of circumstances to feel shocked by the No. 7-ranked golfer in the world finishing seventh place at a pro golf tournament, but given Collin Morikawa’s pre-tournament form (scratched on his second hole at the Players with a back injury, then sat out the next three weeks) plus his tournament-week form (was clearly in pain, wasn’t moving well, had to mess with his swing just to make it through a simple shot) this was probably the most impressive non-win of his impressing young career.

“Trust me, it’s going to be one of the best tournaments forever,” Morikawa said. “I’m going to remember this one for many reasons, but just more how strong the mind is, to be able to go out and convince yourself that everything is going to be okay.”

You can watch more analysis of the 2026 Masters at the video below.

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The post ‘No place in our game:’ Sergio Garcia apologizes for property-damaging Masters outburst appeared first on Golf.

Sergio Garcia got very mad. Now he’s very sorry.

Two days removed from a property-damaging outburst at the Masters, Garcia, 46, apologized for his behavior on social media.

“I want to apologize for my actions on Sunday at The Masters tournament,” the 2017 Masters champ wrote Tuesday on X. “I respect and value everything that The Masters and Augusta National Golf club is to Golf. I regret the way I acted. It has no place in our game. It doesn’t reflect the appreciation I have for The Masters, the patrons, tournament officials and golf fans around the world.”

His mea culpa was in reference to a final-round incident in which Garcia, frustrated by an errant drive on the par-5 second hole, sledgehammered his club into the teeing area twice, tearing gouges in the turf. He then banged his driver against a nearby cooler, snapping the club head in the process. 

Two holes later, on the fourth tee, Masters competition committee chairman Geoff Yang slapped Garcia with a code-of-conduct warning, acting on a policy implemented at the tournament for the first time this year. Under the policy, a first violation triggers a warning, a second carries a two-shot penalty and a third results in disqualification.

In a terse interview with reporters after his round, Garcia declined to offer details of his exchange with Yang. “I’m not going to tell you. Next question,” he said. Nor did he apologize for his conduct.

“Just obviously not super proud of it, but sometimes it happens,” Garcia said. 

It has happened to Garcia on more than one occasion. At the 2007 WGC-CA Championship, he spat into the cup on a par 3 after three-putting for bogey. In 2019, he was disqualified from the Saudi International for damaging multiple greens in anger.

This latest fit of pique comes amid a prolonged period of frustration for Garcia, who has spoken openly about his battles with his swing. His recent record reflects those struggles. Since winning the green jacket nine years ago in a sudden-death playoff over Justin Rose, Garcia has finished outside the top 10 in 29 major-championship appearances and has missed the cut in six of eight Masters.

This week, he scraped his way into the weekend but closed with a 75 on Sunday that left him in 52nd place among the 54 players who made the cut. His performance, though, won’t likely be remembered for his score. Sunday’s outburst was Garcia’s second club-breaking incident in as many majors. In the final round of last year’s Open Championship at Royal Portrush, he broke his driver in half while slamming it on the ground on the second hole. 

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