AUGUSTA, Ga. — The honorary starters at the Masters — with a combined 11 green jackets and 140 starts at the Masters between them — know greatness when they see it. And all three of them see greatness in 2025 in one player in particular.
“I think Rory McIlroy will win the Masters this year,” three-time Masters winner Gary Player said, “and I hope he does because it would give golf a great boost to have another winner of the Grand Slam.”
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“I just have a gut feeling that Rory is the guy that’s going to win this week,” two-time Masters winner Tom Watson added. “That’s the bottom line. That’s my gut feeling.”
“Ditto,” Jack Nicklaus said with a laugh.
The three legends gathered after beginning the Masters, as is tradition, with three ceremonial tee shots. Their annual post-shot news conference was a mix of nostalgia, humor, perspective, wisdom and a touch of saltiness … as is also tradition.
During their half-hour-long news conference, Player, Watson and Nicklaus held forth on a range of topics, from pace of play (Player: “Slow play is a curse for golf”) to the LIV/PGA Tour split (Watson: “I don’t see a real working mechanism for the two tours to get back together”) to Tiger Woods (Nicklaus: “I believe he’ll probably play the Senior Tour and I believe he’ll probably dominate the Senior Tour.”). When the course of the conversation wandered around, briefly, to this week’s actual tournament, the consensus was unanimous: This is McIlroy’s time.
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He famously won four majors by the age of 25, something only Nicklaus and Tiger Woods had done. But since claiming the PGA Championship in 2014, McIlroy hasn’t won another major.
Now, though, Nicklaus thinks McIlroy is dialed in to finally win at Augusta, the one major he hasn’t won. Nicklaus recounted how he sat down with McIlroy last week and discussed the nuances of the course, covering each hole on the course. “We went through it shot for shot. And he got done with the round, and I didn’t open my mouth,” Nicklaus said. “And I said, ‘Well, I wouldn’t change a thing. That’s exactly the way I would try to play the golf course.’”
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“He went to Jack for advice on how to play this golf course,” Player said. “Nobody knows better than Jack.”
To Nicklaus, McIlroy has lacked discipline at times on the course, allowing a rough hole or two to sneak its way into the mix … and if that rough hole comes late in the day on Sunday, it’s all the more painful because of McIlroy’s potential.
“He’s got all the shots. He’s got all the game,” Nicklaus said. “He certainly is as talented as anybody in the game.”
“He’s had his adversities, his opportunities to win majors and let them slip. I think his time is right,” Player said. “I think it’s just the right time for him to win now.”
Nicklaus offered up a caveat to his McIlroy pick, and a large one: “Obviously, Scottie Scheffler is just coming back in again, he’s a defending champion, there’s nobody playing any better in the game than Scottie,” Nicklaus said. “Between the two of them, I think you’re going to find your winner.”
