Danny Willett is still unsure if he will do it here at the 88th Masters as he continues to recover from shoulder surgery.
The Yorkshireman’s management insist he is determined to do everything he can to play his first event since Wentworth last September, due to the affection he has for the major he won eight years ago. As he makes his decision, Willett may need to be reminded that his country needs him.
Without him there will be just five British golfers in the field and that will be Augusta’s lowest representation in more than 30 years. As it stands, six would still be the fewest this century, which would represent a staggering drop from the 15 British players who took part in the 2021 Masters.
From a rugby team to a boy band in three years.
There appear to be four reasons for this dramatic decline in the tournament that Great Britain won four times in a row in the early 1990s.
LIV Golf recruits top talent
Naturally. There is not a single aspect of the men’s professional game that the Saudi-funded breakout has not affected and here appears to have been another casualty of the golf revolution. The biggest problem for LIV golfers is that, without world ranking points, their ability to qualify for the Masters is severely limited.
Three of Britain’s 2021 Masters competitors jumped ship within 15 months of that major. Ian Poulter and Paul Casey have not played in the Masters since, with the former admitting last week that he never will again.
After finishing fourteenth in 2022, Lee Westwood acknowledges the same and settles for twenty appearances, with two second places. He thinks the time was probably up anyway.
“I missed it [in 2022] by one chance to get into the top twelve and qualify for next year, but maybe it’s a bit cyclical because the British guys who regularly get good results there aren’t getting any younger,” the 50-year-old said.
“Which British people would now be from LIV? Paul probably does, and maybe Blandy [Richard Bland] would have ultimately made it the way he played. But it’s hard to say. The world rankings hardly contributed to that, right?”
Rankings are updated and penalize European players
Westwood’s claim that LIV’s continued exclusion from the rankings system makes it virtually unfeasible for the Rebels to qualify through the world’s top 50 – the way the majority of golfers earn their Masters berths – is impossible to disagree with, regardless of whether you subscribe to the “they made their bed” position or not.
But the rankings – and in particular the revision of the rankings in 2022 – have also apparently worked against major British interests, going so far as to take into account the shrinking British delegation.
In August 2022, it came into effect that points will be awarded to all players who make the cut in a tournament using a field rating calculation based on a statistical evaluation of every player in the field, rather than just those who make the top 200 belong. as before.
Simply put, this means that the PGA Tour now gets more points for its events than before, while the DP World Tour has a much worse relationship. Essentially, the mechanism favors the PGA Tour by reducing the number of points for winning on other Tours and limited-entry events.
Padraig Harrington, the 2018 Ryder Cup captain, said the European circuit has been “hammered” by the changes and his successor Luke Donald appears to agree. “If you talk to statisticians, they say it’s fairer now, but it seems a bit strange,” Donald said. Telegraph Sports. “Maybe it was a little soft at first and now it’s gone too far in the other direction. They need to figure it out because I don’t think it really values how hard winning is, no matter where a player wins and no matter how big the field is.
“It seems harder than ever for some of our young guys to get into the top 50 in the world and from there to the biggest events.”
This also applies to the Masters and Poulter believes this is taking away the motivation from British hopefuls on the DP World Tour.
“When I first qualified for the Masters [in 2004] it was purely because of my efforts during the European Tour,” he said Telegraph Sports. “If a young player now had the same results as I did back then, he wouldn’t come close to being in the top 50. So that’s a route that’s being denied just because people in Sawgrass wanted their Tour to be even more dominant would be.
“It’s a shame. Because it doesn’t matter that the players don’t fulfill their dreams of playing Amen Corner, and realize that now they have to go to the US to have a chance, just think about the kids watching at home. The Masters and seeing our British boys competing against the best was one of the reasons why people like me took up golf so enthusiastically.”
Green jackets get old
If the likes of Westwood, Poulter and Donald have ventured too far past their prime to qualify, then Britain has seen the golden oldies – whose Augusta places were guaranteed thanks to their green jackets – all run out of time.
Sir Nick Faldo, Sandy Lyle and Ian Woosnam played together in 96 Masters and single-handedly put together a nation’s proud Georgia CV. Faldo won in 1989 and 1990, Lyle in 1988 and when Woosnam prevailed in 1991, the British Augusta dominance was so pronounced that there were rumors that they were thinking of dyeing the members’ jackets red, white and blue.
But with Lyle finally hanging up his peaks last year, 2024 will mark the first time in 45 years that the field will not feature members of the evergreen three-ball.
Britain could always rely on the trio to stoke the numbers and the fact is that – Willett aside – the supposed golden generation that came in their wake failed to find a way into Butler’s Cabin.
Britain has achieved six top twos and more than thirty top tens in the past twenty years. It’s an impressive figure. But it has done nothing to strengthen the size of the British contingent.
There is less young talent coming through
Whatever the significance of the rankings dispute or the LIV effect, there can be no doubt that Britain is short of top talent compared to recent times.
To think that just eight years ago there were six British pros in the top 10 in the world at the Masters. Northern Ireland’s Rory McIlroy is the only one this time and many will point out that he is playing for Ireland in the Olympics.
However, with Matt Fitzpatrick, Tommy Fleetwood and Tyrrell Hatton all in the top 20, there is still hope. “We may not have the quantity, but the quality is still there,” Fleetwood said Telegraph Sports last week. “No reason to panic.”
He’s right, but after so long with so many people up there, it’s completely justified to look down and see who will arrive to replenish the troops.
Robert MacIntyre is in his first season on the PGA Tour and should eventually establish himself in the top 50, while no one should give up on Matt Wallace. And good prospects pass by.
Alex Fitzpatrick, brother of Matt, has already proven himself as a winner, while Scotland – without a Masters player for the first time in 35 years – has big hopes for 17-year-old Connor Graham.
The factory still produces potential superstars. Except, it seems, just not at the same pace and output.
Perhaps the last few decades have been an exception and Britain is having to get used to a small but talented detachment.
It’s not the most horrible proposal. Remember, when Sandy opened the shutters on Britain’s Augusta tea party, there were only five fellow countrymen alongside. Good swings sometimes come in small packages.
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