Top 6 Golfers to Watch as The Masters Tournament Begins: Rory McIlroy Shines, Australian Golfer Excels, and US Star Faces Big Decision

Rory McIlroy is in excellent form, while Scottie Scheffler is aiming for his third green jacket. Alongside them, a mix of up-and-coming talents, experienced players, and underdogs are all vying for victory in the prestigious golf tournament in Georgia, USA.

Thanks to a strong start to the 2025 PGA Tour season, several European golfers also have a promising chance of clinching the title at Augusta National. Among them are five standout players including McIlroy, Sepp Straka, Thomas Detry, Ludvig Aberg, and Viktor Hovland, all of whom have already secured victories on the US circuit this year.

However, the tournament will be missing two former champions, Tiger Woods and Vijay Singh. Woods, a five-time winner, is currently on the road to recovery after dealing with an Achilles injury earlier in the year.

Meanwhile, some big names from LIV Golf return for the first major of the year. It comes as merger talks continue to rage between the PGA Tour and the Saudi-backed golf league but those negotiations have been glacial at best. 

Bryson DeChambeau has been bludgeoning golf balls on the range this week, while Sergio Garcia, a former champion, returns to Augusta in resurgent form. 

Here at Mail Sport, we’ve been doing the reading and have picked out six players you need to keep an eye on at this year’s Masters.

Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy

Let’s face it, it would be nothing short of epic to see these two battle it out over 18 holes on Sunday afternoon at Augusta.

Right now, they are the two best golfers in the world and it is a tough one to call who would win if they went to a shootout on the final day.

While McIlroy has more starts at Augusta than Scheffler, the American has had the better success, having now won twice on this track, but has also never finished outside the top 20 in his five appearances at The Masters.

It is, though, the Northern Irishman who has better form coming into this year’s event. McIlroy has won twice on the PGA Tour in 2025, notably clinching his second Players Championship at TPC Sawgrass last month.

Interestingly, we are watching a different McIlroy play golf this year. He looks much more settled and at home with his swing compared to previous years. As he says, he is just ‘blocking out all the noise’ surrounding him. It is a delight to watch him enjoying his golf. 

It comes after a turbulent year that saw him U-turn on a divorce from his partner Erica Stoll and come agonisingly close to claiming victory at the US Open in Pinehurst, only to be bested by Bryson DeChambeau – who we’ll talk a little more on later. 

On Wednesday, you could not wipe the smile off McIlroy’s face as he walked around the Par Three Course at Augusta National with his daughter Poppy and wife Erica.

The question for McIlroy is can he take his mind away from the pressure that always follows him at this illustrious event? In the past, we have seen the 35-year-old struggle under the weight of expectations around Augusta – notably sandwiching a second-place finish between two missed cuts in 2021, 2022 and 2023.

But the noises coming from McIlroy, this week are promising.

‘It’s just narratives. It’s noise. It’s just trying to block out that noise as much as possible. I need to treat this tournament like all the other tournaments that I play throughout the year,’ he said on Tuesday.

‘Look, I understand the narrative and the noise, and there’s a lot of anticipation and buildup coming into this tournament each and every year, but I just have to keep my head down and focus on my job.’

Scheffler faces a slightly different challenge. Things look a little different for him this time around, with the 2024 FedEx Cup winner also now being a new dad. 

This year, he will be competing to join an illustrious club of players that includes Sam Snead, Nick Faldo, Phil Mickelson and Gary Player, to win three Green Jackets.

But Scheffler knows how to get it done on this track and he’s fended off McIlroy here before, with the Northern Irishman placing second behind him when he picked up his first Green Jacket in 2022.

Even while having missed parts of 2025, after sustaining a bizarre hand injury while trying to cook up some ravioli at Christmas, Scheffler, barring some hayfever issues, is ready to play his best golf again.

‘Yeah, this rain and pollen out here. I get out of my car in the morning, my eyes start watering. It’s a little bit worse than normal years. But I feel good,’ a bleary-eyed Scheffler told reporters earlier in the week.

‘Yeah, I’m feeling good, ready to roll.’

As for the stats, McIlroy may just edge Scottie for his putting this season on the PGA Tour, ranking 10th for strokes gained on the greens, but Scheffler’s scrambling has been superb. He is third so far this year for saving par from difficult spots around the course and that will no doubt fill him with confidence if he finds himself in a spot of bother in the pine straw.

It’s hard to call between the two. On form it’s McIlroy. But as we’ve seen before, when Scheffler is firing on all cylnders, he is almost unbeatable.

Min Woo Lee

Former PGA Championship winner Jason Day believes Lee ‘has the world at his feet right now’ and that couldn’t be more true.

Day believes his compatriot can even kick on to becoming the world No 1.  

Lee is on fire this season, with the affable and humble Australian coming into this week off the back of a huge win at last week’s Texas Children’s Houston Open – his first-ever PGA Tour victory.

The bookies have him at slightly longer odds than the likes of Tommy Fleetwood, Shane Lowry and Xander Schauffele, who are all top picks for the week. But that means he could be a great value outsider.

The thing many golf fans and coaches like about Lee is his excellent putting ability. Currently ranked as the PGA Tour’s fifth-best putter this season, that confidence with the flat stick on Augusta’s winding greens will no doubt be beneficial to the 26-year-old.

Keegan Bradley

The US Ryder Cup Captain has a huge headache this year as he plots out how to win back the biannual trophy from Team Europe in New York.

The 2011 PGA Championship winner has been outstanding on the tour this season despite not having won a tournament.

Bradley has a difficult decision to make in picking the team who will travel to Bethpage this year for the Ryder Cup. But what is proving to be an even tougher conundrum is whether he wants to include himself as a playing captain for the event. 

Putting it simply, he has been playing far too well to not consider himself as someone who could play in New York. A win at the Masters this week could go a long way in deciding that for him. 

His form even shone through during yesterday’s Par Three Tournament, where Bradly struck a beautiful hole-in-one on the 144-yard sixth hole.

Though not counting as a PGA Tour event, it was also his third ace this season, and considering how dialled his approach game is, the American is in with a huge shout of making a play to top the leaderboard this weekend.

‘You get that buzz, even starting on a Monday,’ Bradley said on his hole-in-one.

‘It’s such an amazing week. I’m trying to soak it all in. Super excited to get it all started tomorrow morning. Yeah, it’s the best.’

And while he is bounding in confidence, it’s hard not to look past Bradley as at least a top-ten finisher.

Collin Morikawa

Xander Schauffele used to hold the unwanted title of being ‘golf’s nearly man’.

But perhaps just for the start of the 2025 season, that name could go to Collin Morikawa.

The American has been playing out of his skin so far on the PGA Tour but has agonisingly just missed out on clinching a title with two runner-up finishes at The Sentry and at the Arnold Palmer Invitational.

He is certainly knocking on the door this year and realistically it’s only a matter of time before he cracks the code to winning what will be his seventh PGA Tour title.

And that could well come this weekend. Morikawa finished T3 at the 2024 Masters and knows how to play around this course.

‘I’ve learned how to prep a little bit better kind of coming into this week knowing what you really need to be hitting well,’ he said while giving his verdict on how to play Augusta National.

‘You need to hit your irons really, really well. You need to have control of your irons.’

That is, interestingly, something Morikawa does perhaps better than many other players on the PGA Tour. His work with his wedges, from less than 150 yards out of the green, is phenomenal.

Even in difficult weather conditions, as he showed in the swirling winds of Whistling Straits during the 2021 Ryder Cup, he can be clinical with his mid-irons and short irons.

It’ll be windy this week at Augusta and many players will struggle to control the ball in the air, but Morikawa, who is the top-ranked player on the PGA Tour so far this season for approach play, should be confident he can handle that comfortably.

Bryson DeChambeau 

The mad scientist is back at The Masters once again. And he looks primed to tear his way around Augusta.

The LIV Golf star has raised eyebrows this week after he spent the best part of Tuesday on the range – perhaps expected from a man who loves hitting big bombs down the fairway and tinkering with his clubs.

It’s interesting to note that DeChambeau hit over 300 balls on the range on Tuesday. Some may have raised eyebrows at the move, with questions arising over whether he’s working on something too late in the day. 

But actually, he’s just been tinkering with his driver head. 

‘Man, it’s just trying to get that dialed-in head, that perfect head. Been working a lot on some equipment stuff, and super close. Super close with some of the driver stuff we’ve been working on,’ he said. 

‘But for my speeds, it’s just so tedious, and they have to be so precisely measured and defined. It’s tough; the manufacturing process is not easy. It’s one of those where for speeds of my caliber, it has to be super precise. 

‘So I’m testing different heads to see how it reacts, how I feel, how it feels in my hands. I’m swinging it really good right now, so I’m just trying to get the most precise thing in my hand for this week.;

Some of his bigger strikes were carrying over 320 yards, while his ball speeds were pushing 190mph.

He is a hugely entertaining and unique personality that lives and breathes the sport and is a player you should keep an eye out this week both because of his brilliant skills with his clubs but also because we never know what’s going to happen next with Bryson. 

Last year on his way to finishing T6, he tore a sign out of the ground at Augusta so he could get a better look angle in on the green. He also dazzled fans by chipping in on the 18th hole during his final round.

He’s even been wowing fans in the run up to The Masters, notably tearing a 650 yard par five at Trump Doral into pieces with just two strokes. 

Right now he is golf’s great entertainer. Combining all the science, incredible golfing skills and his affable personality, he is certainly another player to watch this season.