The New Rites of Spring
Justin Rose grabbed
the No. 1 World
Golf Ranking early in
2019, and has high
hopes for Augusta.
MULTI-TIME CHAMPS
IN THE FIELD, RANKED
BY 2019 CHANCES
1 Woods (4 wins)—He can still
mash it with the best hitters on
Tour. Is the short game in order?
2 Bubba Watson (2)—Watson has
been boom or bust at Augusta.
But his booms are very, very good.
3
4
5
Phil Mickelson (3)—Lefty turns 49
in June. Jack Nicklaus was the old-
est Masters champ at age 46. Does
Phil have one more run in him?
Bernhard Langer (2)—The PGA
Tour Champions wizard keeps
himself in tremendous shape and
was a weekend contender here as
recently as 2016.
Jose Maria Olazabal (2)—The
52-year-old Spaniard hasn’t
finished better than T34 here since
2006 when he tied for third, which
coincidentally, was his last top-10
finish in a major. The longest of
longshots.
“It starts by just driving up Magnolia Lane and feeling
good and having good energy and feels about the place, that
sort of love affair started my very first Masters in 2003. So
I had positive experiences here, so it’s become
a happy hunting ground.”
Bernhard Langer
won the Masters in
1985 and 1993.
24
sounds familiar to Virginia competi-
tors, it should. O’Connell was part of the
Carolinas Captain’s Putter roster that
defeated the Virginias at Kinloch Golf
Club in 2016.
O’Connell is a reinstated amateur who
was set to give professional golf a second
try—until winning the U.S. Mid-Am, a
victory that earned him spots in both the
2019 Masters and U.S. Open, so long as he
retained his amateur status.
“My dad is a huge golfer,” O’Con-
nell said after his Mid-Amateur vic-
tory. “He introduced me to the game.
I think he and I went to Augusta for
V I R G I N I A G O L F E R | M A R C H / A P R I L 2 0 1 9
the first time in ’98, if I’m not mistak-
en, is the year Mark O’Meara won. He
was one of my favorite golfers ever.
I was a huge Tiger fan and at the time I
knew Mark and Tiger were pretty close.
“I’ll never forget. When you walk down
on property there and hole No. 1 is there
and the scoreboard, and we kind of made
our way down to 10 and Tiger and Mark
were the first guys we saw. So that was
kind of my first memory of Augusta.
“It was so cool, a couple of my idols out
there on a golf course that you just kind
of dream about playing.”
It’s a dream no more.
vsga.org
(ROSE)
–Justin Rose