AUGUSTA: The big fish is what we all focus on and quite understandably. More so when their achievements set them aside not as mere fish, but as whales, who can swallow all opposition. The top three in this field - Scottie Scheffler, Rory McIlroy and Jon Rahm - have put so much of a distance between them and the rest that if anyone else does get that Green Jacket on Sunday at the Augusta National Golf Club, he might look a surprise winner.
Yet, there are many others who come to the Masters with a dream of their own. They include the Saudi backed LIV league's 18 players, who are said to be on the wrong side of an arbitration case with the DP World Tour, and 18 debutants, a group that includes the likes the highly popular Sahith Theegala and Tom Kim, the kid who gushed at his first meeting with Tiger Woods, but whose records as a young pro he is gunning for.
While all the top stars are here as expected, the crowd and golfing fraternity waited with bated breath for any signs from Tiger Woods. Then he turned up a Augusta to test himself out, walked a bit and hit a few shots.
Woods, a five-times winner, has often said that the Masters and the Open at St. Andrews mean the most to him apart from his own Hero World Challenge, an event he has often chosen to make many of his comebacks.
"Coming back to play last year at the Masters was a small victory by itself, but it was not a 'W' (w in), so it was different," said Woods, whose last win at the Masters came in 2019 and his last win was at Zozo Championships six months later in Japan and his last Top-5 was at his own event, the 2019 Hero World Challenge.
While Woods as always is the biggest drawcard, the field despite its size of just under 90, the smallest of all the three Majors, brings with it a lot of awe.
Last year, Theegala, an American whose parents are of Indian origin, played the Open at St. Andrews, it was a dream come true. By the end of the year he had qualified for the Tour Championships. That now gives him a start in all four Majors and he be gins that with the Masters.
While Scheffler is the defending champion, hoping to emulate Woods as only the second player to win back-to-back Masters in this century, McIlroy, now in his 15th start at the event, is looking to g o one better than his tied second last time to complete a Career Slam to go alongside his Major wins at the 2011 Open, 2012 PGA and the 2014 US Open and 2014 PGA. Rahm, who has had one of the finest streak of results over the last 12-odd months, is desperate to add the Masters to sole Major, the 2021 US Open.
