New generation target Masters win

Top-ranked Tiger Woods is injured and absent, reigning Masters champion Adam Scott has squandered his past two 54-hole leads and 2012 Masters winner Bubba Watson needed 22 months to win again. So it’s no wonder a rising generation of young stars, many of them seeking their first major crown, fancy their chances to challenge for a green jacket at this week’s 78th Masters tournament. Of the past 19 major champions, 15 were first-time winners, including the past three to claim green jackets -Watson, Scott and South African Charl Schwartzel, who birdied the last four holes to win in 2011. World number one Woods, a 14-time major champion chasing the career record 18 majors won by Jack Nicklaus, will miss the Masters for the first time since his 1995 debut as an amateur following surgery to repair a pinched nerve. But he can take credit for inspiring the new breed, the very people who might prevent him from ever catching Nicklaus. “We all grew up watching Tiger and you are seeing his generation play now and they are not afraid to go win tournaments,” 2011 PGA Championship winner Keegan Bradley said. More than 20 players are set to make their Masters debut this year, what could be the largest such group since the 1960s. US prodigy Jordan Spieth, PGA season money leader and treble winner Jimmy Walker and US standouts Harris English, Matt Every and Billy Horschel are in their first Masters. So are such global talents as Sweden’s Jonas Blixt, Dutchman Joost Luiten, Canada’s Graham DeLaet, Frenchman Victor Dubuisson and Zimbabwe’s Brendon de Jonge. Few courses provide a better benefit for experience over the layout than Augusta National, where rolling greens and local knowledge figure to make this year’s practice rounds a schooling session for newcomers hungry for advice on targets, and places to avoid, from Masters veterans. The only debut winner since the second Masters in 1935 was Fuzzy Zoeller in 1979, but that does not keep newcomers like Patrick Reed, a self-proclaimed world top-5 player with three PGA wins since mid-August, from thinking they might be adding to their wardrobe collection on April 13. “I don’t put it past myself,” Reed said. “I’m definitely not going to say I don’t have a chance of winning. I feel like I do, but I’m going to have to put four really good rounds together. “Whoever shows up at an event nowadays has a chance to win.”