The Masters 2014 Tournament from Augusta National hits the PGA tour schedule on Thursday for the first major of the year and while Tiger Woods will be out of it, there will be stars in Phil Mickelson, Rory McIlroy and defending champion Adam Scott and things begin early for the first round and it has 97 players in the field this year at the golf club and coverage will be from ESPN for the first two days.
The Masters starts up on Thursday without Tiger Woods and he will be missing from the event after having back surgery and this comes as he was having a horrible start to the year and now he will have time to recover, but that means missing the Masters and that is something that was very upsetting to Tiger. Woods is coming into the year with 14 majors and now for the first time he will miss playing at Augusta and while legend Jack Nicklaus thinks that he can surpass the record of 18, missing out this year will make it harder and it will be even more difficult if Woods misses another major later this season.
Woods had back surgery earlier this month after dealing with injuries that have been bothering him all season and now he will be looking to recover if he can before the British Open. Last year Woods was looking good at Augusta, but then of course his ball hit a flag and went into the water and that led to someone calling in about his drop shot and later he was penalized and on and on the idiotic controversy went and that kept him out of the top of the leaderboard and now he will be out of the tournament all together.
Woods did not have a good start to the year and he was rusty all season and that led to his injury and this came after he reclaimed his number one ranking last season after winning five times on tour and three of those wins came ahead of the Masters at Augusta. Woods says that some of his favorite memories are at the course and that he did not want to miss it, but getting surgery left him with no choice and now many wonder when he will win that next major after taking the 2008 US Open as his last one. McIlroy and Woods have had their tough moments at the Masters, including when he was leading into the final day and fell apart and when Woods last season hit the flag on 15 and started the whole mess that led to his penalty.
Mickelson said to reporters ahead of the tournament that not having Woods there would one a strange feeling and that he was missed from the group of players. Woods and Mickelson have had some great battles and now Woods will try to recover in time for the rest of the majors this season after missing out for the only time in his two decades.
