The 2020 virtual Masters: A dozen potential surprises
By Bill Felber
Fred Couples, 1992 (1989-1998), -0.86
Couples competed in nine Masters between 1989 and 1998, winning in 1992 and tying for second behind Mark O’Meara in 1998. Those were two of five top 10s during his peak decade.
Couples will be remembered for the quality and serendipitous nature of his 1992 performance at Augusta National. An opening 69 left him in a 12-way tie for seventh, four behind Jeff Sluman and Lanny Wadkins.
He moved up to third, just a stroke behind Craig Parry and Ian Woosnam, through two rounds, Couples still trailed Parry by a stroke when Sunday’s final round play began, and he fell three back when he bogeyed the second hole, which Parry birdied. But a birdie at No. 3, which Parry bogeyed, quickly undid the damage.
Couples knotted the tournament with a par at No. 4, then after Parry continued to falter he took the sole lead from Ray Floyd with a birdie at the ninth. Leading Floyd by three at the 12th tee, he left his tee shot on the shaved bank fronting the green, but the ball somehow failed to roll back into Rae’s Creek, coming to a stop on the steep slope. Reprieved, Couples pitched close and walked off with an unexpected par.
From that point in Couples played effortlessly, nursing an eventual two-stroke advantage over Floyd.
Virtual Masters projection: T-17.