Real Winners and Losers from The Masters 2024

The 2024 Masters was dominantly won by the world number one, Scottie Scheffler, who won his second major and second green jacket. We take a look at the true winners and losers from the first major of the year.

2024 Masters: The Winners

Ludvig Aberg

Ludvig has been a constant source of excitement since he broke onto the scene last year. He impressed as an amateur and then quickly won on both tours within months of turning professional, including a Ryder Cup win with Team Europe.

Rookies at the Masters rarely have such an impressive resume when teeing it up at their first-ever major. Ludvig did not disappoint and was the last man standing who could try to challenge Scheffler’s routine dominance.

Ludvig has come from absolutely nowhere and has already lodged a second place finish at Augusta National which many seasoned pros do not do in a whole career (see Ian Poulter, Luke Donald, and Colin Montgomerie).

Ludvig has demonstrated time and time again that he is the real deal and intends to immediately compete at the biggest events in the world. Eyes will be all on him at the PGA Championship next month.

Max Homa

Max has been open about his struggles at the majors and has been the first to admit that his performance in the big events needs to improve.

Max had played in 17 majors with his only two top 10s being a T13 at the PGA Championship in 2022, and a 10th at The Open in 2023. Outside of those finishes he had missed 9 cuts and his best finish was 40th. Something needed to change.

This past weekend Max turned a corner and finally found himself in contention on the back 9 on a Sunday like he desired. Max attributed his newfound form at Augusta to being in the fairways rather than the pine straw. 

A T3 finish is Max’s best career finish in a major. It's a great start to the major season for Max.

Tommy Fleetwood

Tommy is a hard player to place. In many ways, this past weekend demonstrates another opportunity lost for Fleetwood.

Another way to look at this is to recognize it’s his best finish at a major since The Open in 2019 at Royal Portrush.

Another victory for Tommy is the way he handled Sunday. Tommy had two top 10s at majors last year which really felt like lost opportunities as he faded away on Sunday.

Over the weekend, Fleetwood battled on Sunday and shot -3 to move in the right direction. We often see Tommy’s putter let him down at the majors on a Sunday, but this closing performance gives him great experience for when he’s next in that pressure scenario at a major on a Sunday.

He also did all of it with a local on the bag as his usual caddie was at home recovering.

2024 Masters: The Losers

Matt Fitzpatrick

Fitzpatrick won the 2022 US Open and the RBC Heritage last year. Having a major win to his name now adds a layer of expectation which may be hard to constantly sustain.

Fitzpatrick was a popular pick ahead of this year’s Masters due to having one of the best putting stats within 10 feet (7th on tour for 2024), which is key at Augusta National.

Fitzpatrick made a strong start on Thursday and was -4 after 13 holes which placed him well up the leaderboard and excited many fans of the Englishman.

Sadly, he struggled to maintain the strong start and faded away as the weekend went on, ultimately finishing T22.

Wyndham Clark

Like Ludvig, Clark is an unusual Masters rookie in that he has already established himself on the PGA Tour. Wyndham had already played 8 majors, but not the Masters.

Clark was very highly rated coming into the first major of the year having already won at Pebble Beach this season and coming in with strong form after a T2 finish at the Players Championship.

Wyndham was also keen to shake off any lingering doubts about his major performance. Despite having an unexpected win in the trophy cabinet, his other major finishes included 5 missed cuts, a T33, T75, and T76.

The form didn’t hold and Wyndham shot 73-78 to miss the cut by some margin which now means he’s missed the cut in 66% of the majors he’s competed in.

Danny Willett

The 2016 Masters Champion started the week by turning back time and posting an extremely competitive score of 68 to the surprise of many.

From fifth place on Thursday night, Willett shot 75-76-78 to finish at +9 for the weekend and ended up 11th from last.

All eyes now turn to the PGA Championship at Valhalla in May 2024.