The last player to officially debut at the Masters Tournament is Ludvig Aberg. He did so last year, when he teed off second in the penultimate group of the first round. The Swede became the 1,394th golfer to compete in the major that was created one day by two geniuses like Bobby Jones and Clifford Roberts. That’s 1,394 players in 88 editions. It’s a large club, but at its core, it’s incredibly exclusive.
Once the number of golfers who have played at least once in the Masters Tournament was established, it remained to be seen with which number the Spaniard Josele Ballester would make his debut in this edition. The first thing was to find out how many debutants there were this week. The figure is surprising. In total, there are 21. Don’t think that the planets have aligned this year for the number to be so high. The reality is that it’s a recurring occurrence. For example, last year 20 debuted, two years ago there were 16, and in 2022 there were another 20 rookies.
It seems like a very high number considering that each year there are fewer than 100 players in the field. We’re talking about a fifth being newcomers. The explanation is that a few new amateurs join each year and that in recent seasons we’ve had a good number of new winners on the PGA Tour. Moreover, although there isn’t much movement in the top 50 of the world ranking, it is worth highlighting that with the creation of LIV Golf in 2022, those top 50 positions have been renewed more than usual.
Tee times del Masters: partidazo para Ballester con Scheffler y JT
The 21 debutants this year are as follows: Ballester, Noah Kent, Justin Hastings, Evan Beck, Hiroshi Tai, Thriston Lawrence, Thomas Detry, Brian Campbell, Rafael Campos, Matt McCarty, Davis Thompson, Nico Echavarría, Maverick McNealy, Taylor Pendrith, Kevin Yu, Aaron Rai, Joe Highsmith, Davis Riley, Rasmus Hojgaard, Laurie Canter, and Max Gresyserman.
Once the complete list was obtained, it was necessary to wait for the tee times of the first round of the Masters, which were announced, as usual, at noon today, Tuesday. With the tee times in hand, we could now establish with which number the young golfer from Castellón will debut. It will be 1,404. That number is his for life. No one can take it away from him. It’s a unique and non-transferable number. Now all that’s left is for it to bring him luck. It’s 1,404 for the simple reason that we have nine debutants who will tee off before him this Thursday.
As a curiosity, the first debutant this year, number 1,395, will be Davis Riley, who will tee off first in the entire tournament at 7:40 in the morning, local time. The 1,400, a round number, has curiously fallen to Noah Kent, the player who lost in the grand final of the US Amateur against Josele Ballester. And the last of the debutants in 2025 will be Rasmus Hojgaard with the number 1,414.
We would love to be able to reveal to you, dear reader, the numbers that belong to the brothers Miguel, Antonio Garrido, Nacho, of course Seve Ballesteros, Jon Rahm, or Sergio García, to name just a few. In short, we would love to know the number of each of the Spanish golfers in Augusta, but for that, we would need access to all the tee times in Augusta’s history, information that, as far as we have reviewed, is not public. Many are found, but not all. Here goes our recommendation to Augusta National to prepare such information. Don’t you think it would be interesting to know what number Nicklaus or Tiger Woods has? The gauntlet is thrown.
What we do know is who holds the Number One. That is documented, as the first shot in the history of the Masters was taken by Ralph Stonehouse on March 22, 1934, at 9:45 in the morning, local time in Augusta. We also know Number Two. It was Jim Foulies Jr., who teed off right after Stonehouse. By the way, he was the nephew of James Foulies, winner of the second edition of the US Open in 1896. Stonehouse finished that Masters in 16th place.
From now on, if we were to imagine, who would you bet on for number 1,415? That will be a story we will tell you next year.
