Oldest Couples at the Masters: One For The Aged

Fred Couples hadn’t been playing his best golf for the last four years and he hadn’t qualified to make the cut at the Masters since 2018. But finally this Saturday, Fred was able to make it and now he can keep playing!

Fred Couples, a beloved fan favorite who is 63 years old, completed his second round of the Masters and ended with a score of 1 over par. His result was good enough to make the 3 over cut and beat Bernhard Langer’s age record in the 2020 tournament.

Fred Couples proudly said, “I accomplished what I wanted to do! Playing 36 holes for fun isn’t my goal, I’m gonna challenge myself and watch how younger guys play”.

Couples has attended 31 Masters Tournaments – a record only second to Jack Nicklaus. He held the previous world record of 23 consecutive Masters cuts until Gary Player and later Tiger Woods equaled his achievement.

Fred Couples stated, “I’m playing against myself to make the cut. I can’t compete with other players like Viktor Hovland or Jon Rahm, but I can beat my own playing standard here and that’s why I am competing.” He had dropped his score to 4 when play on Saturday was stopped.

This year, the Masters Tournament will be giving out $18 million in prizes, which is way more than its $3.2 million purse back in 1995! The top player who wins the whole event will get a whopping $3,240,000 prize money!

The prize money (or purse) for each of the four big golf tournaments differs drastically. The PGA Tour’s events have a $20 million dollar prize, while The Players Championship offers a bigger purse of $25 million dollars. The PGA Championship was previously at $15 million and the U.S. Open at $17.5 million. Lastly, the British Open had a purse of $14 million.

At the same time, golfers competing in tournaments that are sponsored by Saudi Arabia receive a prize of $20 million. 12 out of 18 players that compete on the LIV Golf circuit made it to the Masters tournament led by Brooks Koepka, who has won multiple major tournaments before and was at the top of rankings when rain and flooding caused the third round to be canceled.

Phil Mickelson, who has already won three championships, and Joaquin Niemann both scored four points under the par, placing themselves at eighth place. Patrick Reed got two points below par and Cameron Smith earned one point below for a total of five players in the top 23 positions before the game ended.

The other players named as part of this game were Dustin Johnson (the 2020 champion), Charl Schwartzel (2011 champion), Talor Gooch, Abraham Ancer, Mito Pereira, Harold Vaner III, and Thomas Pieters.

Smith said he hopes one of them will make it to the top of the leaderboard and do their best.

On Saturday, two former champions finished their final rounds in the cold rain–Sandy Lyle on the 18th hole and Larry Mize on another hole behind him. Even though they had a chance to drop out, they chose to stay and play a few more shots instead.

“Mize was really happy to have Sandy come say hi to him. He said that Sandy is a great champion, so him getting to end the day with Sandy was really awesome.”

Mize and another guy named Lyle both won a green jacket from the Masters tournament. Mize had won it a year after he chipped in for birdie to become the first person from Augusta (where the tournament is held) to win it.

On Friday night, before he had to compete in one of the last rounds left for him, how did Lyles choose to relax?

He said that he drank a lot of tequila, and then also had some whiskey tasting late at night around 1AM.