Masters Round 1 live

The first names most fans were waiting for were not even on the course when Round 1 began. Rory McIlroy’s group was listed for 7:31 a.m. Eastern, and Scottie Scheffler’s group was pushed all the way to 1:44 p.m., which means the early leaderboard was always going to belong to other players first. (golfchannel.com) That is one of the odd little truths of Augusta National on Thursday: the board can look dramatic before the favorites have hit a shot. ESPN’s live page showed early names like Naoyuki Kataoka and José María Olazábal at 1 under while many of the biggest stars were still waiting on their tee times. (espn.com) McIlroy opened in a three-man group with Cameron Young and amateur Mason Howell. Scheffler’s opening group paired him with Robert MacIntyre and Gary Woodland, so the two most-watched players were split across morning and afternoon windows instead of stacked together. (skysports.com) That split changes how people watch the first day. Featured-group coverage starts feeling less like a bonus feed and more like the main event, because the television window does not begin until noon Eastern on ESPN while streams were already live in the morning. (golf.com) Augusta National also turns a few holes into their own show. The tournament’s separate Amen Corner stream follows holes 11, 12 and 13, and another feed isolates holes 15 and 16, which is like putting extra cameras on the sharpest turns of a race track. (golf.com) That matters because Augusta is built around momentum swings, not just steady scoring. A player can look in control through 10 holes and then lose a shot at the 12th or pick up eagle chances at the 13th and 15th, so those hole-specific feeds often catch the round’s biggest changes before the main telecast does. (skysports.com) The pre-tournament betting market explains why so much attention stays glued to Scheffler and McIlroy even when they are off-screen. PGA Tour’s odds preview had Scheffler as the shortest-priced player entering the week, and ESPN’s betting board also had him as the Masters favorite with McIlroy near the top tier behind him. (pgatour.com) (espn.com) McIlroy arrived with the extra weight of being defending champion. CBS Sports’ tournament preview identified him as the 2025 winner and framed Thursday, April 9, as the start of his title defense at Augusta National. (cbssports.com) Scheffler arrived chasing a different piece of history. CBS Sports noted he was trying to become only the fourth player to win three Masters titles in five years, which is why an afternoon tee time does not make him less central to the day’s story. (cbssports.com) So Round 1 at the Masters is really two tournaments layered on top of each other. One is the actual scorecard moving in real time, and the other is the wait for McIlroy, Scheffler and the Amen Corner stretch to start bending the leaderboard into something that looks more like Sunday’s fight. (espn.com) (golfchannel.com)