Masters officially underway
The 90th Masters moved from preview into live action Thursday, and the week kicked off with Jack Nicklaus hitting the ceremonial opening tee shot to start Round 1 — a moment that signals the tournament is now live and must‑watch for leaderboard movement. The field and early groups, including names like Rory McIlroy and Bryson DeChambeau, are already being tracked in live updates and leaderboards by outlets running real‑time coverage. If you want one feed for continuous play‑by‑play and group tracking, USAToday and The Athletic are running live Round‑1 packages today. ( )
The Masters stopped being a week of predictions at 7:25 a.m. Eastern on Thursday, April 9, when Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player, and Tom Watson hit the ceremonial opening shots at Augusta National and turned the 90th edition into live competition. The first competitive group followed at 7:50 a.m. Eastern. (cbssports.com, sportingnews.com) That opening ritual is not filler before the golf starts. Augusta uses honorary starters as the tournament’s starter pistol, and this year’s three men brought 11 Masters wins into that one moment. (usatoday.com, nationaltoday.com) The field is 91 players, which makes the Masters feel less like a crowded weekly tour stop and more like an invitational with almost no hiding places. At Augusta, one bad nine holes can bury a favorite because there are fewer players ahead of you to absorb the damage. (cbssports.com, sportsbrackets.net) Rory McIlroy arrived as the defending champion after winning the 2025 Masters in a playoff, so Thursday was his first opening round at Augusta wearing the target instead of chasing it. Bryson DeChambeau was also in the early wave that live trackers were following shot by shot. (nytimes.com, sportingnews.com) The afternoon half of the draw carried its own weight. Golf Channel’s listed feature groups included Jon Rahm with Chris Gotterup and Ludvig Åberg at 1:20 p.m. Eastern, Jordan Spieth with Justin Rose and Brooks Koepka at 1:32 p.m. Eastern, and Scottie Scheffler with Robert MacIntyre and Gary Woodland at 1:44 p.m. Eastern. (golfchannel.com) Early scoring started fast enough to remind everyone why Thursday matters. Golf Channel’s live blog reported Haotong Li as the first leader on the course, while CBS Sports posted Patrick Reed at 3 under through two holes after opening birdie-eagle. (golfchannel.com, cbssports.com) That is the weird power of the Masters’ first morning: a leaderboard can look upside down before lunch, and every famous name still has to walk into it later. With only four rounds and no room for a reset, Thursday is where the tournament starts deciding who is chasing and who is already in control. (golfchannel.com, espn.com) If you are following from home, the live coverage windows were split across streaming and television instead of one all-day broadcast. The Athletic listed Prime Video from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. Eastern and the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network from 3 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. Eastern for Round 1, while outlets like USA Today and The Athletic were running live blogs for constant leaderboard movement. (nytimes.com, usatoday.com) So the story on Thursday was simple but important: the ceremony ended, the 90th Masters became real, and the first names on the board were no longer guesses. From that point on, every birdie by McIlroy, DeChambeau, Rahm, Spieth, or Scheffler counted against an actual number instead of a prediction. (cbssports.com, usatoday.com)
