2012 Masters Tournament


The 2012 Masters Tournament was the 76th Masters Tournament, held April 5–8 at Augusta National Golf Club in Augusta, Georgia. Bubba Watson won the year's first major championship on the second hole of a sudden-death playoff, defeating Louis Oosthuizen. It was his first major title and his fourth victory on the PGA Tour. Watson was the eighth consecutive first-time major champion, and the 14th winner in as many majors. He won a second Masters two years later in 2014.
Two pre-tournament favorites, Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy, both finished at 293 in a tie for 40th place. Phil Mickelson was in the final pairing and in contention during the final round, but a triple-bogey six on the fourth hole knocked him back and he finished two strokes behind, in a four-way tie for third. Bo Van Pelt posted the lowest round of the tournament with a 64 early on Sunday, which propelled him up the leaderboard 35 places to tie for 17th.
It was the first playoff in three years at the Masters; Ángel Cabrera won on the second extra hole in 2009.
WWW masters.com

Field

The Masters has the smallest field of the four major championships. Officially, the Masters remains an invitation event, but there is a set of qualifying criteria that determines who is included in the field. Each player is classified according to the first category by which he qualified, but other categories are shown in parentheses.
Golfers who qualify based solely on their performance in amateur tournaments must remain amateurs on the starting day of the tournament to be eligible to play.
Three players were appearing in their first major: Kelly Kraft, Corbin Mills and Randal Lewis. Twelve others were appearing in their first Masters: Keegan Bradley, Patrick Cantlay, Bryden Macpherson, Kevin Chappell, Robert Garrigus, Webb Simpson, Harrison Frazar, Kyle Stanley, Scott Stallings, Brendan Steele, Bae Sang-moon and Gonzalo Fernández-Castaño.
Notable absences included Mark O'Meara, Ernie Els and Retief Goosen. O'Meara had appeared in the previous 27 Masters, Els in the previous 18, and Goosen in the previous 12.
1. Past Masters Champions
2. Last five U.S. Open Champions
3. Last five British Open Champions
4. Last five PGA Champions
5. Last three winners of The Players Championship
6. Top two finishers in the 2011 U.S. Amateur
7. Winner of the 2011 Amateur Championship
8. Winner of the 2011 Asian Amateur
9. Winner of the 2011 U.S. Amateur Public Links
  • Corbin Mills
10. Winner of the 2011 U.S. Mid-Amateur
  • Randal Lewis
11. The top 16 finishers and ties in the 2011 Masters Tournament
12. Top 8 finishers and ties in the 2011 U.S. Open
13. Top 4 finishers and ties in the 2011 British Open Championship
14. Top 4 finishers and ties in the PGA Championship
15. Top 30 leaders on the 2011 PGA Tour
16. Winners of PGA Tour events that award a full-point allocation for the season-ending Tour Championship, between the 2011 Masters Tournament and the 2012 Masters Tournament
17. All players qualifying for the 2011 edition of The Tour Championship
18. Top 50 on the final 2011 Official World Golf Ranking list
19. Top 50 on the Official World Golf Ranking list on March 25, 2012
20. International invitees

Round summaries

First round

Thursday, April 5, 2012
PlacePlayerScoreTo par
1

Second round

Friday, April 6, 2012
PlacePlayerScoreTo par
T1

Third round

Saturday, April 7, 2012
PlacePlayerScoreTo par
1

Final round

''Sunday, April 8, 2012''

Summary

For the third time in seven years, the Masters concluded on Easter Sunday. The leaderboard was active, as four players held at least a share of the lead during the final round. Louis Oosthuizen charged into the lead at the second hole with an albatross two on the par-5. It was only the fourth double eagle in Masters history and the first-ever on the second hole. The final pairing faltered: 54-hole leader Peter Hanson never got it going, with three bogeys before he carded his first birdie at the 15th hole. Three holes earlier, Hanson shanked his tee shot on the par-3 12th short of the water, bogeyed, and fell from contention. On the front nine, three-time Masters champion Phil Mickelson pushed his tee shot left at the par-3 fourth and it caromed off a greenside grandstand. He made his second triple bogey of the week and came up two shots short of the playoff.
In the end, it came down to a three player race between Oosthuizen, Bubba Watson, and Matt Kuchar. Kuchar hit his approach at the 15th hole to three feet and eagled to temporarily tie Oosthuizen at −9, but followed it with a bogey at the par-3 16th hole and finished two strokes back, in the four-way tie for third. After Watson made a two at the 16th for his fourth consecutive birdie, he was tied at the top with Oosthuizen at −10. Playing together in the penultimate pairing, both parred the 17th hole and were on the green in regulation at the uphill 18th. Oosthuizen missed a birdie putt from the back shelf and Watson had for his first major, but he missed the putt on the high side. After Watson tapped in, Oosthuizen holed his four-footer to force a sudden death playoff.

Final leaderboard

PlacePlayerScoreTo parMoney
T1

Scorecard

Cumulative tournament scores, relative to par
Double Eagle/AlbatrossEagleBirdieBogeyDouble bogeyTriple bogey +

Source:

Playoff

The sudden death playoff started at the par-4 18th hole, where both players hit the fairway and green, and similar to the final round, Bubba Watson was closer to the pin than Louis Oosthuizen. Oosthuizen narrowly missed his birdie effort which gave Watson another opportunity to secure the title. Watson's putt from was low the entire way, and after both players tapped in to tie they headed to the next tee at the downhill par-4 10th hole.
Both players hit poor drives to the right, and Oosthuizen's second shot ended up short of the green. The left-handed Watson, playing from the pine straw deep in the woods, hooked his approach shot nearly 90 degrees to within of the hole. Oosthuizen chipped to the back of the green and narrowly missed his par putt to give Watson two putts to win. He lagged his first to a foot and tapped in to become the Masters champion.
PlacePlayerScoreTo parMoney
1

Scorecard

''Cumulative playoff scores, relative to par''