Fred Couples rounds the bend on the 13th hole at Augusta National as the packed crowd down the right side of the fairway standing in the pine straw roars.
“What year did he win the Masters?” a patron along the rope queries.
“I can’t remember, but I know it’s on that cup I just shipped (home),” his friend retorts.
Couples, to clarify, won his first and only Masters in 1992. Yes, that’s 30 years ago this week. And, yes, the Washington state native is in the field at Augusta for the 26th time in the last 27 years.
But unlike a handful of the other aging past champions who teed it up during Thursday’s first round, Couples, 62, might just have an outside chance to play past the second round on Friday after finishing 3-over, 75 on Day 1 of tournament play.
“I’m kind of mystified (that I can play),” Couples said on Monday after a practice round with Justin Thomas and Tiger Woods. “I hit it pretty solid, and I have not played since Thanksgiving.”
Couples, nicknamed “Boom Boom” during his prime, isn’t clobbering drives the way he was three decades ago when he won the Masters. Back problems over the years, which have limited his availability in recent months, haven’t helped the cause either.
Need a sign Couples isn’t slowing down, though? How about a 301-yard drive on the seventh hole right down the pipe. There’s also the 304-yard tee shot he hit past playing partners Garrick Higo and Guido Migliozzo — neither of whom was even alive when Couples won at Augusta — on the 10th hole.
Couples rides the ridge on the right side above the middle right hole location at the par-3 6th to nestle a dart into the postage stamp green. With a swift stroke, he drops in a right-to-left birdie putt to pull back one of the three shots he dropped his previous two.
He tips his white rope cap and blows a kiss to the patrons applaud in approval.
“I figured they were just all out there for Fred, to be honest,” Thomas quipped of their Tuesday practice round after fans lined the fairways to watch Woods in action.
To be clear, it’s going to take some work for Couples to find himself on the right side of the cut line — a feat he completed in 23 consecutive years between 1983 and 2007, tied for the most in Masters history. The cut at Augusta National has waffled between even par (2020) and 8-over (2008) since 2000. It’s been drawn at an average of plus-3.4 over the last five years.
That Couples could find himself playing into the weekend isn’t completely without precedent, but it’s certainly rare. Bernhard Langer set the Masters record for the oldest player to make the cut at 63 years old in 2020. He, too, is in the field again this week.
Jack Nicklaus, at 58 years old, finished sixth at the 1998 Masters — a tournament Couples led for the first three rounds before ceding a one-shot victory to Mark O’Meara.
Nicklaus, 82, has remained a stalwart at Augusta in his later years, serving as an honorary starter since 2010. He appeared in the annual Par 3 contest every year since its inception in 1960, until retiring from the event this year.
The Golden Bear reflected on his charge at the 1998 Masters on Thursday morning, echoing Woods’ Tuesday sermon that he felt he could still catch fire at that age — even if it was just for a few days at Augusta National.
“I always felt like I still had the attitude at 58 that I could win,” Nicklaus said. “And standing in the middle of 15 fairway (in 1998), I think that made me feel good and competitive and put a good feeling in my heart that I could still play the silly game. When you can do that, then it really becomes fun.”
Couples hasn’t made the cut at the Masters since finishing T38 in 2018. Before that? He’d landed in the top 25 in six of his previous eight appearances at Augusta National, including a sixth-place finish in 2010.
The 1992 winner is three decades removed from his lone green jacket victory. He, like Nicklaus and fellow honorary starters Tom Watson and Gary Player, is getting up there in age. But Couples isn’t shying away from competitors who are quite literally one-third his age.
He’ll likely need a better than a 75 in Friday’s round to reach that cusp. If he does, he’d be the third-oldest player ever to make the cut at the Masters behind Langer and Tommy Aaron, and just a month ahead of Player.
Perhaps Couples, like Nicklaus in 1998, still has a bit of lightning left in that slick swing of his.
Masters Friday tee times
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8 a.m. – Sandy Lyle, a-Stewart Hagestad.
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8:11 a.m. – Lucas Glover, Erik van Rooyen, Cameron Champ.
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8:22 a.m. – Bernhard Langer, Christiaan Bezuidenhout, Cameron Davis.
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8:33 a.m. – Charl Schwartzel, Robert MacIntyre, a-Laird Shepherd.
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8:44 a.m. – Gary Woodland, Justin Rose, Takumi Kanaya.
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8:55 a.m. – Lee Westwood, Russell Henley, Corey Conners.
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9:06 a.m. – Patrick Reed, Seamus Power, Lucas Herbert.
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9:17 a.m. – Bubba Watson, Tom Hoge, a-Keita Nakajima.
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9:39 a.m. – Marc Leishman, Webb Simpson, Sungjae Im.
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9:50 a.m. – Sergio Garcia, Thomas Pieters, Harold Varner III.
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10:01 a.m. – Abraham Ancer, Tyrrell Hatton, Sam Burns.
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10:12 a.m. – Dustin Johnson, Billy Horschel, Collin Morikawa.
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10:23 a.m. – Will Zalatoris, Patrick Cantlay, Jon Rahm.
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10:34 a.m. – Jordan Spieth, Viktor Hovland, Xander Schauffele.
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10:45 a.m. – Matthew Fitzpatrick, Brooks Koepka, Rory McIlroy.
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10:56 a.m. – Jose Maria Olazabal, J.J. Spaun.
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11:18 a.m. – Mike Weir, Padraig Harrington, a-Austin Greaser.
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11:29 a.m. – Larry Mize, Sepp Straka, Francesco Molinari.
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11:40 a.m. – Fred Couples, Garrick Higgo, Guido Migliozzi.
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11:51 a.m. – Vijay Singh, Ryan Palmer, K.H. Lee.
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12:02 p.m. – Min Woo Lee, Hudson Swafford, Cameron Young.
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12:13 p.m. – Stewart Cink, Brian Harman, Harry Higgs.
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12:24 p.m. – Zach Johnson, Si Woo Kim, a-Aaron Jarvis.
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12:35 p.m. – Luke List, Matthew Wolff, Mackenzie Hughes.
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12:57 p.m. – Danny Willett, Jason Kokrak, Talor Gooch.
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1:08 p.m. – Max Homa, Kevin Na, Shane Lowry.
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1:19 p.m. – Kevin Kisner, Daniel Berger, Tommy Fleetwood.
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1:30 p.m. – Bryson DeChambeau, Cameron Smith
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1:41 p.m. – Tiger Woods, Louis Oosthuizen, Joaquin Niemann.
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1:52 p.m. – Hideki Matsuyama, Justin Thomas, a-James Piot.
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2:03 p.m. – Adam Scott, Scottie Scheffler, Tony Finau.