A definitive ranking of the 25 best Masters final rounds ever
Take a glance around the Internet, and you'll find various rankings of best Masters tournaments, best Masters events, best Masters shots, etc. etc. All of them are strictly opinion-based, and while we here at Golf Digest value the noble opinion, we also say: Why resort to it when you've got the pistol of objective science in your holster, loaded with the bullets of truth?
Today, we're asking a very specific question: What are the 25 best final rounds in the history of the Masters? Note the specificity: Final rounds. Not best champions, not best shots, not best finales, although those obviously come into play. We're taking a holistic look at the entire day, and to evaluate it properly, without recourse to emotion and vibes, we've rated each one on five distinct categories:
A. History/Star Power
These are two sides of the same coin, so we're combining them—how important was this tournament in the history of the Masters—and indeed golf—and how famous/important were the players involved?
B. Back-Nine Drama
Is this an absolute seat-of-your-pants '75 duel, or a '97 runaway?
C. Memorable Shot(s)
Is there a specific shot or shots that live on in our minds?
D. 18th Hole/Playoff Factor
How was the drama at the absolute conclusion?
E. Oddities/Intangibles
Did this launch the major career of the GOAT? Did somebody collapse in a manner so painful that we still talk about it today? Did a guy blow his chance by signing an incorrect scorecard?
We've assigned a score of 0-10 (actually, 5-10, there is grade inflation here) to each, and compiled what we now present as a definitive ranking. Before we get there, though, we want you to keep a couple more things in mind:
— All five categories matter equally, which means that something like the 1997 Masters might be lower than you’d expect because it would suffer on the “drama” front.
— There is a slight bias, with 10 of these 25 coming since 2000. This is partly because we've had some wildly compelling finishes since 2000, partly because prior to the late 1960s they weren't grouping the leaders together in the final round and partly because television coverage has created indelible moments that in the past would have been ephemeral. It is not because we are prisoners of our own perspectives, unable to understand or appreciate the past. Never.
You can see the breakdown of each tournament and category here. For the entries that follow, we'll only be listing the final score. We start the countdown at 25 …
25. 1934 - Horton kicks it off
Total Score: 32.3
As you might guess, the inaugural Masters—called the Augusta National Invitational Tournament back then—primarily gets historical points. Horton Smith did hit a big putt on the 17th hole, but back then the leaders weren't necessarily teeing off last, and Smith wasn't paired with runner-up Craig Wood. But this is the OG Masters, Bobby Jones came out of retirement to ensure it would be a success and everything that followed flowed from this. That's enough to just crack the top 25.
24. 1980 - Seve's Euro Breakthrough
Total Score: 34.0
Absolute respect for Seve Ballesteros becoming the first European champion at Augusta, racking up huge points for intangibles and history. But he came in with a seven-shot lead, and although he flirted with blowing it early on the back nine, this was never a true sweat.
23. 1956 - Jack Burke Jr.'s Comeback
Total Score: 36.1
The intangibles here are through the roof, a perfect 10 out of 10: Burke came from eight shots back on a ridiculously hard day, E. Michael Johnson figured out that it was the sixth-best final round statistically by a champion ever, and that’s after he showed up late (he went to church) and had only 15 minutes to warm up. Meanwhile, the leader Venturi sorta/kinda collapsed with an 80—which sounds bad until you remember that 80 was close to average for that particular day—and there are reports that his wife was crying while she watched it on TV. Intense stuff! It also happens to be the first televised Masters. It loses a lot in lack of star power, few memorable shots and the fact that different tee times sapped the final round drama.
22. 2010 - Phil's Third Opus
Total Score: 38.5
The shot through the trees on 13 is going to live on for eternity. It's one of just five perfect 10s in that category, and it's so good that I honestly forgot he missed the four-foot eagle putt badly. From there, the drama dissipated—Lee Westwood couldn't make a move—and Phil ended up winning by three.
21. 2016 - The Spiethian Tumble
Total Score: 38.7
Here we have another perfect 10 in "Memorable Shots," and it's a pair that Spieth wishes he didn't remember—dunking it in the water, twice, on 12 and blowing what seemed like a sure thing. The beneficiary was Danny Willett (massive hit to the star power score), and the last few holes weren't very exciting, but the intangibles are high because, second to Norman's fiasco in '96, this is the most stomach-churning final round collapse in Masters history.
20. 2012 - Bubba From the Woods
Total Score: 40.1
Here we have a third straight 10/10 legendary Masters shot, and we're back on the positive side of the scales with Bubba Watson's ingenious punch-hook from the trees on No. 10 in the playoff to send Louis Oosthuizen packing. It's impossible not to get goosebumps watching that shot, no matter what you think of Bubba—and many of us have thought many things. What's more, that final round included Oosthuizen's early albatross, pumping up the intangibles score. Beyond those two moments, though, it was kind of a weird final round, with most of the drama coming late, but those two shots are plenty to boost it into the top 20.
19. 1998 - O'Meara's Near Walk-Off
Total Score: 40.8
Here's a question that's strangely hard to answer—has there ever been a walk-off birdie on the 18th hole in regulation at Augusta, by which I mean that it's the literal last shot of the tournament and gave the player a one-shot win? O'Meara came very close, with this epic tourney-winner in 1998, but Couples still had to clean up when he was done. Perhaps later on in this post, we'll come back to this question. Anyway, this was a monumental putt and an incredible 18th hole, snatching perfect 10s in both categories.
18. 1968 - DiVicenzo's Folly
Total Score: 40.9
For history and intangible, we're simply off the charts—DiVicenzo signing an incorrect scorecard deservedly owns a spot in the annals of all-time sports blunders, although as I explored in a deep-dive podcast, I don't think he should be blamed as much as his partner Tommy Aaron and, most of all, Augusta National itself. Nevertheless, his famous quote, "what a stupid I am!" lives in golf history, and watching the end of the final-round broadcast is a particularly surreal experience. Also, though nobody really cares since it was dwarfed by the magnitude of what came next, the back-and-forth action throughout the day was pretty solid.
17. 2011 - Schwartzel's Charge
Total Score: 41.0
The intangibles are strong here—this is the tournament when Rory mercilessly crushed the competition over three days, then shot an 80 in a collapse that felt like the beginning of a nasty Masters curse, until he broke it 14 years later. After he ejected on Sunday, it was a terrific back-nine duel where it looked one of the Australians, Jason Day or Adam Scott, would break their nation's Augusta 0-fer, right up until the moment when Charl Schwartzel reeled off an insane four-birdie stretch on 15 through 18 to leave them in the dust. It's arguably the greatest closing stretch in Masters history.
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16. 1996 - Norman's Collapse
Total Score: 41.4
What more can you even say about this? Like the DiVicenzo business, we have perfect 10s here for history and intangibles, and even with the Tiger and Rory wins in the last six years, it remains one of three most famous Masters of all-time. In our system, it falls because at a certain point the back nine drama seeped away, the 18th hole didn't matter except as an extension of Norman's suffering, and the only memorable shot is the one they replay where he falls backward to the ground, even though it probably wouldn’t have mattered if he made it. This is just sheer pain...so check out Jamie Kennedy and I dissecting the hell out of it in the first episode of The 50 Things That Changed Golf.
15. 1962 - Palmer over Player (and Finsterwald)
