Masters 2026: With Augusta National playing 'pretty easy,' here's hoping the green jackets go for carnage on Sunday

There were plenty of red numbers on the leaderboard Saturday at the Masters. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)

(ASSOCIATED PRESS)

AUGUSTA, Ga. — When the week began with a forecast for the driest Masters in 15 years, the green jackets who run this place had a once-in-a-generation opportunity.

They could have turned the Masters into the Carnage.

Instead, an amped up Buick Open broke out.

“The course is gettable,” Russell Henley said after shooting a 66.

“The greens are still very, very friendly,” said 2013 champion Adam Scott. “I don't think it's the scariest I've ever seen it here.”

So here’s a plea to the Masters pooh-bahs, a request to those whose jobs is to keep the spirit of Bobby Jones and Alister MacKenzie alive on this one-of-a-kind plot of land. With 11 players within five shots of the lead (held by Cam Young and Rory McIlroy) heading into Sunday’s final round, it’s time to be mean. Go full nasty. Make it as fast and difficult as you can. After Saturday’s birdie-fest that helped a dozen players get back in the tournament, let Augusta National have her revenge.

“It really depends on what they decide to do with the greens,” Scottie Scheffler said after his round, a 7-under 65 that got him back in contention. “If they want to see some lower scores, they can make them softer if they want.”

Or …

“They can just go full Bay Hill and just let them die,” Scheffler suggested, referring to the March tournament in Florida where the greens were dry, fast and impossible to hold. “It's Augusta. They'll figure it out after that.”

Since you’d probably have a better chance of becoming an Augusta National member than getting any of the club’s decision-makers to explain why they do what they do, here’s a theory:

After the late wave on Thursday afternoon, when players were struggling to make birdies, those in charge of course setup got spooked. They saw the forecast was only going to get hotter and drier and wanted to make sure the greens didn’t get so baked out that under-par scores were going to be nearly impossible.

As player after player has said this week, this is Augusta National. They have the means and the expertise to do whatever they want with this course. If it rains, they can speed it up. If it’s dry, they can slow it down. The only explanation for a Saturday with 19 players carding rounds of sub-70 is that they wanted more favorable scoring conditions.

They certainly got it.

“Pretty easy,” Max Homa said when asked how the course was playing after his 71. “There's random greens that are really firm. (No.) 17 is significantly firmer than any other green. (No.) 18 is starting to get baked out too. The front nine is pretty — I mean, very gettable. I didn't feel like it was too fast, too firm. The back you just have certain holes play tricky, but I think it's very gettable.”

While Augusta National makes changes to the course nearly every year, many of which are intended to compensate for how much longer pros are hitting the ball now than 10, 20 and 30 years ago, it is to the club’s great credit that they never trick up this course to try and protect par.

If 20-under is the winning score, so be it. If conditions make things so tough that 5-under gets a green jacket, that’s fine too. The course is one of the great theaters in sports, and either way it delivers.

But on Friday, player after player came off the course saying that the greens were not as fast as they expected after things were trending toward the spicy side on Thursday. Knowing how hot and dry it would be this weekend, you have to wonder why Augusta National didn’t lean into that and turn the course into the most beastly version of itself.

Were they worried about McIlroy, who began the third round with a six-shot lead, turning Sunday into a snoozer if nobody could make birdies? Do they just fundamentally believe that the magic of Augusta is the possibility of good scores moving people into contention?

All we know is that they could have produced a combination of green speeds and pin placements to make this place an insanely hard test of golf, and they didn’t.

At the end of the day, maybe the green jackets get the last laugh. If this were a U.S. Open where someone with a six-shot lead could win by keeping it neutral for 36 holes, it wouldn’t be particularly compelling to watch.

Instead, because McIlroy was way off his best on Saturday, we could get a Sunday setup where it seems like anything can happen. It should be ridiculously compelling.

But we almost never get to see this course at full fang. Augusta National has the capability and the cooperation from Mother Nature to present that side of itself to the world.

It would be a shame if the club doesn’t take that opportunity.