How do players qualify for the Masters Tournament? How many golfers make the cut?

Everybody remembers when Scottie Scheffler raised his hands and celebrated his first win at the Augusta last year. It was another moment of a renowned golfer making his mark on Augusta National and its history. Scheffler will resume endeavoring to defend his first major, and an incredible field of golf players will line up against him at the 2023 Masters.

The list of competitors will include 18 players from PGA’s rivaling golf organization, LIV Golf, and a particular golfer named Woods.

Played each year at Augusta National Golf Club in Augusta, Ga., and exclusively the only one of the four men’s major championships played every year on the same course.

Legendary players Bobby Jones and Alister MacKenzie designed the Augusta National course, with a par set at 72, which lengthened considerably to 7,545 yards in recent years. It has a second-nine yardage of 3,780.

Qualifying for the tournament

This year’s event will gather around 89 of the World’s best golfers competing, and what is interesting is that there are no qualifying tournaments for the Masters and no alternate places in the lot. Players get into the Masters by invitation only if they fulfill one of the many criteria set by the Masters’ organization committee.

Some invitations are indefinite and are based on the golfer’s lifetime achievement, like the Masters Tournament champion. In contrast, others are time-limited (up to five years), like the U.S. Open, The Open, and the PGA champions. There are also invitations reserved for the current Continental and Olympic Games champions, and finally, invitations given to players with the highest ranking on the previous year’s Majors, the Official World Golf Ranking (in the prior calendar year and during the week before the current Masters), the season-ending Tour Championship participants and individual winners of PGA Tour events.

The cut

To be able to make the cut after 36 holes, players must be in the top 50 places, counting ties. Previously, those within ten strokes of the lead also made the cut, but that rule was changed for the 2020 Masters. The organizers explained that this was a way how to tighten things up and have a more predictable field size for the weekend, given the current circumstances.

Augusta National’s determination to do away with the 10-cut rule was in line with the other three men’s major championships in determining their cuts. The low 60 players and ties play all four rounds at the U.S. Open. At the Open Championship and the PGA Championship, it’s the low 70 and ties.