{"id":433831,"date":"2025-03-24T08:44:12","date_gmt":"2025-03-24T12:44:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/?p=433831"},"modified":"2025-04-23T16:39:51","modified_gmt":"2025-04-23T16:39:51","slug":"fred-couples-2025-masters-tournament","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/fred-couples-2025-masters-tournament\/","title":{"rendered":"Fred Couples Considered Not Going To 2025 Masters Tournament"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Master\u2019s Tournament has a unique rule when it comes to enlistment.\u00a0 If a player has won the tournament at any point, no matter how long ago it has been, they are automatically in the competition if they wish.\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t matter if they still compete in professional leagues or not.\u00a0 If they have that win under their belt, they\u2019re in.\u00a0 Fred Couples is one such competitor and is looking to attend the Masters for the 40th time in his career.\u00a0 With 33 years passing since his original win, he started asking himself if he was even wanted there anymore.<\/span><\/p>\n

Where Is This Coming From?<\/span><\/h2>\n

The reason why this question came up is because Couples has noticed his performance waning.\u00a0 Due to this he actively started asking himself if it was time to start hanging up the old clubs.\u00a0 In previous years he easily got in the top twenty-thirty, in 2010 he finished in 6th despite being 50.\u00a0 In 2023 he became the oldest player to make the 36-hole cut at the age of 63.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t until 2024 when he started feeling himself slipping.\u00a0 He was cut with a score of +12, he was not happy with his own performance.\u00a0 He would call his performance \u201creally ugly\u201d, and has said the biggest hurdle was his chronic back pain.\u00a0 At the time he said he wanted to come back and stated \u201cI\u2019ve got to get my back fixed.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Fred Couples Going Into The 2025 Masters<\/span><\/h2>\n

Fred Couples of course wanted to come to the Masters, but he still had visions of his 2024 Master rattling around in his head.\u00a0 He was worried that the Augusta National’s Competition Committee wouldn\u2019t want him in.\u00a0 Despite his fears, he still pressed on and called the Master\u2019s chief tournament officer, Steve Ethun.\u00a0 In a phone interview with Golfweek<\/a> Fred Couples revealed the conversation he had.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI told Steve two things,\u201d Couples said. \u201cFirst, that I don\u2019t want to embarrass myself. And that I\u2019m certainly not going to embarrass Augusta National.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSteve goes, \u2018We already know that. We want you to keep playing.\u2019\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t tell you how much my blood pressure went down.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Needless to say, Couples was ecstatic about this confirmation.\u00a0 In the same interview, he revealed that he called his George Downing who was his caddie for the 2024 Masters.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

“George could hear it in my voice,\u201d Couples said. \u201cHe goes, \u2018Did you win the lottery?\u2019 I said, \u2018No, George. I get to keep playing the Masters.\u2019\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Will Couples Retire After This Year?<\/span><\/h2>\n

Fred Couples is currently the oldest victor of the 90\u2019s Masters, other golfers have stopped competing, and if his age is anything to go by, Couples would be next on that list.\u00a0 Before the Masters, he will be competing at the Hoag Classic and the Galleri Classic.\u00a0 The question of his retirement is still up in the air.\u00a0 This season has been full of rumors about players looking to retire<\/a>, caddies suddenly retiring<\/a>, or players setting a retirement date<\/a>.\u00a0 Fred Couples is just the latest in this long list.\u00a0 Practically speaking though, he is most likely to play his final tournament at some point in the near future.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Master\u2019s Tournament has a unique rule when it comes to enlistment.\u00a0 If a player has won the tournament at any point, no matter how long ago it has been, they are automatically in the competition if they wish.\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t matter if they still compete in professional leagues or not.\u00a0 If they have that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4860,"featured_media":433832,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[15,246,19],"tags":[125,311,22],"class_list":["post-433831","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-golf","category-golf-news","category-pga","tag-augusta-national-golf-club","tag-fred-couples","tag-the-masters"],"modified_by":"yobodev","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433831","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4860"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=433831"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433831\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=433831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=433831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=433831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}