Shane Lowry will play alongside Rory McIlroy's US Open conqueror Bryson DeChambeau in the first two rounds of the Masters.
McIlroy tees off his latest Augusta bid at 6:12pm on Thursday in the company of Ryder Cup team-mate Ludvig Aberg and US star Akshay Bhatia. Lowry starts in the next group out alongside two previous Masters winners in LIV star DeChambeau and Hideki Matsuyama.
So the two Irish contenders in the field will be out late and will have a fair idea what's facing them in terms of conditions and scoring. No Irishman has ever won the Masters but, with McIlroy second in the world rankings and with two PGA Tour wins this season, and Lowry up to a career-high 12th in the world, could this be the year?
"We went through a really nice period there from 2007 through 2014," reflected McIlroy. "Obviously we had Pádraig (Harrington) winning the Opens and the PGA, you had GMac (Graeme McDowell) winning at US Open at Pebble, Clarkey (Darren Clarke) at St Georges, I went on my run and Shane won at Portrush in '19.
"We've had success in pretty recent memory, so if you're saying one major might be worth a little more than other majors, I don't know, but it'd be a pretty big deal, just like all the rest of them were."
For his part, Lowry has declared that an Irishman donning the green jacket on Sunday would be one of the biggest sports stories ever in this country. “It would be huge," said the Clara man. "I think it would be one of the biggest things that has ever happened in sport in our country.
“I think obviously if it's not me I hope it's him. We're both in good form, we've both prepared very well. I know that, and we both will give it our best and that's all we can do.
“Obviously there's a lot of pressure on him but I think he's at a stage now where he's certainly able to handle it. He's won everything there is to win in golf. I wouldn't be surprised if he was to give it a run this week. I think there's a couple of players that if you finish ahead of them this week you'll have a chance - and he's one of them.”
Selected first round tee times (Irish time)
*denotes amateur
3:15pm – Scottie Scheffler (US), Justin Thomas (US), *Jose Luis Ballester (Spain)
3:26pm – Jordan Spieth (US), Tom Kim (Korea), Tyrrell Hatton (England)
5:11pm – Dustin Johnson (US), Nick Taylor (Canada), *Justin Hastings (Cayman Islands)
5:33pm – Patrick Cantlay (US), Rasmus Hojgaard (Denmark), Matt Fitzpatrick (England)
5:50pm – Brooks Koepka (US), Russell Henley (US), Sungjae Im (Korea)
6:01pm – Adam Scott (Aus), Xander Schauffele (US), Viktor Hovland (Norway)
6:12pm – Rory McIlroy (Northern Ireland), Ludvig Aberg (Sweden), Akshay Bhatia (US)
6:23pm – Hideki Matsuyama (Japan), Bryson DeChambeau (US), Shane Lowry (Ireland)
6:34pm – Jon Rahm (Spain), Wyndham Clark (US), Tommy Fleetwood (England)
6:45pm – Sahith Theegala (US), Sepp Straka (Austria), Sam Burns (US)
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