For the last time this year Francesco Molinari will be able to use a particular exemption to participate in the 2023 Masters. All the Major winners of the last five years, in fact, have the automatic possibility of playing at the Augusta National.
The time frame, of course, extends to the lifetimes of the golfers concerned (whether they participate, because some have dropped out altogether or age no longer allows them to be able to compete) when it comes to the Masters itself.
Masters Augusta golf 2023, Francesco Molinari
The Turin native has been particularly up and down this year, but in this ups and downs he managed to get two results of undoubted prestige: fifth place at the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship and, above all, 14th at the Arnold Palmer Invitational, results that they brought him closer to the top 100 and above all they put him back in the role of number 1 in Italy.
The Masters, for him, is many things: in his twelfth participation, however, the one that remains most bitter to him is inevitably dated 2019, in which in the last six holes, success literally slipped from his hands to those of Tiger Woods.
Last year, by virtue of the excellent US Open 2021 finished in fourth place, there was Guido Migliozzi, who however this year started with a certain difficulty. One thing needs to be clarified: it’s not easy to enter a field like that of the Masters, which is already limited by itself and is exclusively by invitations, the latter of which are based on the world ranking at the end of March.
The fact remains, however, that through the lack of further presences from the Bel Paese, it is possible to take stock of Italian golf in 2023. And so far the premises are not spectacular: the only one who has maintained a substantial consistency of results is Edoardo Molinari, who passes the cuts more or less frequently and who is maintaining around the 260th place of the OWGR (in a sport in which, it should be remembered, such a positioning has a very different value from what exists, for example, in tennis: making a comparison here, however, is difficult and too long).
For the rest, only a rabidly good season by Lorenzo Scalise on the Challenge Tour and an Andrea Pavan who, from the minor categories, is rediscovering the confidence that has been missing since the end of the lockdown, are giving our country a few smiles.
It seems to see, in some ways, a beginning of 2022 in which many results were struggling to come, before a good continuation of the year and the sharp one from Migliozzi in France. Clearly here we often talk about levels that are far from Augusta, but the fact remains.
In these circumstances, the wish is to soon have more Italian appearances in the Majors in addition to that of Chicco: perhaps not for the PGA Championship, but for the US Open this is certainly a desirable possibility. Starting with the Vicenza area, of course, and continuing well beyond. And review, why not, figures who have had important numbers in the Majors.
