World's best prepare for Masters after golf course damaged by 2024 hurricane

Golf's first major championship is less than two weeks away, and the best are already honing their skills to make a run at the Masters Green Jacket

The top two players in the world, Scotty Sheffler and Rory McElroy, are playing in Houston this week

And depending on how they finish, they could switch places in the world rankings before heading to Augusta National for the Masters

Right now, Sheffler is number one, but his season got off to a slow start due to a hand injury suffered while cooking on Christmas Day

His game does seem to be rounding into form, but he doesn't have a win in five starts this year

Wednesday, he talked about his state of mind and how he's approaching the next 10 days

In the back of your mind at all times, the majors are always kind of there. The biggest tournaments for us are the majors and the players

And, you know, I think those when you're practicing and playing at home, those are always the courses that kind of pop up into your head

And so when you're here with the Masters only being two weeks away, I think it's very easy for us to look ahead towards the Masters

But I'm trying to do my best to focus on this week. But like you said, playing on a similar type of grass in the fairways and hitting some similar shots

Like this is a big golf course. You got to hit some big T balls. And it definitely is good preparation for the tournament

Rory took it a step further. Coming off a win at the players last week, his second of the season, he took a detour to Augusta before heading to Houston

The famed course suffered heavy damage from Hurricane Helene in September of 2024

Hundreds of trees went down, power lines were knocked over, and nearby homes were destroyed

There aren many pictures of the private course itself but Wednesday McElroy spoke to the Golf Channel about what he saw during his practice round and his motivation for visiting Augusta early It always good to just re yourself with the place

It looks a little bit different in some areas just because they lost a lot of trees during the storm and in the fall of last year

There's four new greens, one, eight, 15 and 16 are new greens

So just sort of a couple of little subtle changes there. but more so just like, you know, getting your game plan

I think it's nice to go up early just so that when you're there the week of the tournament

you're not under pressure to feel like you have to play 18 holes one day or, you know, you're just not as rushed

In the aftermath of the storm, Fred Ridley, the chairman of Augusta National

was quoted as saying the course suffered a lot of damage. But in January, he gave an encouraging update to reporters during a tournament in Argentina

As far as the impact, the long-term impact, we have not. quite as many trees as we did a year ago. As far as the golf course goes, it's in spectacular

condition. The tournament begins April 10th. Golfers in the field at Augusta typically take the

week before the tournament off to prepare. That is the case with the 2024 Masters champion

Sheffler and the four-time major winner McElroy, no matter how they finished in Houston

And speaking of this week's tournament with two rounds in the books at the Texas Children's Houston

open, Schaeffler is the leader at 11 under after shooting a 62 on Friday. McElroy has significant

ground to make up in the final two rounds. For Straight Arrow News, I'm Chris Francis