The 2025 Masters is still scheduled for the second week of April, despite significant damage to the course from Hurricane Helene that has been confirmed by the club.
Augusta National Golf Club chairman Fred Ridley, speaking in Japan ahead of the Asia-Pacific Amateur Championship that teed off Thursday, said the course was affected just as much as the rest of the local community, which was in the direct path of the storm after it made landfall a week ago.
More than 1.2 million households still had no power Wednesday in the Carolinas and Georgia, and the hurricane has killed at least 166 people, according to the Associated Press. Augusta National and the Masters announced a joint $5 million donation to local relief efforts in partnership with the Community Foundation for the Central Savannah River Area.
“There was a lot of damage and we have a lot of people working hard to get us back up and running,” Ridley said. The course typically reopens for members each October after the summer break. “If it’s humanly possible, we will be back in business sooner rather than later,” he added.
The first men’s golf major of 2025 is expected to go on as planned. “I’m confident that the Masters will be held, [and] it will be held on the dates that it’s scheduled to be held,” Ridley said.
The Masters, PGA Tour, and LIV Update
Ridley also addressed the ongoing divide in men’s professional golf, with many top players still split between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf, even as negotiations with the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia continue.
The Masters will remain open to inviting golfers outside of its normal standards, with LIV events still not awarding world rankings points. “We are going to look to find ways to get some of these players in that might not otherwise be qualified,” Ridley said.
Not long after Ridley spoke, players and leaders from the PGA Tour, LIV, and the PIF began congregating at one of the world’s other iconic golf courses—the Old Course in St Andrews—in what could be a boost to slow-moving talks between the parties.
The Alfred Dunhill Links Championship, a pro-am on the DP World Tour, has 14 LIV players—including Jon Rahm and Brooks Koepka—in addition to Rory McIlroy and other PGA Tour faithful.
But perhaps even more important are the amateurs (who play with a pro) in the field. Headlining that slate are PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan and PIF governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan, who are paired together in the same group—Monahan with the PGA Tour’s Billy Horschel and Al-Rumayyan with LIV’s Dean Burmester.
