Dustin Johnson and those after his Masters crown – 5 players to watch at Augusta

Dustin Johnson will defend his title when the 85th Masters gets under way at Augusta National on Thursday.

Here, the PA news agency picks out five players to watch in the first men’s major championship of the year:

Dustin Johnson

Rory McIlroy

A recent visit to check on Tiger Woods following his car accident in February has given McIlroy renewed focus on major championships as he bids to claim his first since the 2014 US PGA. Victory in the Masters would make McIlroy only the sixth player to complete a career grand slam and he has recorded six top 10s in his last seven starts at Augusta, but recent struggles have seen Pete Cowen added to his coaching team and an admission that he is starting a “journey to try to get back to playing the game the way I know that I can”.

Bryson DeChambeau

DeChambeau dominated the build-up to November’s Masters after blasting his way to a six-shot win in the US Open two months earlier. Claiming that he viewed the course as a par 67 due to his length off the tee meant there was an element of schadenfreude to the reaction to his eventual tie for 34th, but DeChambeau has pledged to maintain his attacking approach and won the Arnold Palmer Invitational in March before finishing third in the Players Championship. A new driver with reportedly just 4.5 degrees of loft could produce more feats of prodigious hitting to dismay the traditionalists.

Jordan Spieth

Patrick Cantlay