There are three players tied atop the leaderboard after two rounds of the 2024 Masters Tournament, with Scottie Scheffler, Max Homa and Bryson DeChambeau all tied at 6-under 138.
However, the final pairing on Saturday at Augusta National Golf Club, going off with the 2:45 p.m. tee time on Saturday, is Homa and DeChambeau. Scheffler is paired with Nicolai Hojgaard, and they tee off in the next-to-last group at 2:35 p.m. Eastern.
Why is Scheffler not in the final group, while Homa and DeChambeau are? That's a matter of how Augusta National Golf Club -- and practically every professional golf tournament, including those on the PGA Tour -- decides their pairings.
After the first two rounds of the Masters Tournament, pairings and tee times are made based on where players stand on the leaderboard. The players who made the cut with the worst scores -- this year, that's 6-over 150 -- start first. Then, the field tees off in reverse order of the leaderboard until the tournament leaders start their round last.
However, there are lots of players tied for the same positions on the leaderboard, and so the Masters Tournament has to decide an order by which players go out when they're tied.
When players are tied at the Masters for any position on the leaderboard, be it first place or last place, after two rounds and after three rounds, their tee times and pairings for the next round are determined by which players finish their prior round first. So, for the third round, Homa, DeChambeau and Scheffler all finished at the same score of 6-under 138. However, because Homa and DeChambeau were the first two players to finish their rounds on 6-under total in terms of the actual time on the clock, they go off in the last tee time. Since Scheffler finished at 6 under last, he goes off first.
To borrow a term from accounting, the Masters Tournament (and the PGA Tour, LPGA Tour, etc.) uses the first in, last out system. This carries on throughout the tee sheet, and that's how the pairings are decided for the third and fourth rounds at the Masters.
