Winning the week before the Masters is a blessing and a curse.
It's a blessing in that a player wins on the PGA Tour and earns all of the goodies that come with being a PGA Tour winner: a two-year exemption, 500 FedEx Cup points and the first-place check, which was $1.76 million at this week's Valero Texas Open.
For JJ Spaun, he picks up a third PGA Tour win and his first since winning the 2025 US Open Championship. It's a great moment heading into the Masters, the first men's major of the year, at Augusta National Golf Club in Georgia.
However, the curse is history. There have only been two players in history to have won the week prior to the Masters Tournament and then gone on to win the green jacket that following Sunday.
Sandy Lyle was the first. He won the 1988 Greater Greensboro Open -- now known as the Wyndham Championship -- in a playoff over Ken Green in North Carolina. It was his second win in the event in three years and his fifth-ever PGA Tour win. One week later, Lyle captured his second major championship with a one-shot win over Mark Calcavecchia at Augusta National.
Some 18 years later, Phil Mickelson defied history again. Mickelson decided to play the week prior at the BellSouth Classic at TPC Suglarloaf in Duluth, Georgia, to employ a two-driver strategy -- one to hit a draw, the other to hit a fade -- he was considering for the Masters. It worked at TPC Sugarloaf to incredible effect. Mickelson won by 13 shots, including a winning eagle to send him to Augusta National with the momentum of a huge win and the weight of the historical record.
Mickelson won his second Masters that following Sunday, beating Tim Clark by two shots to get the green jacket from 2005 champion Tiger Woods.
Now, Spaun looks to become the third to do the unlikely.
