Scheffler's surge, LIV Golf's encore and more Masters storylines - ESPN

The 88th playing of the Masters arrives at a precarious moment in golf: Its defending champion has since departed for the Saudi-backed LIV Golf League, its greatest winner not named Jack Nicklaus has played only five full rounds of golf this year, and the sport's overall ecosystem remains fractured and its future uncertain.

Yet once the first tee shot is hit Thursday, all eyes will be on the best players in the world navigating the sport's most historic venue over 72 holes.

From the favorites to the newcomers to the way the course is playing, here are six storylines to watch at Augusta.

A year ago, any doubt about LIV Golf League players being able to compete in the major championships after playing 54-hole tournaments with loud music probably was put to rest. Phil Mickelson and Brooks Koepka tied for second at the 2023 Masters, then Koepka won his fifth major at the PGA Championship at Oak Hill Country Club in Rochester, New York.

Defending Masters champion Jon Rahm, who jumped to the LIV Golf League in December, is one of 13 LIV Golf players in the field.

Read more: Jon Rahm wants LIV-PGA Tour unity, but 'it's not up to me'

LIV Golf captain Sergio Garcia, the 2017 Masters champion, insists everyone is getting along fine.

«I mean, you guys love these things,» Garcia said. «You keep building up these things, and there's nothing. There's nothing. You guys love to kind of dig and just kind of try to make it sound like we get in the locker room and we're fighting each other and stuff like that. It's not like that. At the end of the day, it's golf. We're all trying to play the best way we can, and that's it.»

Only one first-timer has slipped on a green jacket at Augusta National Golf Club since 1935: Fuzzy Zoeller in 1979.