Photos and video courtesy of Augusta National Golf Club/The Masters
THE FLATS – Georgia Tech’s Hiroshi Tai is the first Singaporean golfer to compete in the Masters and the first golfer ever to receive an invitation to the tournament for winning the NCAA Championship. The junior Yellow Jacket also is the fifth amateur from the Institute to compete, and fourth in the last six years. Following are more news articles, videos and social media posts to give our fans a peek into his week at Augusta National Golf Club.
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SECOND-ROUND 77 PUTS TAI BELOW THE CUT LINE AT THE MASTERS
After leading the group of five amateurs in the Masters with a 73 in the opening round, Tai was unable to convert any of his birdie opportunities Friday, making par at three of the four par-5s, and carding a double-bogey at No. 15 when he landed his approach on the front of the green, and the ball backed up into the pond.
Two of his bogeys came following errant tee shots, one at the par-3 4th where he went long and left, and again at the par-4 7th, when he hit his ball right among the pine trees and patrons. His bogey at the par-4 11th came after hitting the green in two, but the Yellow Jacket junior hit his birdie putt well past the hole and was unable to make the putt coming back.
Tai got an excellent start at earning the Silver Cup as low amateur, carding the best opening round of the five amateurs in the field. But he missed the cut and did not join former Yellow Jackets Matt Kuchar (1998) and Andy Ogletree (2020) in winning the cup. That honor went to Justin Hastings of the Cayman Islands, who also missed the cut but completed 36 holes at 4-over-par.
Statistically, Tai was better tee-to-green Friday than Thursday, hitting 11 of 14 fairways and 14 of 18 greens, but averaged 1.94 putts per hole compared to 1.72 in the opening round.
The top 50 golfers, plus ties, make the cut for the final two rounds.
"It means a lot. Obviously we've had, I think, four guys play this, including myself, in the last six years. We've had a lot of amateurs play in this event, and it's really cool to be one of those guys, and obviously Bobby Jones is a cofounder here, so it means a lot to us, and it's something we always look forward to."
A SHOUT OUT TO HIROSHI’S COACH AT TECH
From the Thursday entry in his daily blog, Ken Sugiura of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution shared a touching outtake from an interview with Tech coach Bruce Heppler about Tai…
“Hopefully you read my column about Georgia Tech’s Hiroshi Tai, who is playing in his first Masters after earning an automatic invitation by winning the NCAA individual championship last year.
I ended up collecting more quotes and notes in my reporting than I needed, but I wanted to share something from Tech coach Bruce Heppler that I thought was worth sharing.
If you don’t know, Heppler is quite arguably the best coach in any sport in school history. Obviously, the two at the top of the debate are football legends John Heisman and Bobby Dodd. But in Heppler’s first 29 years at Tech, the Yellow Jackets have won 14 ACC titles, gone to the NCAA Championship finals 21 times and finished as runner-up four times and in the top eight 13 times. If Tech could just knock down the door and win the national title, I don’t think there’d be any debate.
Beyond that, every senior has graduated on his watch, and many have gone on to play professionally. Tai is the fifth Tech player to earn a Masters invite as an amateur (following Matt Kuchar in 1998, Andy Ogletree in 2020, Tyler Strafaci in 2021 and Christo Lamprecht in 2024).
Beyond that, through covering Tech for 12 years, I’ve always found him generous with his time, honest, insightful, humble and funny. (We have a lot in common.) (ha ha)
Anyway, my point:”
Hiroshi Tai's interview following round 2 at the 2025 Masters
TAI ON SOCIAL MEDIA
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