Rookies do not win the Masters. That’s the accepted theory anyway. You have to go back to Fuzzy Zoeller in 1979 for the last man to win on his debut, but there are plenty of sages who believe it could be different this year, and Chris Gotterup could be the next. If he pulls it off then you can bet that it will end in tears.
For casual watchers, Gotterup may be an unfamiliar name, but the man from New Jersey rose to No5 in the world rankings in February. Three wins in seven months — at the Scottish Open, Sony Open and Phoenix Open — showed that his big-hitting game is allied to the requisite mental toughness. And he was 13 under par for the final three rounds at Royal Portrush last July, finishing third in only his fourth major.
He gets the New Jersey tropes thrown at him, with profiles referencing Tony Soprano and Bruce Springsteen, and he underscored the links with a tattoo of his state’s outline on his back. He is clearly different from the golfing norm and each of his wins has so far been marked by an emotional churn at the end. “You always make me cry,” he told the interviewer Amanda Balionis.
The thing is, Gotterup tells me he is not a crier. “My girlfriend said she had never seen me cry until I won,” the 26-year-old says. “I’ve never cried watching a movie. I would not classify myself as emotional. I’m even keel and flatline for the most part, but the way to describe it is you spend all day pushing your emotions away and trying not to let things get into your brain like, ‘Holy crap, I might win this,’ and then when it’s time to let it in you can’t control it. I think my brain has little flashbacks as well to the not-so-great days when you thought you couldn’t do this. It’s a feeling that’s hard to replicate.”
The lows always elevate the highs in sport. Gotterup was an amateur star at Rutgers University in New Brunswick but had hand surgery in 2020 and suffered another hand problem in 2024. His form went. A win at Myrtle Beach was followed by 15 missed cuts in 25 starts. “It took me a year after hand surgery to feel good again,” of his college days. “I went out and was shooting in the eighties. That was a tough one to overcome.
“After that it was off to the races but I struggled at the end of my rookie year too. So when I played at Pebble Beach and I was welcomed as the world No5, I was, ‘Wow, that sounds made up.’ And that’s why golf is so crazy. All you have to do is get hot for three weeks and your world can change. That’s why people chase it for as long as they do. It’s an addiction. So if I win six more times I’ll be happy to cry six more times.”
Gotterup has seen off some big names already, notably Rory McIlroy on the back nine at the Scottish Open. The partisan crowd was showing its tribal ties that day, and McIlroy tried to calm them to be fair to the American. He is grateful, but in keeping with his mental approach, makes little of it. “They obviously wanted Rory to win and I was doing everything I could to spoil that. It wasn’t outrageous or anything and there was just a little crowd control at times.”
At the Phoenix Open, he birdied five of the last six holes to make the play-off, and he is blazing an inexorable path to major contention.
Gotterup comes from a lacrosse backgroundTimes Photographer Bradley Ormesher
He stands out in other ways. He has Danish grandparents and uses the Danish spelling of his name on his Instagram page. “When we’re at my grandma’s house it’s part of our life. She’s got a very Danish accent and the food is definitely Danish. The Danes out here see the slash through my last name and say, ‘You Danish?’ It’s a cool thing and I want to find out more about Denmark.”
Another way in which he bucks convention is that he hails from a lacrosse background which has led to him debating the relative violence of lacrosse and shinty with Bob MacIntyre. “If one’s in a war, we’re all in a war,” was how MacIntyre once explained his love of Highlands stick and ball.
Gotterup’s Masters invitation — he decided against watching the tournament last year as he only wanted to take it in as a player
“I played with him in the Bahamas, and him and his caddie were giving me the scoop about it,” Gotterup says. “It’s similar but not similar, but it sounded like it could be painful. Lacrosse is violent to a degree and it didn’t hurt playing another sport. I’m not going to attribute my success to lacrosse but it was helpful in terms of getting knocked down and being with people who might be better than you at something.”
He tells me one more story that may hint at a strength of desire and sense of occasion. It was last year’s Masters and one of his sponsors was hosting a dinner. He made the trip to fulfil his duties and the top brass asked him if he wanted to go to watch the golf the following day. He thanked them but said he would skip it. “I only wanted to go over there when I’m playing it for real.” He is the real deal. The crying game has rarely looked so good.