[2] Bubba Watson won the year's first major championship on the second hole of a sudden-death playoff, defeating Louis Oosthuizen.

[3] Bo Van Pelt posted the lowest round of the tournament with a 64 (−8) early on Sunday, which propelled him up the leaderboard 35 places to tie for 17th.

Officially, the Masters remains an invitation event, but there is a set of qualifying criteria that determines who is included in the field.

Twelve others were appearing in their first Masters: Keegan Bradley, Patrick Cantlay, Bryden Macpherson, Kevin Chappell, Robert Garrigus, Webb Simpson, Harrison Frazar, Kyle Stanley, Scott Stallings, Brendan Steele, Bae Sang-moon and Gonzalo Fernández-Castaño.

[8] Notable absences included Mark O'Meara (injured), Ernie Els and Retief Goosen (not ranked high enough).

The final pairing faltered: 54-hole leader Peter Hanson never got it going, with three bogeys before he carded his first birdie at the 15th hole.

Three holes earlier, Hanson shanked his tee shot on the par-3 12th short of the water, bogeyed, and fell from contention.

On the front nine, three-time Masters champion Phil Mickelson pushed his tee shot left at the par-3 fourth and it caromed off a greenside grandstand.

[15] Cumulative tournament scores, relative to par Source:[16] The sudden death playoff started at the par-4 18th hole, where both players hit the fairway and green, and similar to the final round, Bubba Watson was closer to the pin than Louis Oosthuizen.

Oosthuizen narrowly missed his 18-foot (5.5 m) birdie effort which gave Watson another opportunity to secure the title.

Watson's putt from 16 feet (5 m) was low the entire way, and after both players tapped in to tie they headed to the next tee at the downhill par-4 10th hole.

The left-handed Watson, playing from the pine straw deep in the woods, hooked his approach shot nearly 90 degrees to within 10 feet (3 m) of the hole.