His wife was due to give birth in six weeks. He wanted to come back in 2027 and see his daughter in one of those miniature boiler suits that the children of Champions wear at the Par-3 Contest. So he started making birdies. Four in a row, from the 13th through the 16th, including a hole-out eagle from 131 yards on the 7th earlier in the round that had already announced his intentions. He shot 66, his second of the week, finished at 10-under par, and sat in the clubhouse as the leader for nearly 90 minutes before Scottie Scheffler and then Rory McIlroy overtook him. Tied for third. Career-best finish in a major. Invitation to Augusta 2027 secured. And a story that connects the azaleas of Georgia to the fairways of the Gulf in ways that matter.
McIlroy won, of course. The Northern Irishman defended his Masters title to become only the fourth player in the tournament's 90-year history to win back-to-back green jackets, joining Jack Nicklaus, Nick Faldo, and Tiger Woods. His sixth major championship puts him level with Lee Trevino, Faldo, and Phil Mickelson on the all-time list. He finished at 12-under par, one shot ahead of Scheffler, who closed with a 67 but could not quite catch the defending champion on a Sunday that tested every nerve McIlroy possesses.
The drama was extraordinary. McIlroy had taken a record six-shot lead into the weekend, only to surrender it entirely during a Saturday stumble that turned the final round into a genuine contest. By Sunday's back nine, Justin Rose had surged to 12-under through nine holes, Cameron Young was level with McIlroy, and the leaderboard was packed with names that included Sam Burns, Collin Morikawa, and Scheffler. McIlroy's response was to birdie the 12th and 13th holes in Amen Corner, the most pressurised stretch of turf in golf, and then hold his nerve through a chaotic finish at the 18th where he drove almost into the 10th fairway before scrambling an 8-iron over the trees, splashing out of a bunker, and two-putting for bogey to win by one.
"He needs to start performing at majors or the LIV-shaped stick people are beating him with is only going to grow," Golf Monthly wrote before the tournament about the Saudi-backed circuit's struggles at the highest level. Hatton's tied-third finish answered that question emphatically, at least for himself. The Legion XIII captain hit all 18 greens in regulation during Friday's second round, only the third player to achieve that at Augusta in the past 30 years. His two rounds of 66 were each two shots better than any of his previous 32 rounds at the course. He was the only LIV Golf player to make a significant impact on the leaderboard this week, finishing 10 shots clear of the next-best player from the Saudi-backed circuit.
The contrast with his LIV colleagues was stark. Jon Rahm, the 2023 Masters champion, posted a 78 on Thursday and never recovered, finishing tied for 38th at one-over. Sergio Garcia broke his driver on the second hole on Sunday and received a code of conduct warning. Dustin Johnson shot 75 on Saturday as the rest of the field posted the lowest third-round scoring in Masters history. Bryson DeChambeau, Cameron Smith, and five other LIV players missed the cut entirely. Of the ten LIV golfers in the original field of 91, Hatton was the only one who competed.
For Gulf Sports Daily readers, the thread connecting Augusta to the region runs deeper than LIV's branding. Hatton won the Dubai Desert Classic at the Emirates Golf Club in January, one of the DP World Tour's flagship Rolex Series events. The DP World Tour itself carries the name of a Dubai-based logistics company as its title sponsor, a partnership that has shaped European golf's commercial identity for years. McIlroy is a multiple winner in Dubai and a regular presence on the Gulf circuit. The Saudi International, the LIV Golf events hosted in Jeddah, and the broader PIF investment in professional golf have made the Gulf the single most significant financial force in the sport outside the traditional American establishment.
What makes Hatton's performance noteworthy beyond the numbers is what it represents for the argument that Gulf-backed golf can coexist with, and compete at, the highest traditional levels of the game. Hatton has improved at Augusta in each of the three years since joining LIV: tied ninth in 2024, tied 14th in 2025, tied third this week. His world ranking sits at 23rd. He closed 2025 with a tied-fifth finish at the Saudi International. He has posted three top-16 finishes in four majors. The trajectory is upward, and it is happening while he competes primarily on a circuit that many in golf's establishment dismiss as a retirement league for players who have lost their competitive edge.
Hatton himself was characteristically direct when asked whether LIV players need to adjust their preparation for majors. "It's another tournament that you're at," he said. "Wherever you play, whatever the tournament is, you're always giving it your best, and you're trying to prepare in a way to give yourself a chance to win the tournament." The simplicity of that statement belied the complexity of the landscape.
Patrick Reed, who left LIV before the 2026 season and is now playing the DP World Tour ahead of a PGA Tour return, finished tied 12th at five-under, his best Masters result in years. Brooks Koepka, who returned to the PGA Tour via the Returning Member Programme, also tied for 12th. The players who have left the Gulf-backed circuit are performing. The player who stayed and thrived, Hatton, performed best of all.
McIlroy's second consecutive green jacket confirms his status as the dominant force in the sport. His 30th PGA Tour victory and sixth major title place him firmly among the greats of any era. But the story of this Masters, viewed from the Gulf, is not only about the man who won. It is about Hatton's four consecutive birdies on the back nine, driven by the thought of his unborn daughter in a boiler suit. It is about a LIV Golf player posting the best major finish of any player on the Saudi-backed circuit this season. And it is about the growing evidence that the Gulf's investment in professional golf, from the DP World Tour sponsorship to LIV's individual stars to the infrastructure that hosts world-class events in Dubai and Saudi Arabia every winter, is producing results that extend all the way to the most exclusive tee sheet in the sport.
Hatton will be back at Augusta next April. He has already earned his place. And in the Gulf, where the Emirates Golf Club hosted him as a champion three months ago, that matters.
