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    The 2025 Masters In Photographs

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    The Masters Tournament is a symbolic start of spring in North America, and the hundreds of acres of magnificent flora at Augusta National Golf Club — azaleas, pink dogwood, yellow jasmine, magnolia and oak trees, and hundreds more varieties of flowers, shrubs and trees for which the course’s 18 holes are famously named — are a breathtaking backdrop for the first major tournament of the men’s golf season.Justin Rose began Saturday’s third round at eight under par, followed closely by the two-time U.S. Open winner Bryson DeChambeau at seven under and the 2022 Masters runner-up Rory McIlroy tied with Corey Connors at six under. Scottie Scheffler, the 2022 and 2024 Masters champion, was in a four-way tie for fifth at five under par.Rose, a 44-year-old Englishman, has led or shared the lead after a round at the Masters 10 times, including on both Thursday and Friday, but has never won a green jacket. He finished as a runner-up in 2015 and again in 2017, when he lost in a playoff to Sergio Garcia.Jack Nicklaus, a six-time Masters champion, hit an honorary tee shot on Thursday ahead of the tournament getting underway.Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player and Tom Watson were honorary starters during a ceremony at the beginning of the first round.Billy Horschel, right, high-fives his daughter Colbie after she made a putt during the par-3 contest on Wednesday.Justin Rose hits from the sand trap on the second hole during the second round on Friday.Collin Morikawa skips a shot across Redbud pond on the 16th hole on Tuesday, a practice round tradition at the Masters.Byeong Hun An during a practice round in the rain on Monday before the tournament began.Bryson DeChambeau, right, on the third hole during the second round on Friday.Rory McIlroy missing a birdie putt on the 18th green on Friday.Fred Couples fist-bumps his caddie after making a birdie on the ninth hole in the second round.Patrons crossing the 15th fairway. More

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      The Masters Helped Turn Ely Callaway Into a Golf Club Maker

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      He invented the Big Bertha driver, which changed the game of golf. Bobby Jones, a creator of the tournament, was a Callaway cousin.Ely Callaway, founder of the namesake golf club company, did something few golf enthusiasts could imagine doing. He declined an invitation from Bobby Jones to join the Augusta National Golf Club in 1957.Jones, a revered amateur golfer who won the Grand Slam in 1930 and was a co-founder of Augusta National with Clifford Roberts, was Callaway’s distant cousin and hero. Over the family’s mantel, long before the Masters achieved the major status it has today, hung a lithograph of Jones winning the Amateur Championship, also known as the British Amateur, and completing the Grand Slam. Across it was a personal handwritten inscription from Jones to Callaway and his first wife, Jeanne.Bobby Jones teeing off at St. Andrews in Scotland in 1928. Jones was Callaway’s distant cousin and hero.Getty ImagesNicholas Callaway said his father had practical reasons to turn down Jones.“Ely’s rationale later in life when he became the Callaway of Callaway Golf was that since Augusta was only open for a portion of the year, most of the year he would spend fielding calls from friends angling to get an invitation to play,” he said. His father’s posthumous memoir, “The Unconquerable Game: My Life in Golf & Business,” is being released this month.It worked out fine for him. “In the 1990s, he attended the Masters for many years and would get invited to play often in the days following the tournament,” his son said.The decision had to have been difficult. Something that comes across in Callaway’s memoir was the impact Jones had on him.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Elections

      Georgia County Signs Up to Use Voter Database Backed by Election Deniers

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      The decision ignores warnings from voting rights groups and some election experts.A suburban county in Georgia agreed on Friday to use a new voter information database endorsed by the election denial movement, a move that defied warnings from voting rights groups, election security experts and state election officials.Columbia County, a heavily Republican county outside Augusta, is the first in the country known to have agreed to use the platform, called EagleAI. Its supporters claim the system will make it easier to purge the rolls of ineligible voters.Among the leading backers for this new system is Cleta Mitchell, a central figure in former President Donald J. Trump’s efforts to subvert the 2020 election and the leader of the Election Integrity Network, a national coalition of activists built around the false idea that the 2020 election was stolen.Ms. Mitchell and others have billed EagleAI as an alternative to the Election Registration Information Center, a widely used interstate system that made it easier for officials to track address changes and deaths as they maintain the voter rolls. That system, known as ERIC, has become the subject of conspiracy theories and misinformation that prompted nine states to withdraw with few backup plans.Ms. Mitchell declined to answer questions about the county’s decision.At an election board meeting Friday, around 40 people packed a room, with all speakers favoring the new system, according to Larry Wiggins, a Democratic member of the board who said he voted in favor.Mr. Wiggins said he was hopeful the tool would help the county handle an expected influx of voter eligibility challenges next year. A 2021 law made it easier for individuals to challenge large numbers of other voters’ registrations at once. Those challenges have often come from the same community of Republican activists now helping to push the EagleAI software.EagleAI was developed by a retired doctor in Columbia County, John Richards Jr., who did not response to a request for comment.Georgia state officials, who reviewed the EagleAI presentations, have found them riddled with errors and said the tools were unnecessary, according to documents provided by the groups American Oversight and Documented.In May, William S. Duffey Jr., the chairman of the State Election Board in Georgia, sent a letter to the county board of elections warning that EagleAI’s software might violate state privacy laws and state election statutes.The county responded in November that it would not allow access to private voter information and that the use of the tools would be limited.In a statement, the Georgia secretary of state’s office noted that the state still belonged to the Election Registration Information Center and that counties needed to follow state laws.Election experts have labeled the new system unnecessary and flawed.“EagleAI cannot be trusted to provide reliable information regarding who on the voter rolls is not eligible to remain there,” wrote seven voting rights and election organizations in a letter to Columbia County commissioners. It continued: “It will point you towards false positives and waste your staff’s time.”But Mr. Wiggins said the board wasn’t convinced. “We don’t put much faith in letters from outside groups,” Mr. Wiggins said. “We pay more attention to local individuals.” More