Even more exclusive than an invite to The Masters Tournament is an invite to the ceremony in Butler Cabin on Sunday afternoon. Only three golfers participate in the tradition: the reigning Masters champion — in this case, Scottie Scheffler — whichever man wins on Sunday, and the lowest-scoring amateur who makes the cut. It’s possible that there will be just two, but no golfer has repeated at The Masters since Tiger Woods in 2001 and 2002 and no amateur has ever won the tournament. It’s also possible that no amateur makes the cut, in which case the Silver Cup will not be awarded.
There are five men vying to sit alongside Scheffler and the 2025 winner in Butler Cabin — U.S. Amateur champion José Luis Ballester, U.S. Amateur runner-up Noah Kent, NCAA individual title holder Hiroshi Tai, U.S. Mid-Amateur winner Evan Beck, and Latin American Amateur champion Justin Hastings. Asia-Pacific Amateur champion Wenyi Ding would’ve also been there, but he made the risky decision to turn professional after his freshman season at Arizona State, forgoing his Masters invitation in the process, and has put up Top-20 finishes in each of his last three starts on the DP World Tour.
Ballester is a +190 favorite at DraftKings Sportsbook to earn Low Amateur honors at The Masters, with Hastings (+225) and Beck (+225) not too far behind. Tai (+550) and Kent (+600) round out the pack.
It’s easy to see why Ballester is the favorite to finish as the Low Amateur; he has nine career top-five finishes in NCAA competition with the Sun Devils and became the first Spaniard to win the U.S. Amateur with his victory last August. He was fairly convincing in the process, taking a four-hole lead over Kent with six holes to play before hanging on to win, two-up. Ballester recorded a tie for 17th at the Mexico Open at VidantaWorld, four shots behind — coincidentally — Hastings. That tournament marked the only time in which any of these amateurs have made the cut in a PGA TOUR event.
Hastings, a big-hitting San Diego State senior, is actually the second player from the Cayman Islands to play in The Masters, and he won the Lamkin Invitational with the Aztecs last month, winning by four strokes over Harry Takis and Simon Kwon. Hastings actually has the program record for the lowest scoring average in school history, edging out two-time major champion Xander Schauffele. At +225, he’s my favorite bet to ultimately win the Silver Cup.
Along with Kent — a sophomore at Georgia Tech — he represents a younger contingent eager to prove its worth on golf’s biggest stage. Tai, too, is a collegiate junior, but he’s 23 years old, since he fulfilled his two-year commitment in the Singaporean military prior to his freshman season with the Yellow Jackets. Kent, on the other hand, is 34 and works full-time as a portfolio manager for an investment firm. He is a high-level golfer, though, having played against both Justin Thomas and Jordan Spieth in college.
