2014 Masters field: Qualifying chances closing with 2 weeks to go until Augusta

In two weeks, the first round will be underway at the Masters with a field approaching 100 players. Early in the year, it appeared the field would probably hit the century mark for the first time since the 1960s, but the pace has slowed down a bit with just two methods for qualification remaining.

The last two ways a player currently on the outside can get in are by A) winning one of the last two tournaments before Augusta (the Texas Open and Houston Open) and B) playing their way inside the top 50 in the world rankings released on Monday following the Texas Open. The high number of players who bumped into the top 50 at the end of 2013 is what made a field of 100 seem probable, but right now, Stephen Gallacher is the only lock to qualify as a new name showing up in the top 50 since the calendar flipped to 2014. The Scot defended his title in Dubai in February, edging Rory McIlroy and Tiger Woods, among others, to rocket up the world rankings.

So Gallacher will be there, but are there any others who can get in this weekend in San Antonio without actually winning it? Only two: Chesson Hadley, the recent winner of the Puerto Rico Open, and Ryan Palmer, the runner-up playoff loser at the Honda Classic. Hadley did not earn the auto invite for winning in Puerto Rico because it was an opposite-field event, not worth the full 500 FedExCup points, which were up for grabs at the more prestigious WGC-Cadillac Championship that same weekend. Hadley is No. 56 in the rankings and Palmer is No. 62, and both will tee it up this weekend looking for a good result to sneak into the top 50. Richard Sterne and George Coetzee, two South Africans at Nos. 53 and 55, opted not to come over to the American tour this week and try to play their way into the season’s first major.

Aside from Hadley and Palmer, we could get two more fresh names if the winners these next two weeks in Texas are not currently on the invitees list. We’ve had a mix of players getting these auto-berths, with top-50 guys and major winners already in the field taking some of the titles this first quarter of the schedule. But the last two weeks, John Senden and Matt Every have both punched their tickets by winning the last two legs of the Florida swing. It’s the first ever berth for Every, who overtook Adam Scott at Bay Hill on Sunday to officially become the 95th player in the field. We’ll definitely be at 96 on Monday, but can we get to 100?

Here’s the current field, organized by country (an asterisk denotes an amateur):