Owen to miss Masters

England’s Greg Owen suffered another agonising near-miss tonight when it was confirmed he had just missed out on a Masters debut.

Owen, who lost last week’s Bay Hill Invitational by one after finishing double bogey, bogey, came 22nd at the Players Championship and that was good enough to move him up only one place to 52nd in the world rankings.

He needed to make the top 50 to qualify for the first major of the season in two weeks’ time.

Sawgrass winner Stephen Ames leaps from 64th to 27th and into the Masters field, but Ian Poulter’s 27th place finish means he improves only from 69th to 65th and so he misses out like Owen.