By Frank Pingue
AUGUSTA, Georgia (Reuters) – Golf fans will be seeing double this week at Augusta National Golf Club with Denmark’s Nicolai Hojgaard and slightly younger brother Rasmus set to become the first pair of twins to compete in the same Masters.
If not for their hairstyles — Rasmus has longer locks while Nicolai sports a more cropped style — one would have struggled to differentiate between the brothers when they arrived at their pre-tournament news conference on Tuesday dressed identically.
“It was completely random, to be fair. Ras left the house a little bit earlier than me this morning, and when I came out here, he was sitting in beige pants and a green jumper,” said Nicolai.
“We actually thought, it’s not too bad, actually, make good sense going into the press conference in the same clothes. So it worked out all right.”
While the 24-year-old brothers were not trying to cause any added confusion, they conceded it was not exactly out of their nature to pull such a prank.
“Back when we went to school, we would switch classes, and everyone in the room, they obviously know that it’s the wrong one that’s here, but the teacher wouldn’t know,” said Rasmus.
“So we would sit there for an hour, and everyone was trying to be serious about the situation. Then the teacher eventually would find out that it’s Nicolai here and not Ras, and they would just laugh about it.”
Rasmus, who beat Rory McIlroy by one stroke to win the Irish Open last September, qualified for the Masters via the top 50 on the 2024 year-end world ranking and is making his Augusta National debut.
Nicolai was inside the top six after each of the first three rounds last year and briefly led on Saturday in his Masters debut before finishing in a share of 16th place. He received a special invitation to return this year.
While it will be a Masters first having twins in the field, the two brothers have competed in the same major four times before as they were in the field for the British Open and PGA Championship in both 2023 and 2024.
The twins remain competitive but also still support each other on the course and were asked how it might feel to see the other slip into the Green Jacket.
“Probably be very frustrating,” Rasmus joked, “No, I think it would be very cool.
“If something like that happens, I think we’ll deal with it at the time, but I think it’s hard to sit here and try and explain what that would feel like because that’s going to be a little different from what we’ve tried before.”
“Agree,” added Nicolai.
Rasmus will play the opening two rounds alongside Patrick Cantlay and Matt Fitzpatrick while Nicolai will be in the company of Kevin Yu and Jhonattan Vegas.
(Reporting by Frank Pingue in Augusta, Georgia; Editing by Christian Radnedge)
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