Twins Nicolai and Rasmus Hojgaard make Masters history
Twin brothers Nicolai, left, and Rasmus Hojgaard listen to a caddy during a practice round for the 2024 British Open.
(Jon Super / Associated Press)
Meet Nicolai and Rasmus Hojgaard, an identical pair that's singularly focused.
The 24-year-old Danish brothers are the first set of twins to play in the same Masters, and they will be pulling for each other Thursday when the storied tournament gets underway.
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OK … that's a bit of a buried lie.
'Probably be very frustrating,' Rasmus said when asked how it would feel seeing his brother win a green jacket. 'No, I think it would be very cool.'
They're pretty much dead ringers for each other, especially when they showed up to Augusta National this week wearing the same gray quarter-zip pullovers. That wasn't planned, by the way. Just another mind meld.
It's helpful that Rasmus has a swoop of brown hair, and Nicolai has a buzz. Otherwise, it would be hard for anyone but friends and family to tell them apart.
Read more: Can Rory McIlroy win the Masters to complete career Grand Slam?
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'Back when we were in 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,' Rasmus said. '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. We did that a few times and we thought it was quite fun.'
They don't have identical experience in the Masters, however. Whereas Rasmus is making his debut, Nicolai played last year and actually held the Saturday lead through 10 holes before tailing off and finishing in a tie for 16th.
'After the tournament,' Nicolai said, 'I looked at that thinking, 'What went wrong after you had been in perfect position to then finish 16th, and what can you learn from that?''
Naturally, the two are ultra-competitive and unquestionably pushed each other.
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'I think when we were younger, we learned how to deal with when somebody was playing well and we couldn't talk to each other for days. …
'Then we got older and more mature. We can shake each other's hand now and say congrats when someone is playing well.'
Oh, brother.
Get the best, most interesting and strangest stories of the day from the L.A. sports scene and beyond from our newsletter The Sports Report.
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
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