Steve Stricker hopes this Masters isn't his last

Steve Stricker is hoping his 50th round in the Masters Tournament on Sunday wasn’t his last.

If it is, the 12-time PGA Tour winner went out in style. He closed with 4-under-par 68 after three consecutive 73s to finish at 1-under 287.

Stricker, 48, who qualified this year by being in the top 50 in the world ranking at the end of 2014, plays a limited schedule these days. Last year, he made 11 starts on the PGA Tour.

This was the first start of the season for Stricker, who had surgery for a bulging disc in his back Dec. 24. He’s ranked 75th in the world.

“It could be,” Stricker said when asked about Sunday being his final Masters round. “I thought about that this morning. I’ve got some work to do to get back here. It always is a goal to get back here from all of us players. So get the world ranking up, to win again, all that gets you back here again.”

He could also make it back by finishing in the top four in the U.S. Open, British Open or PGA Cham­pionship, if he qualifies for those tournaments.

Stricker does have those dozen PGA Tour victories, and he is capable of still winning. His last victory came in 2012.

The world ranking cutoff – the top 50 make the Masters – falls at the end of the calendar year and then again two weeks before the Masters. Stricker was asked whether he would add tournaments to his schedule if he was close to the top 50 leading into the 2016 Masters.

“I don’t know, maybe,” he said. “This year was an anomaly, just because I had the surgery in December, I couldn’t play. I’ll play some in the early part of next year again. I may go to Hawaii or something like that. We talked about it as a family again going over there. Yeah, I’ll probably play a little bit.”

This was Stricker’s 15th Masters and his ninth in a row. He has two top-10 finishes and has shot in the 60s six times, counting Sunday’s 68.

“I kind of have a love/hate relationship with this place,” Stricker said. “You want to be here, but I haven’t had the best of records going around here. It’s fun, nerve-wracking, all of it. You have your good times going around here, and you have some real horrible times. You think, you idiot, why are you doing that? Hitting in the water at 13.

“But it’s so beautiful and you want to be here this time of year and play, for sure,” he said. “I surely want to be back, there’s no question about that.”