Trends # – Masters Experience · 43 of the last 43 winners had played in at least 1 previous Masters Tournament · 24 of the last masters golf betting trends winners made the cut at the. Scheffler is + to win the tournament. The golfer with the second-best odds is Rory McIlroy at a distant + BET $5 & GET $ INSTANTLY. The same rings true at Augusta where the last 10 winners were averaging at least + strokes gained off the tee per round in the calendar year. The Masters by numbers: 15 Masters trends · 0 - Avoid the par 3 contest · 1 – Anchor Putter · 1 – Don't expect a rookie to win · 3 – Tough to defend title · 4 –.
Led tour last season for adjusted scoring average and in great form. Won three of the last six majors he's entered and not finished more than 10 shots behind winner of major since Big hitter made for Augusta with results trending in right direction. Has two top finishes at Augusta and the tee-to-green game for the course.
Won the Phoenix Open earlier this year. Third on tour for GIRs. Course good fit for his game and can land a top finish. Leads the tour in the three metrics that are key pointers to success at Augusta. William Hill are paying 8 places at the Masters. Skybet are paying 8 places at the Masters.
Rory McIlroy has only missed the cut once in 8 visits to Augusta. Approach play and that sharp short-game would be my idea of the watered-down version of what it takes to win the Masters, along with being above-average off the tee because of power, rather than accuracy. These are the tools most likely to set someone up to do what you have to do and avoid big mistakes, while taking advantage of those scoring opportunities which do come around often.
Other factors often referred to in majors are recent wins and experience contending for one, demonstrated best by the likes of Willett and Bubba Watson, but a degree of caution is demanded by what happened last summer. Wyndham Clark had never been anywhere near a major lead but was at the very top of his game before capturing the US Open. Brian Harman had, but he'd been winless in six whole years.
I've been reluctant to side with defending champions here in the past, for the simple fact that back-to-back winners are exceptionally rare. As for doing it at the first time of asking, only Nick Faldo has managed that. History is stacked against Rahm and there's a perfectly valid theory behind this: hosting the Champions Dinner and the very magnitude of the event makes the job doubly difficult.
That said, many have been close, and it strikes me that they were, like Rahm, members of the absolute elite. Arnold Palmer was third. Masters golf betting trends Phil Mickelson and Tiger Woods both contended. Jordan Spieth was one swing of a short-iron away from romping to a second Green Jacket, instead finishing second. One lucky winner will be able to treat themselves to the latest golf gear, play at hundreds of great courses across the UK, and even book lessons with their local PGA professional.
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Even Scheffler, whose 10th place looks pretty good on paper, would've been close to winning again had his putter behaved, and given what we know of him, I struggle to believe that missing putts was anything to do with making a speech on Tuesday night. For the very best players in this sport, a successful Masters defence is not out of the question.
Rahm remains one of those. It's difficult to contextualise LIV Golf performances and the recent emergence of strokes-gained data hasn't helped much, but Rahm has played five events, finished no worse than eighth, and generally looks to be playing well. I don't think it's a stretch to argue that had he played these five events again but over the regulation 72 holes, he would already be a winner, perhaps more than once.
There's no compelling evidence to suggest that he's regressed from the player who won here, finished 10th in the US Open, and was runner-up at Hoylake, all before an imperious Ryder Cup display and then that bombshell news that he'd decided to join LIV, where on Sunday he felt he hit the ball really well. Rahm's Augusta record is outstanding and he was a dominant winner in the end last year, leading the field from tee-to-green and producing putting figures few among the elite can match.
His performance looks all the more remarkable when you consider that he started with a four-putt double-bogey, that he had a bad draw in horrible weather, and that nobody has won an April renewal by a wider margin since Woods in Above all else, I think the supposed hoodoo of the defending champion, coupled with the fact he's now a LIV Golf player, has inflated his price to the point that we have to give him the benefit of the doubt.
Scheffler was slightly shorter as defending champion, more than halving in price from A lot has happened over the past 12 months and it's a matter of personal opinion as to whether Rahm's prospects have been hurt by his shock decision to leave the PGA Tour. Rahm's odds have doubled and he played much better than Koepka. Yes, that's a nod to the latter's phenomenal record in majors, but Rahm is the only player in men's golf who has won more than one recently.
He's the second most likely winner of this tournament, behind Scheffler, and rates genuine value at the pick of the win-only prices in particular. Another reason to believe that Rahm ought to be shorter is that there are so many potential Masters candidates with questions to answer. Two of the leading candidates on paper are debutants, a far greater handicap than having won here 12 months ago.
Of course, these are world-class golfers and some might turn things around during the Masters itself, but there's no denying that this is a tough place to visit if you're not firing on all cylinders. Among the recent champions who hadn't won an event in the run-up, Matsuyama is the only one whose form looked a little suspect, and it was better than several of the above names have been showing.
Scheffler could easily be seeking four wins in a row and it may yet prove to his benefit that he narrowly missed out in Houston. McIlroy has prepared nicely, his approach play seemingly having turned a corner. Truly, I hope he wins it, but there's one issue I can't shake.
Over the last seven years, McIlroy has ranked better than 30th in greens hit only once, meaning he's had to scramble for par far too often. He'll know this, and he does arrive on the back of his best strokes-gained approach numbers in an age. Timing is everything; perhaps, at last, he's got his just right. Spieth made a hole-in-one early in the tournament, then on Saturday hit his ball from a drainage ditch to the roof of the clubhouse, seemingly on purpose.
Sunday had time for a missed birdie putt from inside three feet and if you're new to golf, know this: none of the events listed can be classed as out of character. As I wrote in my player-by-player guide to the field, Spieth is part magician, part madman, but that's part of what makes him so effective at Augusta, where a degree of daring is required and no little magic dust.
He's played the Masters 10 times and has six top-fives. In April, that record is a mighty six from nine. Runner-up on debut, Spieth was a dominant winner in , then, famously, should've won again in Across those first three visits just two players outscored him and, all jokes aside, until things went wrong at the 12th, this success had been built on hitting a heck of a lot of greens.
Twice, he's led the field. This course record is why he's shorter in the betting than he is for most other tournaments, some of them less competitive, but as the years go by it's difficult to escape the conclusion that this is entirely justified. Spieth has ended 27 rounds of the Masters inside the top 20, 23 inside the top After a poor third round last year, he powered home to land the place money yet again.
The wait is over. The 88th Masters week is here. And he returns having hit the ball seriously well in Texas, confirming his own belief that he'd been playing better than his results suggest. This year has been up and down, make no mistake, but he has placed for us twice in three, both at courses he loves. Kapalua in particular, with its sidehill lies and creative demands, offers a worthwhile pointer to the Masters.
He had a chance to win there. But I wasn't exactly sure. So I think it proved it this week. I feel like I came into the week unsure if I was confident in being able to win next week and I come out of it saying I've got a couple things I've got to work on, but overall I think I'm in a good place to be able to have a chance.
I find that hard to disagree with and while I've sometimes felt he's simply too short to back for a second Green Jacket, given the way Koepka and Cam Smith prepared last week, the form of Hovland and Thomas, the fact that Wyndham Clark and Ludvig Aberg will be seeking to do something nobody has done in almost 50 years, on paper this might be the most winnable Masters since he gave it away in Victory in the Australian Open showed this shot-maker at his best and he's built on that by dominating the early part of the LIV Golf season, winning twice and adding another pair of tops in just five starts.
Only when teeing it up a week after his first LIV win did he struggle, a performance which is easy enough to excuse. Niemann has been going off second-favourite for these events and rightly so, and I've long felt he's a potential Masters champion. In fact he was among my selections in , when he fired a first-round 69 to lie third only to struggle a little thereafter.
Last year he took another step forward on that, finishing 16th, and he'll expect another given the improvements he's made since. He has the tools you need for Augusta National. Niemann is extremely long off the tee, his approach play can be first-class, he loves to work the ball both ways, and he can be exquisite around the greens, something he displayed in his dominant Riviera victory two years ago, still the most significant of his career.
Eagle on No. Joaquin Niemann uses spin and the slopes to perfection. Riviera is arguably the best PGA Tour stop at which to go hunting for clues, a point underlined by last two champions there, Matsuyama and Rahm. Bubba Watson has five victories across the two courses, Adam Scott has three. Best us open odds Mike Weir and Fred Couples are multiple Riviera champions, Phil Mickelson ditto as well as at Augusta, and Dustin Johnson is among the many players to have won at both venues.
The other course which offers significant pointers in part because the wide fairways and sidehill lies is Kapalua, where Niemann lost a play-off months before winning at Riv, while it's also fair to suggest that he has historically putted best on bentgrass greens, which is exactly what he'll be putting on at Augusta. There really is only one gap in his profile — the fact he's yet to contend for a major at the weekend.
It's rare for the Masters to be won by somebody who has never felt that kind of pressure, but Clark did it in the US Open last year and Niemann, who had major champions right behind him for both his LIV Golf wins, might just have the answers if he works his way into the mix. It'll surely benefit him to practise with former champion Sergio Garcia over the coming days, something he's certain to do given that Garcia has acted as something of a mentor to him, and for my money he looks a much stronger candidate than all those around him in the betting.
It pains me to say it, but I think we're probably getting a couple of points on the price because the market underestimates the level he's played at this year. Thankfully, he's done exactly that, first producing one of his worst ever putting rounds to fall from favouritism to 64th in the Valspar Championship, then splitting with caddie Jim 'Bones' Mackay, a multiple Augusta winner alongside Mickelson.
I'm amazed Thomas did that just before the Masters but who knows, perhaps it'll help unearth the sort of performance he's definitely capable of. The bigger worry is that he has looked utterly lost on the greens a couple of times recently and it's become harder and harder to find signs of genuine encouragement, despite his form either side of Christmas and the fact he's so well-suited to Augusta.
Hovland meanwhile, a huge drifter in the market, has shown nowhere near enough on a light schedule. He says he's enjoying figuring it all out at home but that leaves him exposed in the short-term. It's a shame long-term major odds haven't also taken a walk. Finau putted badly in two of the four rounds and that club is still worrying, but he'd gained strokes in his previous three starts and it wouldn't take much more than an average putting week for him to contend if his long-game is in shape.
The leader in strokes-gained tee-to-green last time, that seems likely and I have him down as one of the most underrated iron players in golf. Finau's freak power is the thing we talk about most, but he's been a fixture in the first quarter of the strokes-gained approach stats and, over the past three seasons, has worked his way towards the very top. He's married quality approach play with fine work around the greens in two of the last three renewals of the Masters, that's not including when he was in that final group alongside Tiger Woods and Francesco Molinari, and his putting stats have not been miserable.
In fact, he gained strokes two years ago and putted well on his first couple of visits to Augusta, too. Six cuts made from six appearances shows you how comfortable he is in general at a course which allows him to play the game in the way he learned to play it, hitting a variety of shot-shapes, and all of his best work has come under the April conditions which demand such creativity.
That includes a couple of 66s and a 64, scores some very good players have never managed around here.