Golfbet Roundtable: Picks for the Masters
Written by Will Gray
AUGUSTA, Ga. – The opening round of the Masters approaches, and thankfully for bettors, there’s no shortage of trends and correlated stats to add to the handicapping process.
As the only major played on the same course each year, the Masters and Augusta National Golf Club offer a bevy of stats and information to help parse the field from 95 strong to a short list of true contenders. Those who play well here do so often, and the makeup of an eventual champion has been easier to discern in recent years. So let’s take a stab at a predictive eliminator, which Ben Everill used to correctly identify the Masters champ two years ago (and last year proved to be one major early).
From 95 to one…a look at the trends that should help winnow your choices for the year’s first major:
Somewhere Fuzzy Zoeller sits ready to celebrate with a bottle of champagne on ice. Zoeller famously won his Masters debut in a playoff 46 years ago, becoming the first player since World War II to pull off the feat. Many have come close since, including runner-up showings from Sungjae Im, Will Zalatoris and Ludvig Åberg. But none have matched Zoeller.
Eliminated: Jose Luis Ballester Barrio (a), Evan Beck (a), Brian Campbell, Rafael Campos, Laurie Canter, Davis Thompson, Thomas Detry, Nico Echavarria, Max Greyserman, Justin Hastings (a), Joe Highsmith, Noah Kent (a), Thriston Lawrence, Matt McCarty, Maverick McNealy, Taylor Pendrith, Rasmus Højgaard, Aaron Rai, Davis Riley, Hiroshi Tai (a), Kevin Yu
They’re some of the biggest names in tournament history, and they’ll all have seats at the Champions’ Dinner on Tuesday night. But Jack Nicklaus remains the oldest winner in Masters history at age 46 in 1986, meaning those over 50 can enjoy another drive down Magnolia Lane but are unlikely to slip back into the green jacket.
Eliminated: Angel Cabrera, Fred Couples, Bernhard Langer, Phil Mickelson, Jose Maria Olazabal, Mike Weir
Experience matters, especially around these parts. Understanding the various nooks and crannies of the most famous walk in golf take time to develop, meaning that those without at least a little prior Masters success will likely have to wait a year.
Eliminated: Christiaan Bezuidenhout, Akshay Bhatia, Wyndham Clark, Nick Dunlap, Austin Eckroat, Tom Hoge, Michael Kim, Denny McCarthy, Nick Taylor, Jhonattan Vegas
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You can’t fake it around Augusta National. Precise ball-striking will be paramount this week, and it’s hard for players to expect to be able to flip the switch upon driving down Magnolia Lane. This has been a consistent trend for more than a decade, as the eventual winner likely boasts some serious tee-to-green gains over the last month or so. A good chunk of the field just bit the dust.
Eliminated: Ludvig Åberg, Byeong-Hun An, Daniel Berger, Sam Burns, Cameron Smith, Patrick Cantlay, Cam Davis, Dustin Johnson, Jason Day, Harris English, Tony Finau, Matt Fitzpatrick, Tommy Fleetwood, Brian Harman, Tyrrell Hatton, Max Homa, Billy Horschel, Viktor Hovland, Sungjae Im, Stephan Jaeger, Chris Kirk, Patton Kizzire, Brooks Koepka, Hideki Matsuyama, Min Woo Lee, Nicolai Højgaard, Joaquin Niemann, Matthieu Pavon, J.T. Poston, Jon Rahm, Justin Rose, Xander Schauffele, Adam Schenk, Charl Schwartzel, Adam Scott, Jordan Spieth, Tom Kim, Sahith Theegala, Justin Thomas, Bubba Watson, Danny Willett, Cameron Young, Zach Johnson
Now we’re getting down to the contenders. While there have been some outliers here, it’s still a noticeable trend that those slipping into the green jacket have either lifted a major trophy or come achingly close to doing so. This takes out a handful of players who boast strong metrics on paper but haven’t felt the heat of playing the last few holes with a major truly hanging in the balance.
Eliminated: Corey Conners, Russell Henley, Robert MacIntyre, J.J. Spaun, Sepp Straka
The recent major form has become quite predictive, as Masters champions of late have built upon strong results in the major championships played just a few months prior.
Contenders: Nine to seven
Eliminated: Lucas Glover, Will Zalatoris
The importance of finding greens in regulation will increase over the weekend as the course firms up. Each of the last seven champions have finished the tournament week inside the top 10 in GIR percentage, and roughly 67 percent has proven to be an accurate barometer recently in gauging who has the iron game to meet the moment.
Contenders: Seven to five
Eliminated: Keegan Bradley, Shane Lowry
Augusta National is famous for its four longest holes, but players know those are the opportunities where you need to pounce. Scheffler has played them well in his two Masters victories, but he has slowed in that category in the early part of the 2025 season.
Eliminated: Scottie Scheffler
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Patrick Reed proved the outlier here in 2018, but other than his brilliant scrambling performance we can discount anyone who slammed the trunk early at last year’s event.
Contenders: Four to three
Eliminated: Sergio Garcia
Are you completing the Tiger Slam this week? If not, this could be a tough double dip to pull off. Woods won the 2001 Masters as the reigning U.S. Open champ following his romp at
Pebble Beach. Prior to that, you have to go back to 1962-63 when Jack Nicklaus won the U.S. Open at Oakmont and the Masters across a 10-month span.
Eliminated: Bryson DeChambeau
Sorry, Rory fans. The Ulsterman is trending across the board, and he’s never carried more momentum with him down Magnolia Lane. But of the five players to complete the career Grand Slam, most recently Woods in 2000, all five of them already had a Masters title to their credit before capturing the final leg. The scar tissue around this place is thick for McIlroy, and the pressure he faces to break through – with only one opportunity to do so each year – is immense.
Through 11 different metrics, we have waded from 95 contenders to a single champion.
Congrats in advance on the green jacket, Collin Morikawa.
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