Masters Predictions: Conservative/Aggressive Plays for Every Type of Bettor

AUGUSTA, Ga. — From a purely personal and professional perspective, the Masters Tournament is my favorite week of the year.

Yeah, I know. That’s like saying “Augusta National has some elevation” or “The course is very green.” Some things are so obvious, they’re redundant to even mention a first time.

So sure, this is my favorite week on the golf calendar for many of the same reasons that it’s many other golf fans’ favorite week on the calendar. I love the familiarity of watching the world’s best players battle on the same venue every year. I love how much it means to guys with bank accounts that look like long-distance telephone numbers. I love the tradition, which is, as they say, unlike any other.

There’s more to it than all of this, though.

Importing the entire golf world into a single city isn’t an easy undertaking and so what happens is that unlike most weeks when players, media, fans and other various hangers-on pile into nearby hotels, the majority will rent houses in the area. The ultimate result is a collegial feel, an entire week surrounded by colleagues who are similarly enveloped in the tournament, with so many discussions revolving around the main task at hand.

And so it was that I woke up on the couch of an Augusta rental house on Monday morning and within minutes was engaged in a lively discussion about Masters contenders with the great Fred Albers, one of the smartest golf radio broadcasters of all time.

He offered up a take that might not be wholly original, but is unique in the way he presented it.

The Masters, he explained, so often produces big-name champions and so rarely produces longshot winners because the golf course is set up to allow for the best ball-strikers to have the most opportunity to repeatedly continue hitting the best golf shots.

“The more times a better player can put his club on the ball,” Albers said, “the more chances he has to separate himself from the field.”

I’ve often thought about other golf tournaments in opposite terms. The U.S. Open is a great example. With rough that fluctuates in playing ability from one square foot to the next and greens which can receive or repel any given shot, there’s a tendency to see the playing field leveled, essentially rendering what could be partially viewed as an indiscriminatory result.

Even if Augusta National serves up a Danny Willett or Trevor Immelman every decade or so, there’s never a fluky winner – or one who doesn’t fully deserve it.

With that in mind, let’s get to this week’s selections from both a conservative and aggressive perspective, beginning with a player who fits this theory perfectly, if only because we already know his best is certainly good enough to win a green jacket once again.

Masters Outright Winner Picks

Conservative: Scottie Scheffler (+450)

The name you were supposed to be reading here was Ludvig Aberg. For two months, ever since he carved up Torrey Pines while winning the Genesis Invitational, he was my selection to go full Spieth — you know, finishing second in his first Masters and first in his second Masters. I will add, though, that every time I said his name, this caveat was included: I reserve the right to change my mind before Masters week. And so I did.

Call me a chicken and I’d love this to serve as refrigerator material for the young Swede’s eventual told-ya-so, but missed cuts in his last two starts — especially at last week’s Valero Texas Open — left me too gun-shy to pick him. If I’m going to live and die by the old notion that a player needs to have his game before arriving in Augusta, as opposed to finding it when he gets here, then Aberg seems like a declining option. The solution, however, didn’t seem any easier.

Collin Morikawa is an intriguing candidate, but I’m worried about his balky putter. Justin Thomas is, too, but he and Augusta National have been strange bedfellows, to say nothing of Augusta National and volatility. Rory McIlroy is the only player who follows the Scheffler-Rahm-Scheffler blueprint of parlaying multiple wins during the young calendar year into a Masters victory, but he also has 16 years of scar tissue with which to contend.

Everybody just felt a little Goldilocks to me – you know, too something. Which is why, when the research dust settled, this became an Occam’s Razor selection for me — meaning that no more assumptions should be made than are necessary, or in plainer terms, sometimes the simplest explanation is the best explanation. Unlike prior to his Masters wins in 2022 and ‘24, Scheffler has yet to triumph this year, which might be worrisome if not for a little phrase that Tiger Woods popularized and every other elite-level player since has mimicked: “I want my game to peak four times per year.” Now, that’s easier said than done, of course — I’ve had some of these players simply shrug when I asked them the secret to such timely success — but it underscores the point that we shouldn’t be too bothered when a player with this mindset hasn’t yet reached any of those four times.

The world’s No. 1-ranked player owns top-25s in all half-dozen starts this year, with three top-10s and a runner-up in his most recent one. He’s gained strokes off the tee in his last 24 tournaments, with his irons in 51 of his last 52 and with his putter — the subject of so much consternation — in seven of his last eight. It’s never fun playing the favorite, especially when that favorite owns such a short outright price like Scheffler, but the process of elimination in this situation might be enough to prove William Occam correct once again, and it would give Scottie a share of a record which only Jack Nicklaus owns – three Masters titles in a four-year span. 

Aggressive: Shane Lowry (+3300)

I say this pretty frequently, but knowing there might be a few more eyeballs on the proceedings this week, allow to me reiterate: When choosing a longshot outright selection – and granted, this longshot isn’t very long – it’s important to evaluate a player’s upside. We’re seeking ceilings, not floors, in this market. Second place is indeed the first loser and while having an outright wager who fares well might help validate your idea, it doesn’t put any money in your pocket.

Case in point: I’ve heard from a lot of people who like Russell Henley this week. I like him, too, as you’ll see below, but I can’t get behind the notion that one scalding chip darting into the hole at the Arnold Palmer Invitational has somehow turned him into a stone-cold killer. Instead, I want players for longshots who have some win probability if they play their best golf. All of which somehow brings me to Lowry, who might not be the greatest upside example, considering he’s won exactly one individual golf tournament since the 2019 Open Championship. But hey, at least he’s been there before. The Irishman’s ball-striking numbers have been exquisite for a long time now, with results to follow, finishing top-20 in 13 of his last 15 starts.

Even as I write these words, I realize he might make a better case as a floor than a ceiling, however I do have confidence that his best can be good enough to topple all of the game’s best players. And for what it’s worth, others in the 30/1-plus range who are capable of doing the same include Patrick Cantlay (+3300), Jason Day (+6600), Wyndham Clark (+6600) and Billy Horschel (+12500) – all players who have conquered big-time fields. 

Masters Top-5 Picks

Collin Morikawa (+260)

Jon Rahm (+275)

On most other weeks, I’d even troll myself on social media for telling the masses that two of the players with top-five shortest odds can finish inside the top-five – especially after picking the favorite as an outright. I hate (and I mean, I really hate) to hit you with so much chalk, but there are too many reasons to like each of these guys. Morikawa has been a ball-striking machine, not just recently, but for the past year. Though he hasn’t won in over a year and a half, he’s currently second in the PGA Tour’s Strokes Gained: Total category, which is the greatest barometer of performance that we have.

With top-10s in each of his last three Masters starts, I love the idea that he’ll once again contend for this title, as he and J.J. Jakovac might be working on a higher player/caddie level than anyone not named Scottie Scheffler and Ted Scott. As for Rahm, I’ve found it much more difficult to handicap LIV players heading into the year’s first major championship. Are we chasing form? Simply going after course history? Trying to gauge motivation? Bryson DeChambeau might be the popular pick from this category and I’ll list a few others below, but Rahm has finished top-10 in every LIV event this year and 15 of his last 16 global starts altogether.

I believe that he desperately wants to prove to the world that leaving for the renegade tour wasn’t some death knell for his career, and while wanting to prove it and doing so certainly aren’t one and the same, there’s some serious motivation for one of the game’s biggest talents to once again play a tournament which really matters to him. 

Masters Top-10 Picks

Conservative: Russell Henley (+300)

As I wrote above, I’m not convinced that Henley’s win at the Arnold Palmer Invitational will open some long overdue floodgates. The Golf Gods work in mysterious ways, and his eagle chip on the 16th hole of that final round might’ve been a heartbreaker for Morikawa, but it was the culmination of years of close calls for Henley. That said, he’s proven himself as one of the game’s better floor plays, one whose performance often outweighs his result.

On a second-shot golf course, I love the idea of banking on his irons and hoping the putter similarly cooperates. For a player who admitted he felt nervous down the stretch at Bay Hill, I have a tough time believing he can transform a much more pressure-packed situation into a victory, but I do think he’ll hang around on the leaderboard well into the weekend. 

Aggressive: Sergio Garcia (+500)

Contrary to popular belief, Strokes Gained data exists for LIV Golf – or at least it exists at the Data Golf website, which does such a brilliant job of correlating the numbers and allowing them to tell the story. As such, we can tell that Garcia hasn’t just finished top-five in three of his last four starts, we can see that his ball-striking stats have been through the roof, especially last week at Doral. Look, trying to predict his major championship results has been a futile performance at best over the years.

In 2012, he lamented here at Augusta National that he’d never win a major, that he doesn’t have the “thing” needed and should only play for “second or third place.” Five years later, he won the Masters in a playoff. If he can’t predict his own result – which in more recent times, conjures an image of Viktor Hovland, who had no inkling he was about to win before winning last month’s Valspar Championship – then what chance do the rest of us have? Even so, the numbers suggest he’s ready to do something good here once again and it wouldn’t be a surprise if the 45-year-old contended throughout the week. 

Masters Top-20 Picks

Robert MacIntyre (+138)

Even in limited major championship appearances, it seems that MacIntyre is a big-game hunter, the type of player who might become a little more interested when it matters the most. He’s now played 15 of ‘em and has more top-10s (three) than missed cuts (two). He hasn’t played the Masters in either of the past two years, but early returns showed an immediate proclivity to playing well here.

I remember seeing him walking off the final green in 2021, noticing that he’d claimed a T-12 result and would return the next year, then instantly bear-hugging every relative and friend in the area. He’d finish T-23 that next year, but returns now as a more seasoned veteran. I don’t mind playing this up to a top-10 (+320) or even a top-five (+650), giving plenty of value to a Bobby Mac ladder this week. 

Lucas Glover (+350)

First things first: There are a few other players I like better for top-20s, including Patrick Reed (+175) and Jason Day (+200), but I’m abundantly aware that I’ve offered way too many short plays in this preview and wanted to give you something a big meatier to digest.

That led me to Glover, who admittedly hasn’t exactly figured out this place in the past. In 10 attempts, he’s made the cut six times and doesn’t own a result better than T-20 – and of those 10 times, only three have taken place in the past decade.

Glover is, though, enjoying a bit of a career rejuvenation these days, ranking 63rd or better in every major Strokes Gained category and 18th overall. All of which might make him a better DFS leverage play than finishing position bet, but I like the idea of having a little faith in this one, especially if we’ve got enough short-priced plays elsewhere.

Masters First-Round Leader Picks

Conservative: Jordan Spieth (+4000)

Aggressive: Jason Day (+5500)

For an extended look at my Masters FRL selections – and why getting off to a hot start is so relevant to the final result at this tournament – click the link.