(2021 Masters Champion Hideki Matsuyama’s caddie bowing to the course)
Spring is in the air, and The Degenerate is back to fully focusing on golf for a week. Nothing like curing the comedown of March Madness with the soothing sight of Augusta National for four days. The history is rich, the jackets are green, the moss is Spanish, and the pimento is cheesy.
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW
This is the first Major of the year, and the big boys tend to bring their A game for it. So far this season, we’ve seen quite a few long-shots cash. That’s not typically the case here. In the last decade, the lowest ranked golfer to win was Bubba Watson (18th). Thus, we will be hammering a few of the favorites.
Tiger Woods is expected to play. Ever heard of him? He’s only won at Augusta 5 times (as recently as 2019) and is currently on the board at 50/1. He hasn’t played in over a year, and what a time to make a return. Early reports are that he’s hitting the ball well, but Tiger says he anticipates the biggest challenge will be walking the course.
It’s a smaller field, with “only” 90 golfers, and the top 50 making the cut.
The weather won’t make it easy to start the tournament. Not quite as bad as what we saw at The Players, but it will be wet and windy.
Our betting approach this weekend is to take golfers who’ve been playing well and have a chip on their shoulder. Whether that be not winning recently, or coming up short at Augusta in previous years. We could legitimately see any one of the top 15 betting favorites winning this thing. Trimming the list is as difficult as ever.
Let’s get into it.
Horses:
Justin Thomas +1400 — We’re typically contrarian bettors in that we often fade the public. Not the case with JT. He’s certainly a trendy pick to win the Masters, but we are not overthinking this one.
JT has Bones on the bag. Why is this relevant? Jim “Bones” Mackay was Phil Mickelson’s caddie for all 3 of his wins at Augusta. He’s got the experience, and JT is in good form. Not only that, but JT is very close with Tiger. With Woods playing this year, we expect Thomas will have some added motivation to put on a show in front of his mentor.
Although JT hasn’t had the best success at Augusta (one T5 finish in 2020), his form has been great. He’s finished in the top 10 six times in his last 10 events this season, including two 3rd place finishes.
Brooks Koepka +1800 — It feels like our boy Brooks is being a little slept on by bettors, but not by Vegas. Perhaps it’s because Brooks missed the cut here last year, but he finished T2 in 2019. Personally, I think he (along with the other runner ups) intentionally went in the water on 12 to pave the way for Tiger to win. Such a gentleman, that Brooks.
We’ve been on Koepka a few times this year and it’s typically ended in disappointment. He’s swinging the club well, but his putting has been atrocious since the WMPO. Brooks finished 12th in his last tournament (Valspar) and shot an impressive 65 on the final round. He hasn’t played since, so we love the combo of being rested off a solid round of golf.
Patrick Cantlay +2200 — Buy low, sell high. This is perhaps one of the better buy low spots for one of the best golfers on the planet. Cantlay has yet to win a Major, but won 5 events in 2021. He missed the cut in his last appearance which was at The Players, and finished 33rd at The Genesis. Before that, he finished 2nd, 4th and 9th. Buy low!
Cantlay has struggled at Augusta, with 2 missed cuts. But in 2019, he was the leader going into Sunday and eventually finished T9. Patty ice is DUE for a big performance.
Solids:
Will Zalatoris +3500 — Too much talent to pass up. We were on Will back at the Farmers where he missed a 6 ft putt to win (pain) and lost to Luke List in a playoff. Since then, he’s been just okay with a few mid-20 finishes. Overall this season, he’s got 3 T10 finishes, but most importantly, he’s shown success at Augusta.
Shane Lowry +4500 — Talk about a guy playing good golf. Since Shane had back to back missed cuts earlier this year, he’s finished 2nd, 12th and 13th. A T25 finish last year at the Masters is nothing to get excited about, but a big Irish lad in good form is.
THE Tiger Woods +5000 — Auto play. Gotta have a ticket on the big cat if he pulls it off. Just can’t see him pushing for a return at this prestigious event if he wasn’t capable of shocking the world.
Long-shots:
Tyrell Hatton +5500 — Tyrell is lurking. Other than Danny Willet in 2016, an Englishman hasn’t won the Masters in the last 25 years. Hatton has been playing excellent golf, with recent finishes being 21st, 13th, 2nd and 9th. Fanduel is showing 55/1, but we’ve seen him as high as 80/1 so shop around and throw a dart at this pissed off bloke (volume up).
Sungjae Im +7000 — All aboard! We are back on the Sungjae train. With the way Im has been playing in his recent tournaments, it’s hard to remember that he has a win and four T10 finishes this season. In his Masters debut in 2020, he became the first asian player to finish 2nd. Who cares if he missed the cut in 2021. Sungjae likes to zig zag, so we are on him to bounce back.
Max Homa +7500 — At his number, have to take a guy that finds himself consistently in the top 20. Max has recent finishes of 13th, 17th, 10th and 14th. He was just recently on Pardon My Take where he made a guarantee that he’s making the cut. Love that his play is backing up his confidence.