The Masters begins on Thursday and Ben Coley, who has found winners at 50/1 and 100/1 so far this year, is again keen to side with Justin Thomas.
Our golf expert made 28/1 Cameron Smith his headline pick for the Open and also selected 28/1 Rory McIlroy for the first-round lead in the US PGA for a profitable 2022 in the majors. His full record can be found by clicking here.
Golf betting tips: The Masters
4pts e.w. Justin Thomas at 20/1 (General 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)
2pts e.w. Tony Finau at 25/1 (Sky Bet, bet365 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)
1pt e.w. Shane Lowry at 50/1 (Paddy Power 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10)
1pt e.w. Tommy Fleetwood at 55/1 (bet365, 888sport 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)
1pt e.w. Min Woo Lee at 60/1 (General 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)
1pt e.w. Justin Rose at 60/1 (bet365 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)
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The Masters is indelible. It is no less a constant to those of us who love golf than the month in which it is played; spring's dawn chorus, better rather than worse for being exactly the same as last year, and the year before that. The year before that, when it had to happen in November and didn't quite feel the same, its familiarity was still comforting.
This is the 87th Masters Tournament and it won't be the strangest. It will though be unique, in this era at least, for bringing players together who've spent much of the last 12 months apart. Those who deny any tension, who blame the media for stirring the pot while it's their names that appear on court documents, are kidding themselves. Plenty within the sport have become rather good at that.
This narrative, the PGA Tour versus LIV Golf here in golfing Switzerland, may yet colour this tournament as much as any yellow flag, pink azalea or green jacket, but for now let's set it to one side. What's done is done, what will be will be, and whatever it is will be worth dedicating ourselves to for four days of brilliant sport. Or else five, if the rain is that bad.
If the Masters has lacked anything since Tiger Woods won his 15th major in 2019, it is not hostility but jeopardy – late on Sunday, at least. Dustin Johnson never looked like losing, Hideki Matsuyama's late mistakes came too late to matter, and Scottie Scheffler won by three after a double-bogey at the final hole. From the moment Woods found the 12th green, final rounds have been more about achievement than drama.
Let's hope that this time the old maxim rings true, and the Masters really doesn't begin until the back-nine on Sunday.
What does it take to win the Masters?
By now it's established that quality approach play is the best starting point anywhere, and that's certainly the case at Augusta. But versus just about any other tournament on the calendar, there has so far been a significantly greater increase in what's required around the green, and while new-world data is exactly that – new – what we're seeing makes sense.
At somewhere like Bay Hill or Torrey Pines, a missed green will often result in the ball coming to rest in thick rough, not far from where it landed. Damage is limited by the grass and so are the options a player has. Much may depend on a bit of luck with the lie, but one way or another it's a lofted wedge coming out of the bag. Good misses are under the hole, bad ones above it, and that's just about that.
At Augusta, coming up short at the ninth might mean a 40-yard pitch from a tight lie. Missing left at 10 means running away from the green; missing right means playing your next shot straight down its camber. At the 11th, players are encouraged to bail out to the right, but if they do that their ball might kick further in the same direction. Small mistakes are magnified ten-fold, like short on three and 12, long on seven and 17.
On the one hand, not at all: he's been selected on these pages for this tournament every year since 2018. On the other... he's been selected on these pages for this tournament every year since 2018. Thomas is not yet a Masters champion and, like McIlroy in fact, he's not entered Amen Corner on Sunday with a genuine chance to change that.
But just as patience will be important for the players, it's important when we get to test our Masters theories just once every year. Five chances, during which Thomas has led at halfway (2020), defied a slow start to finish eighth (2022), fought back for 12th (2019) and been well-placed on other occasions, really isn't many, and throughout a seven-for-seven record at Augusta, he's looked a potential champion in my eyes.
This time, we at least get a bigger price than in all of these examples, reward you could say for keeping the faith, and yet there are a couple of potential positives which I feel help make up an irresistible each-way proposition.
First and foremost, he arrives as a recent major winner for just the second time. Rewind 12 months and his underperformance in majors had spanned five years, something he talked about before the tournament. It's why he turned to Jim Mackay, Phil Mickelson's former caddie, and just a few weeks on from a battling top-10 in their first Masters together, Thomas ruthlessly capitalised on a gifted opportunity to land the PGA Championship.
That's got to be in Thomas's favour, to have answered his own criticism and validated his earlier victory in the same event. And it leads us back to another big tick in the box, the fact that he has Bones on the bag here at Augusta. Three times a Masters winner with Mickelson, it seems perfectly plausible that his input helps to explain why Thomas at last putted well at Augusta a year ago, in the same tournament that Bubba Watson's former caddie showed us how worthwhile that kind of input can be.
Of course, there's only so much Mackay can do, and Thomas admitted he was inexplicably bereft of the required focus when the tournament began. That's why he was out of it so quickly and a better start seems essential. He'll be well aware of this fact and wherever and whenever he's drawn for the first round, we should at least be able to guarantee that he learns the lessons of last year and has his head in the game.
Beyond these two points, we know by now that the things Thomas does best marry up perfectly with Augusta. Perhaps only Collin Morikawa can lay claim to being a superior iron player but there's not much between them, and there is in fact nobody who ranks higher in strokes-gained around-the-green this year. Thomas is outstanding when chipping and pitching from tight lies, shots that don't scare him as they do some others.
Now, his iron play has dipped a little, and that explains why he recently dropped out of the world's top 10. It's a bit of a worry but no more than that, especially as five of his last six starts have been good, only for the Genesis Invitational to drag his numbers down. He's not been at the levels of last summer but I doubt he's all that far from reaching them once more.
His preparation has been different to some, skipping the Match Play after 10th place at the Valspar, and that could yet work in his favour. There have been five big events in under four months as the best players gather more often and missing one of them certainly doesn't seem like a bad idea. The tougher schedule also makes five top-25s in his last six starts seem like a decent platform even if others have been battling it out late on Sunday afternoons.
My view ultimately remains unchanged – that he's going to go really close to winning this soon enough. And as others around him in the market, the likes of Spieth, Jason Day and in a different way Patrick Cantlay, have to show they can get it done against elite fields, Thomas is one of the three players to have won a major since this tournament last took place.
For that reason he's narrowly preferred to Cantlay, who is hitting his ball just about as well as he ever has and, granted better work on and around the green, might have won more than once this year. His record in majors is the big question mark but I put him up to win any one of the four this year at 7/1 because I do expect him to work it out, and because he showed signs of doing so in both the US Open and the Open Championship.
Cantlay, Xander Schauffele and Thomas ultimately made up my preferred trio among those quoted at less than 25/1, and it's Thomas who I'm resolutely sticking with. Faced with a tricky up and down he's the one I'd want hitting it; he's also the one I'd want to be standing on that 16th tee in a share of the lead on Sunday. Let's keep the faith and hope that's the sort of situation he finds himself in at last.
Finau's course form is rock solid and he's done all the things you'd like to see in terms of preparing to go ahead and win a green jacket. Famously, his debut 10th came after he'd dislocated his ankle in a horrific fall during the par-three tournament, then on just his second start at the course he played in the final group with Tiger Woods and Francesco Molinari, settling for fifth with a final-round 72.
Seemingly less suited by easier conditions for the November edition, he nevertheless added another sub-70 round and kept alive his cuts-made streak, before defying a slow start to finish 10th again in 2021. There, a second-round 66 added to one he'd carded on debut, plus the eight-under 64 that had vaulted him into that famous three-ball with Woods a year later.
Finau wasn't a factor when 35th last year, but he arrived at Augusta ranked 95th in strokes-gained total and his short-game was a mess. Soon after, he found the required fixes and went on to win back-to-back titles during summer before adding another at a tough course in Houston, where shaved run-offs and the need for big-hitting help draw some sensible comparisons with this place.
Now, he's fourth in SG: total, and that's because everything is working. Finau ranks 25th off the tee, 26th in putting and a solid enough 82nd around the green, a category in which he's produced positive season-long numbers since 2017. His iron play in particular has been among the most consistent on the PGA Tour, gaining strokes in every recorded start so far this season and continuing to pound greens.
Min Woo was 14th on his Masters debut and it perhaps should've been better, as after going out in a record-equalling 30 strokes on Sunday, the wheels came off and he came home in 40, missing an automatic invite to return the following year by just a shot.
He's put that right by qualifying on merit thanks to a string of excellent displays across the world, first contending in Europe, then in the Middle East where he was a shot away from a second Rolex Series win in January, and more recently when sixth in The PLAYERS.
That reminds me a little of Willett, who had contended in the WGC-Cadillac Championship before picking Spieth's pocket here, and both he and Schwartzel were winning for the first time on US soil to prove that it can be done at the highest level – a fact demonstrated by Matt Fitzpatrick subsequently.
The more I look at his profile the more I like, and the more that nagging worry that he's not yet managed to get the job done stateside loses significance.
It certainly won't be lost on Fleetwood that Fitzpatrick managed it and, just like so many major champions, Fitzpatrick's win came after he'd been in the mix for another – in his case just a few weeks earlier at the PGA Championship won by Thomas.
Patrick Reed's 2018 win came after he'd been T2 in the PGA alongside Francesco Molinari, who went on to capture the Open later that summer. Spieth had given Watson plenty to think about when runner-up here on debut and then won the next one. Thomas led the US Open, fell away, then soon put things right in the PGA. Day's sole major so far came after he'd narrowly missed out at St Andrews, and Shane Lowry had blown a big lead in the US Open won by Dustin Johnson, who'd done that before too.
Getting a taste of it, or , can make all the difference.
Fleetwood hasn't had a real chance to win one since playing in the final group of the Open at Portrush, but he finished fifth in the US PGA last year and fourth in the Open, taking his tally of major top-fives to five from fewer than 30 attempts, and produced some of the best golf of the weekend in both events. In total, he's had three what you'd call genuine chances to win a major, which is more than many a higher-ranked player.
It's a rock-solid record which speaks to his level-headed ability to cut through the noise and demonstrate both patience and persistence, assets which could be all the more beneficial in this particular Masters where there's a lot of LIV Golf chat together with some foul weather in the forecast.
Having also made a double-bogey seven on Thursday, a couple of bad swings at the wrong time were all that separated Lowry from Scheffler, nevertheless his Masters record now has real substance to it after three visits in a row which ended in top-25 finishes.
Three missed cuts in his first four appearances had suggested that Lowry might always struggle here, despite magic hands and his quality approach play, but in fairness he'd opened up with a four-under 68 on his second go to hint at a brighter future.
Then, in 2020, he did something that set him on a path to last year's performance: he fought hard to make the cut, did so, and was later rewarded with another round alongside Tiger Woods, with whom he'd played over the first couple of days.
Rose to flourish in the rain?
Sungjae Im has been inside the top 10 at the conclusion of eight of his 10 rounds at Augusta, four in November and then four in April, and his solid bank of form across this year's elevated events marks him down as an obvious each-way player once more.
Unfortunately, that's a view many seem to hold and his price now looks short enough, so at 50/1 and bigger I'm more inclined towards another course specialist with stacks of experience and a major in the locker, JUSTIN ROSE.
Rose won his US Open after a deluge at Merion ensured the week was a real grind and I could see him doing the same here, having rubber-stamped his return to form when capturing the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am towards the beginning of the year.
Two missed cuts followed but he was back at his ball-striking best when sixth at The PLAYERS, holing little, before 36th place in the Valspar Championship where his putter warmed up and he again drove the ball well.
Ninth place in Houston back in November is a nice little bonus as while keen not to place too much emphasis on an event played on a municipal course at a different time of year, there's no denying the fact that the 2020 renewal saw the next two Masters champions share second, and the 2021 renewal saw Scheffler lead through 54 holes.
Rose though doesn't have to prove to us that Augusta suits because he should already be a champion here, having traded at long odds-on only to succumb to an inspired fightback by Garcia six years ago.