When your job is to write previews of golf tournaments every week, when you’ve been doing it for a long time, the majors present a big challenge. It’s not so much how you convey that this is different, it’s how you do it without saying what you said the year before, and the year before that, and, if you’ve been really lucky, the year before that.
Where the Masters is concerned, maybe the whole point is that you don’t have to.
In hindsight it was a mistake to side with him last year, because the timing of his defence of the hardest title to defend could hardly have been worse. Rahm didn’t only bring that burden with him to Augusta, but hosted the first Champions Dinner since his bombshell departure to LIV Golf.
While the data tells us he had a shocking time of things with the putter, this is one instance where numbers come nowhere close to painting the full picture. In the circumstances, Rahm can easily be excused his worst Masters yet – and he still made the cut.
With four top-10s in six before he dominated in 2023, Rahm has been comfortable since he first set foot on this hallowed turf and, with his move no longer a major talking point and no defending champion duties to fulfil, there doesn’t appear to be anything to unsettle him this time around.
Having advised Thomas at as short as 12/1 in the past, and with definite doubts now surrounding the likes of Ludvig Aberg (MC-MC), Xander Schauffele (no top-10s since last summer), Morikawa (prep) and Bryson DeChambeau (nine of last 10 rounds here over-par), I can’t get away from the belief that he’s one of the likeliest winners.
Last time out he was runner-up at the Valspar, producing a Sunday burst which, for 15 holes at least, was prime Thomas: swagger, laser-like approaches and, just as he’d hinted at the week before, improved putting. That in itself could be vital.
He does still have to prove he can turn promise into results here having been in the mix at halfway four times without seeing it through to the end, and there’s no denying that missed cuts in 2023 and 2024 leave him with some trends to bust.
However, he reminds me a little of Reed when he won here soon after a near-miss in the Valspar and, like Reed, I’ve always felt his work around the greens makes Augusta a great fit. With his iron play firing again, I’m adamant that it is.
Had Thomas won the Valspar I suspect we’d be talking about a 14-16/1 shot who plenty would’ve been happy to back at those odds, so while two late mistakes cost him a title, they have helped prop up the price of a player who has been runner-up in three of his last nine starts.
Some will feel Thomas can no longer be trusted but this is a 17-time winner, a two-time major champion, a PLAYERS champion, a WGC champion, a Ryder and Presidents Cup top-scorer. That primer at Copperhead might have him razor sharp to remind us just how good he is.
I have more belief in Tommy Fleetwood and Patrick Cantlay than many appear to and both made appeal. Fleetwood has all the boxes ticked really: habitual major contender, Augusta form, brilliant iron play, dynamite around the greens, third here last year. It’s just he played in the Texas winds last week and that’s put me off a bit.
So did Cantlay, whose irons fired as they’ve continued to do of late. I wonder if we might look back on last summer’s US Open effort, where he kept DeChambeau and McIlroy honest, as a bit of a turning point for this supremely gifted player. I also wonder if the short putts that dogged him last week will do so again here.
As such I’ve landed on five-time major champion, BROOKS KOEPKA.
Koepka was just about second-favourite for this last year, based on a runner-up finish to Rahm in 2023 before he’d made it five with victory in the US PGA.
Considering that he’d been in regressive form on the LIV Golf circuit (5-12-12-28-45) it’s striking how much respect the market gave him, especially when you consider that he returns now in seemingly better form but as big as 33/1.
Speaking at Doral last week, Koepka revealed that he felt his long-game was poor throughout last year, hence a humdrum set of results in majors, but clearly has some confidence in it this time after a recent second place in Singapore.
Smith hasn’t set the world alight this year having ended the last one in good form, but he can be excused – he and his wife were expecting their first baby, who arrived a couple of weeks ago. The Aussie was bursting with pride during media rounds in Miami.
Not only was ninth place there as part of the winning team his best golf of the season, but it came at a course which may not really suit. Certainly he’s handicapped off the tee at Doral and it was Smith’s otherworldly short-game which allowed him to climb the leaderboard each day.
On paper, Augusta might also be a bit too long for him but Smith has built up such a strong course record that there can be no such concerns. Since a sighter when well down the world rankings on debut he has five top-10s in seven, under all kinds of conditions, and has never once been close to missing the cut.
Last year’s sixth, courtesy of a field-leading short-game display, came after a withdrawal at Doral and his long-game was excellent for top-10s behind Matsuyama (2021) and Scheffler (2022), while he was nowhere near the player he is now when second to Johnson (2020) and fifth behind Reed (2018).
Buoyed by parenthood, just as Willett and Rahm were prior to winning this, Smith returns to surely his favourite US course with every reason to believe he’s capable of completing the fabled Augusta-St Andrews double, something last achieved by Zach Johnson a decade ago.
Smith loves both courses partly because they demand creativity, and that they do provide opportunities to get on birdie runs. For many reasons he’d be one for McIlroy to fear come the crunch, and at the price (twice what he was to win a Claret Jug) I have to have him on-side.
At this point it feels worth acknowledging that while we’ve had some bigger priced Masters champions in the not so distant past, such as Reed at 66/1, the betting landscape has changed so much since then. A player with Reed’s credentials arriving this year would likely be more like 40s, with bookmakers enhancing their place terms in the battle for custom.
This is a roundabout way of explaining why I’m just not that keen on anyone at massive odds, with history firmly against the debutants and none with experience making enough appeal. In fact, the three-figure option I came closest to siding with was Willett at 500/1, in the hope that his nous could see him pinch a place.
But I’ll sign off instead with ROBERT MACINTYRE, who could just emulate compatriot Sandy Lyle and win this for Scotland.
MacIntyre fell for Augusta the moment he stepped onto the course in 2021, finishing 12th to earn a return in which he showed plenty more promise to be 23rd.
Remarkably, that was three years ago and to demonstrate how far he’s come, consider this: the last time MacIntyre played in the Masters he’d won the Cyprus Showdown. Now, he’s the winner of the Italian, Canadian and Scottish Opens, and he’s gone unbeaten in a Ryder Cup.
One thing he’s always been able to demonstrate though is an ability to tough it out whatever the conditions in majors. MacIntyre made his first 10 cuts, bagging two Open top-10s together with those two good performances here, and while yet to crack the US Open was eighth in last year’s PGA.
The latter gives us some recent experience of contending for a major, always a big pointer for the Masters, and one thing I particularly like about his Augusta credentials is how strong his short-game numbers have been so far. For some, these greens and their surrounds can be terrifying; for Bob, they’ve been a chance to show off.
Magic hands are another big plus – MacIntyre’s wedge play from tight lies reminds me of Phil Mickelson’s – and, with form figures of 6-MC-11-9-9 lately, he arrives in top form. In fact I’d say his long-game has never been better and his putter isn’t far away either.
The one nagging worry is that he went to Singapore for his sole start between this and Sawgrass. Putting on those grainy greens could just come back to haunt him but I’m happy to take that risk after a trip home to recharge, confident as I am that MacIntyre has the ideal game for Augusta.
There aren’t many potential winners who could rival McIlroy in terms of popularity. MacIntyre is one of them and I’ll leave it to one of the most likeable characters in the game and a line from his last Augusta visit to sum up his chances.
"There’s golf tournaments in the world that I feel I can win, and this is one of them."
Posted at 1700 BST on 07/04/25
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