Ben Coley's preview of the Masters is now available for all Sporting Life readers. Find out who our man is backing for the first men's major of 2025.
Golf betting tips: The Masters Tournament
4pts win Jon Rahm at 16/1 (General; 18/1 in places)
3pts e.w. Justin Thomas at 22/1 (General 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)
2pts e.w. Brooks Koepka at 33/1 (Betfred 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)
1.5pts e.w. Robert MacIntyre at 50/1 (Sky Bet, Betfred 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)
1.5pts e.w. Cameron Smith at 55/1 (Betfred 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)
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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.
There are many reasons this tournament is special, from the general to the niche; you don’t have to be a botanist to have your breath taken by the azaleas around Amen Corner, but you probably do have to be in the weeds of this magnificent sport to appreciate all that makes Augusta majestic.
But the one thing which stands above all others is its familiarity, its permanence. Golf is a sport of the earth, always evolving, yet the Masters is somehow immutable. Augusta National changes, sometimes subtly, sometimes not, but never loses its identity – and the Masters Tournament, now in its 89th renewal, can never leave this sacred place.
Winners have a lifetime pass in the form of a green jacket, a permit to drive down Magnolia Lane. Through it, their place in the history books is secure in a way that isn’t quite true of the other three major championships, not even the Open. Win here, and the rest of your life will be coloured by the fact that you are, always, a Masters champion.
Imagine then how high this mountain has become for Rory McIlroy. His place in the history books is guaranteed, but his time at Augusta? That’s running out, faster than it should be. By rights, this generational talent should have won here in 2011. Had he done so, who can say how exactly his career would have turned out. Maybe he never would have won the US Open, the PGA, the Open, and another PGA.
He would though have a green jacket and if he doesn’t ever get one, McIlroy will most certainly be the greatest player in history to have failed to do so. The best of his peers throughout this, the first post-Woods generation, have almost all done it: Spieth, Johnson, Matsuyama, Scheffler, Rahm. McIlroy’s name is missing.
This will now be his 17th attempt, but his 11th with a somehow heightened significance: win it now, and McIlroy will separate himself further from each of those names, and from that of Brooks Koepka, as this generation’s greatest golfer, its defining golfer.
He is already its permanent one – is it 15 years or 16 among the very elite now? – but not yet its most successful. You get what you deserve in the end, or at least you’re meant to. If McIlroy can win this, the major of all majors, how he will deserve all that it would bring.
And do you know what, he might.
I don’t know as he’s been better prepared, certainly not often. In 2019 he’d won The PLAYERS just as he did last month, but he’d not properly contended in a major, right until the death, for years. Since then, never has he turned up having won a PGA Tour event already that year. This time, he’s done it twice – and at two of the most iconic courses in the sport. Cathedrals, as McIlroy himself called them.
Last time out he crept into the Houston Open, finishing fifth in third gear, avoiding the frenzy another win would have brought, and right now he’s closer to Scottie Scheffler than he has been since the latter first won this three years ago. The gap between them is ever so small. In fact, today, it may not even exist.
Scheffler won’t mind sharing the limelight as he diligently goes about winning a third green jacket in four years. Defending the first time proved beyond him as it does almost everyone, but last year there was a sense that he didn’t even need to be at his best to win this again. While it can be argued that McIlroy has to overcome Augusta to win the Masters, Scheffler only had to acquaint himself with it first.
For now, Scheffler’s star isn’t as bright as McIlroy’s, but were he to defend his title at the second time of asking, he’d emulate Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods. He would also be just the second player in history to win this three times before they’ve captured one of those other majors, which is the sort of aside which suggests it’s long past time I cut to the chase.
McIlroy is my idea of the winner but backing him at 6/1, when you could’ve been backing him at say 14/1 for Pebble Beach, 9s for Sawgrass, isn’t at all appealing. He was the thick end of 5/1 to win a small-field DP World Tour event which came with no mental barriers at the end of 2024; there are better times to bet on him than this, and many of us will cheer him home at the expense of our own selections regardless.
Top of my list has to be JON RAHM.
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.
The primary reason we can still back him at the same price as last year if not slightly bigger is that Scheffler and McIlroy have raised the bar, but I do still feel there’s a bit of LIV Golf bump for Rahm and a few others – a point or two on the price based on an assumption that it won’t be good for their major preparations.
That’s a potentially valid concern, but I must say Doral last week looked a better warm-up than a windy Texas Open, while I have just a nagging doubt that Collin Morikawa hasn’t been seen since The PLAYERS. His chance is just as obvious as Rahm’s bar that fact, but I’d much rather have seen him tee it up at the Valspar or in Houston.
As for Doral itself, it was last on the PGA Tour schedule in 2016 and Danny Willett finished third a month before winning the Masters. In 2014, Bubba Watson had been runner-up, in 2013 Adam Scott had been third, in 2012 Watson had been second.
Even surprise Masters champion Charl Schwartzel had been second there albeit a year before his 2011 success. Dustin Johnson is another former runner-up along with Mike Weir and Masters second Scott Hoch. Tiger Woods has multiple titles at the Blue Monster, while Phil Mickelson has won there too.
By no means do I consider it the standout form guide but it really could be LIV’s best version of prepping players for majors and while Rahm made a couple of late mistakes in yet another top-10 finish, the fundamentals of his game were strong. Off the tee, he was as good as he’s been since last summer, and the putter was firing.
And while yes, the big two set the bar higher than perhaps they did 12 months ago, Rahm’s own form has much greater substance. DataGolf has his 50-round average up 25% from 1.8 to 2.4 as we enter Masters week, a notable rise and understandable given the distractions he had both on LIV and away from golf last year.
With those all behind him, having declared that he feels ‘really comfortable’ and is playing ‘really good golf’ and having said that he too feels Doral was an excellent place to get ready for the Masters, Rahm makes most appeal from those at the front of the market.
Regular (or should that be long-suffering?) readers will know that we’ve spent a lot of credit pursuing the idea that JUSTIN THOMAS might win the Masters, but I have to return to that once more.
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.
Last week’s 18th at Doral won’t leap off the page but his form at that course is very poor for a player of his power and overall ability, so I take it as a positive that he hung around in the first third of the leaderboard all week long without ever contending.
Based on the way he was talking, and two top-10s in his previous three starts (the exception an unsuitable Fanling), Koepka should arrive at Augusta full of confidence and that makes him a massive danger providing the lure of a green jacket isn’t too strong.
Clearly, some will scoff at that statement but he said himself that he didn’t deal with his head-to-head with Rahm very well and that was the second time he’s passed up a golden Masters opportunity, having made a final-round double-bogey when second to Tiger Woods in 2019.
He’s a hard player to price these days, those five major wins contrasting starkly with his lack of consistency at a lower level, but I was really taken with the way he spoke in Miami. With some substance to match those words via a recent second place in Singapore, and stacks of positive Augusta experience, he has to be included.
Sticking with the Doral preparation theme, I was equally taken with CAMERON SMITH’s performance and this genuine Augusta specialist looks a big price.
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.
“Champions Dinner”
— Robert MacIntyre (@robert1lefty)
Mac the Postie is back...
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Back at the . Enjoy Christmas everyone 👍🏻
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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