Masters Field, Trends, Bets, Preview
THIS IS THE LINK TO THE 2024 MASTERS CONTENT HUB. ALL MASTERS CONTENT WILL BE ADDED HERE THE MOMENT ITS RELEASED. BOOKMARK IT.
If you like to dig deep into the field, course and all the random stats available, then the Masters Research show is going to be for you. I use Fantasy National for a walkthrough while explaining my earlier Masters bets and build out POWER RANKINGS for the year’s first major.
WATCH: The Masters Picks, Research, Trends, History
2024 Masters Field
Field: 89 Players
Cut: Top 50 and Ties after 36 Holes
First Tee: Thursday April 6
Defending Champion: Jon Rahm
There’s been much finger pointing within golf about the diminishing weekly ratings for the PGA TOUR since LIV started up. It’s been especially pronounced this year with the amount of relative unknowns dominating the Sunday coverage. But maybe this has been a PSYOP all along. Maybe THEY KNEW ratings for golf would start to Peter off and the only way to salvage those giant ratings numbers were to ensure the four events that still have relevancy harbor greater importance than before. Or not. It’s likelier it’s the common sentiment of entitlement, ineptitude, and a terrible TV product.
There’s also the one thing that many seem to forget about the casual public’s interest in golf these days: Tiger Woods is not really around anymore. Tiger was the reason golf ratings and money achieved the heights they did in the first place. It will be like looking at woman’s college basketball ratings in two years vs right now when Catlin Clark is playing and not being able to figure out why interest is down.
Within our little golf bubble, we can pretend like Rory, Rickie, Brooks, Scheffler, Bryson, and Rahm matter. I mean, they do. To the sport, yes. To the public. Not in the slightish. Except for my 87-year-old grandma who tunes into golf exclusively too root against Rory on Sunday. No, I’m not sure why, exactly. The only player who seems to have any impact whatsoever on golf ratings since the LIV breakaway is Jordan Spieth. It’s easy to show this because he’s so infrequently on Sunday leaderboards these days that it’s a noticeable ratings spike in those particular events.
There’s no need for despair this week. The Masters the comfort food even hipsters haven’t turned on. Plus, if you’re feeling alone, no need to worry, Jim Nantz is on the call at Augusta, meaning you have at least one friend. The year’s first Major is currently at 89 players with one final invitation going to Akshay Bhaita winning the Valero Texas Open. Something which almost gave me a stroke.
Since “signature events” have become a thing we’ve seen the PGA’s top players square off far more often than we’re used to by this time of year. That’s great and everything, but The Masters (and all the Majors for that matter) carries even more significance than usual this time around, now that we get the PGA’s best squaring off with their mirror universe counterparts — The LIV TOUR.
OK. Take a break and GET HYPED FOR THE MASTERS
Although LIV tournaments don’t award World Rankings points (they would under the MayOWGR btw), it’s still early enough in the process that some LIV players remain qualified based on their performance pre-defection, and some still carry over their eligibility from past Majors. All former Masters champs are in the Augusta field for life. Like the nWo. Tther Major winners have a 5-year exemption and top finishes in Majors a year ago.
Reigning Master Champ Jon Rahm and PGA Champion Brooks Koepka headline the LIV contingent in 2024. Overall, there are 13 LIV members in this year’s Masters. Down from 17 a season ago: Rahm, Brooks, Cam Smith, Dustin Johnson, Joaquin Niemann, Patrick Reed, Bubba Watson, Sergio Garcia, Bryson DeChambeau, Tyrrell Hatton, Adrian Meronk, Charl Schwartzel, and Phil Mickelson. 14% of the field. Since you likely haven’t paid any attention, LIV has played five events in 2024, with Dean Burmester winning at Doral over the weekend. For Masters purposes, Sergio lost in the playoff whiule Hatton and Rahm were T4.
Now, adding these guys into the mix essentially makes The Masters exactly the same as every other year — it’s not like these guys are the Red Army from the 70s — the circumstances certainly do increase the intrigue, though. Imagine they paired Tiger with Phil. They never will (cowards), but this Tiger/Phil provision really should have been a part of the ESPN/Augusta negotiations since they’re airing the early rounds.
While many of the LIV players have decades of experience at the course, 20 players in the field this week have never played a competitive round at Augusta. The debutants — not just the name of a Jesus music, deep-south teen-girl group anymore. This may be the strongest crop of first-timers too, with reigning US Open champ Wyndham Clark, Swedish Wunderkind Ludvig Aberg, and Valero champ Akshay Bhatia among the debutant ranks. This is where I’m required to tell you no debutants has donned sports’ highest sartorial honor since Fuzzy Zoeller in 1979.
Not to say all debutants will fail. We’ve witnessed some close calls in recent years, Jordan Spieth, Will Zalatoris, and Sungjae Im were all runners-up in their debuts. Sahith Theegala was the only rookie inside the Top 10 at last year’s Masters.
It’s far from a secret experience is a massive edge. Augusta is a unique course with its massive elevation changes, and there is generally a learning curve for first-time players who need to figure out the weird breaks and angles on the fly, and a lack of green books for the players and caddies makes that engrained knowledge a clear advantage.
To pile on with the lack of reps at the course, you need to beware of the poor recent Masters’ results too. Beyond the outlier that was Patrick Reed in 2018, the past 24 champions not only have played in the event the previous year but also made the cut. After Reed, a fresh-faced kid who looked like he was wearing his dad’s shirt named Tiger Woods was the last winner to miss the cut, then achieve immortality 12 months later. That was in 1997. And, that sweater actually did belong to Tiger, much like wearing an onion on your belt, that was just the style at the time.
One I lived through and hope never comes back in style. Tiger was also an amateur the year he missed the cut.
As much as we want to invest in long shots, the Masters is almost always won by one of the elite players. Since 2012, Bubba Watson was the lowest-ranked player to claim victory. Bubba was No. 18 in the world rankings when Charl Schwartzel helped slip him into the Green Jacket. Many think of Danny Willett as the ultimate long-shot since he wasn’t well-known to Americans at the time and cashed triple-digit outright win bets for a lot of bettors, but it’s worth noting the Brit was the 12th-ranked player in the world before he hit his first drive in 2016. Willett didn’t just come out of nowhere either; he was just an unknown to the general public.
It’s important to spend a lot of time parsing through the top end of the 2024 Masters board as the winner is almost certainly going to come from that group. If you want to win your bets or a DraftKings tournament, spoiler, you’re going to need to pick the winner. Only immeasurable insights here.
As mentioned, the field of invitees is currently at 89 players and the Top 50 players will make the cut. COVID wiped out the “all players within 10 strokes of the lead” provision at the November Masters in 2020 and they decided that was a rule that should stick. It’s just the Top 50 and ties after 36 holes now. So, over 55% of players are going to make the cut; just because you squeeze all six players in your DFS lineup through the cut line doesn’t really mean much if you don’t have a squad of golfers competing for a novelty check. In year’s previous, a “To Make The Cut” parlay was an incredibly +EV wager. Unfortunately sportsbooks are no longer as in the dark as the used to be and crushed the odds in that market. Like they do for all markets.
This tells you the group of past champions and amateurs at the very bottom of the pricing is a trap. It shouldn’t take Admiral Ackbar to clue you into that information. But every year I see people jamming in Fred Couples to construct a super team with their other five roster spots on DraftKings. Avoid the temptation of those salty savings. There’s simply not enough upside for them to lead your team to victory in one of the large-field DFS contests. Specifically the million-dollar top prize tournaments.
Every now and again a Bernhard Langer or Couples will play pretty well, but it’s not as often as you probably remember. And the results are certainly not as good as what exists in your mind movies. The reality would likely make your eyes rain. Langer lurking on the leaderboard actually happened in 2016. Not, a few years ago. It’s almost been a decade. AND he ended up finishing T24 that year. Langer was T29 in the 2020 Masters but still finished outside of the Top 30 in DraftKings scoring. As the past champions are far less likely to generate the necessary birdie streaks and eagles to rise up the DraftKings leaderboard. Couples finished T50 last year and had missed the cut the previous four seasons.
If you want to compete for the very top prizes on DraftKings this week you’ll likely need the winner, another two players in the Top 5, another two inside the Top 15 and an outlier player who outscores their finishing position.
$1,000 Cash Giveaway ($250 x 4)
How to get in The Masters Cash Giveaway. It’s quick and easy to get ballots in the draw.
30 Ballots: Use code “MAYO” at underdog for a deposit match up to $100:
https://play.underdogfantasy.com/p-pat-mayo (This unlocks a Jordan Spieth Extra Free Square on UD for Thursday at The Masters Too)
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Course
Course: Augusta National
Yardage: 7,510
Par: 72
Greens: Bentgrass
Past Winners
2023: Jon Rahm -12
2022: Scottie Scheffler -9
2021: Hideki Matsuyama -10
2020: Dustin Johnson -20
2019: Tiger Woods -13
2018: Patrick Reed -15
2017: Sergio Garcia -9
2016: Danny Willett -5
2015: Jordan Spieth -18
2014: Bubba Watson -8
Key Stats
Strokes Gained: Approach
Course History
Strokes Gained: Off The Tee
Strokes Gained: Short Game
Driving Distance
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Hideki Matsuyama 25/1 — Only one player currently rivals Scheffler’s form entering Augusta, and that’s the former champ. Whatever issue he had with his driver in 2023 has been solved and, just like that, he found himself back in the winners circle for the first time in two years. He’ll always be an inconsistent putter, much like a lot of great players, but routinely gaining on the field off the tee, while mixing in upside spike weeks with that putter is a lethal combo with how good his irons have been and his all-world short game. He played C- golf a year ago and still managed to finish no worse than T32 in any Major. With a win and four straight Top 10s entering the year’s first Major.
Shane Lowry 50/1 — If golf was like baseball, Lowry could hire a “designated putter” and have far more than one Major under his belt and more than zero wins in the USA since 2016. The Irishman’s tee-to-green game is among the world’s best, but the putter simply lets him down far too often. You can call him discount Scheffler (or Fancy Luke List) in that regard. And it seems to get worse in final rounds. Of 214 qualified players over the last three years on the PGA TOUR, Lowry ranks 205th in fourth round putting: -0.61 SG:PUTT/round. He’s finished with 18 Top 20s over that period. Still, he’s one of three players in the field with Top 25 finishes each of the past three years and he comes in averaging +5.4 SG: APP over his past three starts. He’s won a Major before, maybe he can just luck into a few putts over the weekend.
Sahith Theegala 60/1 — I only went with a half wager before Houston in the off chance he won and crushed his number. He’s floating around 45/50 right now, but since he didn’t charge the leaderboard at Memorial Park and isn’t playing this week, he’ll drop back into the 60 range (or better for us) when the odds reset Monday morning.
Corey Conners Top 20 all 4 Majors 40/1 (Bet365) — Number seemed too big for someone as consistent T2G as Conners. Pinehurst has a bunch of crappy putters and short game guys at the top in 2014, he’s proven he can handle Augusta, and his game sets up perfectly for recent PGA Championship set ups. Does he have the feel to navigate an Open? Probably not. But at this number I’ll gamble he ends up in aa good wind wave and roll the dice.
AKSHAY LOW DEBUTANT WHATEVER THE PRICE!!!!!!!!!!!!
I’ll see you Monday morning with Geoff and Cust. And DONT FORGET Geoff and I are going to be at the Circa Satudium Swim doing shows from Wednesday to Monday over The Masters. If you in Vegas, come hang with us!
— PM