MASTERS Weather, Trends, Rankings & Bets
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FREE MONEY
I’m giving away $600 in COLD HARD CASH (1st $300, 2nd $200, 3rd $100) along with two FREE annual memberships to Fantasy National (You need to be a member at Fantasy National already to win those tho. Here, have 20% OFF) Even if you done the reviews before, top it up and bump your name to the top of the list. ANDDDDDDDd if we get 200 new Apple Podcast Subs and reviews, I’ll chuck some more money in the pot to giveaway. He’s how you get your name in the draw:
10 Ballots — Subscribe PME Podcast on Apple or Spotify, leave a 5-Star Review, include your email or twitter handle in the review and you’re good.
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MASTRES PME SCHEDULE
OUT — DraftKings Milly Maker Picks
OUT — Research, Picks, Course, Custom Model
OUT — MONDAY POST — Field, Trends, DK History
OUT — Fantasy Picks, Bets, One & Done + Cursed Players
OUT — Best Bets & Pool Picks
OUT — Final Bets, Weather + DraftKings Picks (Tambo)
THURSDAY — Round One Recap
FRIDAY — CUT SWEAT LIVE
SUNDAY BONUS — LIVE Recap
PME DRAFTKINGS OPEN ($100K in RAKE FREE MONEY)
MAJOR SEASON ONE AND DONE LEAGUE
WEATHER
We just can’t have nice things, can we? Not only does it appear like rain may slow or stop play from Friday afternoon through Sunday morning (RIP Cut Sweat show… again), it appears like it’s going to hilariously windy and quite frigid for a lot of the week. Of course, there’s no need to panic. Yet.
We track this stuff every week, and you don’t need to be Bill Paxton in Twister, to know predicting the weather more than a couple hours out and leave you looking quite foolish. However, you should plan for all plausible scenarios, and with the conditions projecting this way at the moment, you’d be remiss not to adapt your strategy accordingly.
Look, I may be way off base with this — if anyone who followed my predictions over the past decade can assist, they rarely come true — but cold, rain, and windy is like throwing a grain of sand into a computer motherboard. It may short circuit everything. The last Masters I can remember that was contested in these conditions was 2007, when Zach Johnson became the third player to win the Green Jacket with an over par score.
That year, while Tiger Woods, was one of the longer players on tour, check out these driving distance ranks from 2007 from the first page of the leaderboard.
1 Zach Johnson 169th
T2 Rory Sabbatini 88th
T2 Tiger Woods 12th
T2 Retief Goosen 62nd
T5 Jerry Kelly 162nd
T5 Justin Rose 96th
T7 Stuart Appleby 80th
T7 Paddy Harrington 60th
9th David Toms 151st
T10 Luke Donald 177th
T10 Vaughn Taylor 147th
T10 Paul Casey (Didn’t qualify for PGA stats; was still a euro member)
To contrast with 2022, five of the top 10 ranked inside the Top 20 for the year for driving distance, while only one was outside the Top 100: Cam Smith (101st), Morikawa (83rd), Conners (78th), Sungjae (71st), Charl (Not enough rounds to qualify).
The other last truly difficult Masters was the Willett win in 2016, when he won by three strokes at -5. DJ and JB Holmes did secure Top 5 finishes, but Willet, Spieth, Westwood, Soren Kjeldsen, Brandt Sneaker, and Matt Fitzpatrick (at the time) weren’t known for their prodigious length.
I’m not here to tell you Brendan Todd would win if he was in the field, but there are certain players we tend to simply cross off at Augusta, usually for good reason, but this may not be that year. Also, in those two difficult years, 2016 saw six players from the British Isles inside the Top 10 and 2007 had four inside the Top 10. To read this back, I think I may merely be trying to justify a bet on Shane Lowry, Justin Rose or Danny Willett.
MASTERS WIND TOWER: Daniel Field Airport
I tried to build a stat model that attempted to put all the key skills I think go into succeeding in tough conditions, without going overboard with too many stats. This is where a Fantasy National membership comes in handy, as you likely want to tweak the stats for your own liking.
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FREE PROP CONTEST
If you’re looking for a less intensive Masters pool, and one that’s FREE (that still has $500 in the price pool) I suggest you check out MAYO MASTERS. It’s a simple “yes” or “no” pick’em game, open to everyone.
PLAY IN THE MAYO MASTERS PICK’EM GAME
MASTERS BETS
The card is starting expand, ever so slightly. I’m at a crossroads right now, because my gut tells me Scheffler is going to win. I’m thinking about betting him. If I bet Scottie at 8/1, then it’s probably needs to be a complete pass on the 15-35 for me. So, I need to make that decision before adding too much. I joked about Lowry and Rose earlier, but I am serious about those guy this week. Haven’t pulled the trigger yet though.
Geoff (IN STUDIO!!!!!!!!!!) and I talked through where we were at with our bets on today’s show. We even get LIV’s official mascot, TIM ANDERCUST, making his cursed picks. That’s valuable info.
WATCH: MASTERS PICKS, BETS, ONE AND DONE, CURSED
Offcially in so far
Hovland — 40/1
Si WOO Kim 125/1 (With 8 Places)
Min WOO Lee 150/1
Jordan Spieth 1st Round Leader 25/1
Still Pondering: Scheffler, JT, DJ, Lowry, Rose, Morikawa, Abe Ancer
There’s no need for an in-depth breakdown of Augusta National. If you’d made the leap to search out an article on The Masters, the chances of you knowing the course and even the weird nooks and crannies is above 99%.
In case you’re living the movie Blast From the Past, but in real life, Augusta National is a Par 72, which plays longer than its 7,510 yards due to the incredible amount of elevation shifts across the course. As there is essentially no penal rough on the grounds, it gives a lean to those who have extra distance on the field. It’s not essential to have the ability to contend in a long-drive contest since history has proven otherwise, but it certainly makes the path to eagles and birdies on the Par 5s less resistant.
There have been changes to three of the holes over the past two years. The difficult No. 11 scraped most of the trees from the right-hand side of the hole and as we saw a year ago, they’ll still prove to be a nuisance. The Par 5 15th was been lengthened by 20 yards which led to fewer players going for the green in two. This year, the easiest hole on the course has been lengthened by 35 yards. No. 13, the bead on the rosary of Amen Corner, will now have a far more difficult second shot. Most of the field, with a good drive (hell, even with a bad one), was able to attack the green in two, generating eagle opportunities. While we don’t know the in-competition impact yet, Bubba Watson mentioned he needed a 3 or 4-iron for his second shot. 13 should remain the easiest hole on the grounds, but seeing some of the eagles evaporate sounds like a good wager.
Again, while distance is a massive advantage, it’s not everything. Gaining stroke with the driver is, however. Even someone like Patrick Reed, not especially known for his driving prowess, was well above his usual baseline at Augusta in 2018. Reed gained +3.35 strokes off the tee. He’d only gained more than that in two starts in the previous two years before the victory (2017 Travelers; 2017 Memorial). Tiger didn’t gain a ton the year he won (+1.51 SG: OTT), but that was enough leverage on the field to make his +9.02 Strokes Gained: Approach number truly matter. If you decide to back one of the non-elite drivers, their irons and short game better be electric all four days.
So far in 2023, the leaders in SG: OTT per round (from measured events) in the field are Scottie Scheffler, Keith Mitchell, Patrick Cantlay, Gary Woodland, and Cameron Young.
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Difficulty at Augusta tends to vary every year based on the conditions. The impact of damp conditions has lessened over the years because of the filtration system. A lot of courses have a SubAir system under the greens to suck out the water and allow the grounds crew to make the putting surfaces as fast or slow as they want. Augusta has those on each green… and under every fairway, so even if it does rain, don’t expect a long period of time with receptive course conditions.
There are 41 bunkers and six water hazards and a whole lotta pine straw scattered across the grounds. Unless there’s an untimely tree in the way, however, the pine straw isn’t the end of the world. The bentgrass greens are around Tour average in size; the major difference is the wild undulations. These are some of the most hilly and fastest putting surfaces the players will encounter all year. Jon Rahm, Max Homa, Sam Burns, Keegan Bradley, and Aaron Wise have the most Strokes Gained: Putting per round on Fast + Lighting Fast greens over the past 12 months.
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It’s worth mentioning, the LIV players, old guys, and international tour players don’t really factor into these stats since there is limited or no shot link data from their tournaments.
Course history plays a more significant factor at Augusta than any other course. That’s not anecdotal either. Course history on a week-to-week basis holds very little predictive value at most events, despite the prevailing narrative, but The Masters is an outlier in that regard. How else do you explain the leaders in Par 5 scoring over the past three years: Jordan Spieth, Xander Schauffele, Viktor Hovland, Hideki Matsuyama, and Charl Schwartzel. Not the first names that would spring to mind.
Also, look at some courses where there has been crossover success on leaderboards over the year, Quail Hollow appears to have some correlation, as does TPC Deere Run and Kapalua because of the angled fairways, but Riviera CC, with its similar shot shapes from the tee box, unique green complexes and elevation changes, sports a very similar course history crossover to Augusta.
For overall course history, Jon Rahm, Dustin Johnson, Cameron Smith, Justin Thomas, and Rory McIlroy have the most Total Strokes Gained of players in the field over the past five years. Of the non-olds, Billy Horschel, Tyrrell Hatton, Sergio Garcia, Max Homa, Thomas Pieters, and Gary Woodland have lost the most strokes to the field over that same span.
Stupid Stuff!
The Willett Masters win was an all-timer on my gambling resume. Could the 2016 profile pick the 2023 winner??
(yes, I had to write “Daniel” for the sake of the fourth stat. Sue me. It’s the name on his birth certificate)
(Please don’t sue me. I have no money. You’ve seen my betting cards)
2022 Masters (using season long stats)
16 golfers played 50+ rounds and gained strokes via ball striking in 70% of rounds …
Six of them finished inside the top-10 at The Masters
Who is doing that since the beginning of last season?
Will Zalatoris
Rory McIlroy
Jon Rahm
Tony Finau
Scottie Scheffler
Mito Pereira
Cam Young
Justin Thomas
Sungjae Im
Viktor Hovland
Patrick Cantlay
Collin Morikawa
Joaquin Niemann
Eight of the top-9 finishers last season were full-time PGA members for the season (exception: Cam Smith)
Of those eight, seven finished the season top-30 (min. 50 rounds) in either distance off the tee or fairways gained (but none of them were top-70 in both … pick a lane and do it at a high level!)
Who is doing that since the beginning of last season?
Tom Kim
Brian Harman
Adam Svensson
Zach Johnson (gray on Fantasynational)
Kevin Kisner
Justin Thomas
Jordan Spieth
Scott Stallings
Adam Scott
Bryson DeChambeau
Brooks Koepka
Kurt Kitayama
Of those eight, only two gained BoB in a higher percentage of rounds than they gained in Bogey Avoidance
Who is doing that since the beginning of last season (min 75 rounds, needs to be gaining in the majority of both metrics to qualify)?
Here are the guys bettering the field in bogey avoidance at least 10 percentage points more often than they gain BoB
Matthew Fitzpatrick
Jason Day
Mito Pereira
Shane Lowry
Seamus Power
Sungjae Im
Chris Kirk
Tom Kim
Big name players with a higher BoB gain rate than Bogey Avoidance (obviously not a death nail, but a trend from last season)
Viktor Hovland
Justin Thomas
Patrick Cantlay
Scottie Scheffler (he was one of the exceptions last season)
Xander Schauffele
There are three lists above and only four players appeared on two of them since the beginning of last season …
Justin Thomas
Mito Pereira
Sungjae Im
Tom Kim
Still WAYYYYYYYY more to come this week.
— PM