2026 Masters Betting Preview & My Pick to Win

[MUSIC] All right, welcome in. It is late on Saturday night. Just returned from my dad's wedding. I kind of reached that point where I was just like, I'm going to be so tired tomorrow morning, and I want this podcast to be out Sunday morning. Let's just run it tonight. So welcome in friends. Let's talk about who's going to win the Masters. My name is Andy Lack. This is Inside Golf Podcast. If you're just discovering this podcast for the Masters, welcome. My goal is to sort through all of the noise you hear Masters week, all the trends and angles, what's important, what's not important, the misinformation, the stuff you should pay attention to. Hopefully it puts you in the best position to make some bets for the Masters. Or build great DFS lineups for the Masters. And tell you who I think is going to win. I do have an opinion on who's going to win. My betting card is done. I'm not always this sure of myself. Heading into Masters week. I certainly wasn't last year. Kind of had no idea what to do. And I had a pretty bad Masters. Got like some things right. But in terms of my outright card, I was really not pleased with it. And this year, I kind of like, I don't know, maybe it's because I'm looking at things very differently this year from the modeling standpoint. And the last couple of weeks have been really good. But I feel as optimistic and good about my Masters picks as I guess one can feel heading into the week. Now it's really easy to say before the tournament starts. And then it could all go to shit on Thursday. But I'm very happy with who I have. And the numbers I got. And I bet no futures. Like don't get me wrong. There were at points way better numbers on at least two of the guys that I bet. The week of. And if you have bigger numbers on those guys, and I think you should be feeling really, really good about that. And I'll talk about who those guys are a little bit later in the pod. But yeah, I never bet futures for the Masters. It's just one of those weeks where I really need to hunker down for like five days, heading into the week, digest all of the information, and then make my decisions kind of the weekend prior. Last year, I kind of, I didn't really know what to do. And I waited till like Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. And. Like I said, it wasn't a Masters card. I was super happy with. And fortunately, I was traveling this weekend. Like I said, my dad is getting remarried third, third times a charm. So I have had the benefit of a long cross country plane ride. And a couple of eight nights over the past few days to get ready for this. Usually on these Sunday morning pods, they talk a lot about the tournament that is going on, which in this case would be the Vloro Texas open. I'm not going to do that this week. I, I want to because is definitely my best DFS pool of the season. It's probably why I'm in a better mood and feeling a little bit more confident about things. From a made-cut perspective, at least we'll see how things play out. There's a lot of golf to be played given the delays. And I, to be honest, you have no idea what's going on there in San Antonio outside of what I've been tracking on my phone. I haven't had the ability to watch much this week. Hopefully, Fee now or Rio can make a run there for my outright card. And the DFS pool can have a good run out over the weekend. It kind of sounds like it's been a show from a weather standpoint. And like I said, it's going to be a long day of golf on Sunday. I will definitely be tracking along on the plane, but let's get right into the masters. This is going to be about an hour long to maybe 75 minute show. And I want to cover what I think is important at this tournament, how the golf course is going to play, who I think is going to win, and give as much of an opinion on as many players as I can get to. I'm not going to do like a whole by whole breakdown of Augusta or talk about the reasons why I love the golf course and why it's as a special tournament, not that I don't love talking about that aspect of the Masters 2. I just, this is going to be a lot more data centric betting centric as much actionable information as I can pack in in terms of stuff like this angle might be worth pursuing. This one might not be, you know, give as much info as possible because I think I can provide more value in that sense for my audience than, you know, like talking about the strategy on certain holes or why I like this whole. And not that whole or whatever as much as I love doing that, but let's get right into it. Okay, so let's go through the last five years of winners here at the Masters because we have five years of strokes gained data from data golf. Here, Rory McElroy, one at 11 under par, he was ranked second in data golf at the time. He wanted to play for Justin Rose. Gosh, I do want to spend some time talking about the Rory doc at some point. It's not going to be on this podcast, but I thought those are interesting doc. I enjoyed it. I had some had some notes and thoughts, but I enjoyed it for the most part. Rory was plus 650. The scoring average was plus 0.68. It was the easiest Masters from a scoring standpoint that we've seen over the last couple of years. The tournament got easier and easier as it progressed. It was insanely difficult on Thursday and got easier as the week went on. Rory on the week ranked seventh and off the tee first in approach, 10th and around the green and 43rd and putting Rory lost strokes putting that week. In 2024, Scotty Schaeffer. This is the Masters that I went to. I actually bet Rory at this Masters. Schaeffer was 11 under par. His data golf rank was one at the time. He was the best player in the world entering the tournament. He beat one big by four strokes. The scoring average was a stroke harder than last year. Schaeffer was plus 450. And scoring average ballooned to like three strokes over par in round two. That Friday round was brutal, brutal, brutal. But another note to pinch into two for the second year in a row played as the easiest in the final round by far. Schaeffer was second off the tee 14th in approach first around the green. His short game was absolutely out of control. Good that week and 20 second and putting. 2023. The last time I've actually hit a Masters winner was John wrong 12 under par. He was ranked second in data golf at the time. He won by four strokes over Phil Mickelson and Brooks Keppka and all live top of the leaderboard that year. Scoring average was one stroke over par. Ram was nine to one that week. I thought that was a phenomenal number on Ram that year. And he ranked second off the tee six in approach six in around the green and 20 second and putting again same rank as Schaeffer in 2024. In 2022, this was the first Scotty Schaeffer year. He won by three strokes over Rurie McElroy really should have been more than that. He for put it on the final hole. His data golf rank at the time was three. Scoring average was plus 1.86 the hardest Masters of the last five years. Schaeffer won at 15 to one that year. He won Phoenix earlier that year, but he was not the Schaeffer that we think of today given the fact that you could have obviously been at 15 to one for the week. And once again, the final round was by far the easiest scoring conditions. That was a year that Rurie kind of went nuclear for the back door T2 on Sunday. Nineth off the tee six on approach second around the green 13th putting so kind of interesting that the two Masters that Shephaler has won over the last five years have been by far the two hardest one from a scoring standpoint. 2021 Hadecki Matsuyama won at 10 under par. He's ranked 29th in data golf at the time. He won over Will's out Taurus. Scoring average was plus one. Hadecki could be found around 51 that week he was a big outlier in a lot of ways and he ranked 17th off the tee fourth in approach fourth around the green 23rd and putting. So kind of the five year averages that we have for the Masters scoring average 1.25 strokes over par winner odds around 25 to one Hadecki kind of brings that average way up. Winner ranks 7.4 off the tee 6.2 on approach 4.6 around the. the green 24.6 putting so in each of the last five years, the winners worst category was putting while around the green has actually been their best. And a data golf actually had a nice, this is in one of their blog posts, but they basically compared like what the masters winners have looked like compared to the other four major championships. And one of the most interesting findings from that in my opinion is that compared to other majors, this has been by far the major where putting matters the least in terms of winning the tournament and around the green matters the most. It's also the major where approach play matters the most. So this is really, and I'll talk more about this, but at its core, this is a very oversimplastic view of the masters, but compared to other majors, it has most certainly been a really, a contest of approach and putting at its core in terms of what it requires to win this golf tournament. A couple quick notes about the golf course, they're not any major changes at Augusta National this year. And there have been a couple in the past in terms of like an increase in yardage to 13 most notably, but heading into this masters per the GCSA sheet, we are looking at 7,555 yards for the scorecard. Rhygras fairways is always measuring 55 yards wide on average. Rhygras rough, you know, measuring like 1.3 inches, not much rough at all. The greens are bankgrass measuring 6486 square feet on average. Bankgrass, like I mentioned, running 14 on the stem, some of the fastest greens that you'll see on the PGA tour water comes into play on five holes. So before we talk about what it takes to win and who I think is going to win, it's very, very important to talk about the weather. The weather is something we obviously take very seriously inside sports network. We have somebody who's far better than me to be honest with you on the weather in Twitter list, Steve in terms of what he provides in our course report channel and throughout the week, because of the offerings that books are providing on the masters where you know that you're going to get hold of whole props. You know that you're going to get like a bunch of winning scores from different books that aren't usually posting the winning score. This is an amazing, amazing week for Steve to cook and he's been incredible on the scoring average each of the last couple of years. Really, really excited for that opportunity to sit down and listen to what Steve has to say in the discord and really, really dive into the weather. This is more of a layman's breakdown in terms of like this is what I'm seeing on Saturday night, April 4th. This is going to give you like a macro sense of how the golf course is going to play compared to other years. A lot can change over the next couple of days. And we will continue to talk about that in the discord as we get closer and closer to Thursday. But number one, looking at the weather this year, I think the big thing that I would point out and I have a lot more, you know, a lot better like visualizations that I'm putting in my big article. But as of basically like April 1st, the beginning of April, roughly 95% of Georgia has been under drought conditions. This has been like a very, very dry year for Georgia. It looks like we get, might get one passing shower the week of the tournament. But this has been like a long standing drought in Georgia dating back to 2025. Most of the state is 8 to 12 inches below their normal rainfall over the past six months. And Augusta area stations are 3 to 7 below their normal year to date. So this is compared to the previous five years and I break down in the article, the weather conditions this year compared to previous years at the master. So you have some context there. This is the driest pre tournament set up in the recent five year window. So you're probably thinking to yourself, firm and fast masters, super dry, scoring is going to be really hard this year. All that's true. The master is going to play quite firm and fast. What worries me is that I'm not seeing a lot of wind. And the firmness of the golf course, we tend to get firmness at the masters now almost every single year outside of like the COVID year where you had totally different rain conditions. But example of this is like I went to the masters in 2024 and it poured rain on Thursday morning. There was a delay. And I was like, oh my God, the golf course is going to get dry. And it's not going to play firm and fast because they have subair under these greens. And it's like the most controllable golf course on tour. It got so firm and fast by even like Friday morning, that Friday, the scoring average balloon to three strokes over par. Now that was not just because it got firm. A lot of that was because of the wind. And that is kind of the key point that I want to bang home here is that yes, it's going to be drier and potentially even more baked out and firmer and faster than previous years. And even if we do get a shower mid week, a passing shower, perhaps on Monday night, even if we do get some rain, the golf course always bakes out by the weekend. But what you really need at the masters to get to that plus 1.5 scoring average plus two scoring average is you need wind. And despite the fact that it's going to be firm and fast, this looks to me right now on Monday and Steve will do a better job breaking down the wind direction and how that affects certain holes and how the wind direction really impacts the scoring average at a more granular level. It just does not look like there's going to be a lot of wind this week compared to what we're used to seeing at Augusta. Like even stuff like six mile per hour wind gusts on Sunday, that's nothing compared to Friday and 2024 when we saw 30 mile per hour wind gusts. So to me, if you combine the firmness that we're going to see of the golf course, which is a good thing if you want it to be a generally harder masters with the lack of wind, I think we're probably looking at scoring most similar to 2021 or last year where, you know, it played between 0.68 and a stroke over par. And I think this year we're probably looking at that zone. If I had to make a guess right now on scoring average, probably play it, probably say that it plays somewhere between 0.75 and one strokes over par. So not the Sheffler year in 2024, not the Sheffler year in 2022. There just doesn't look like there's going to be a day where it's going to be brutal and you're going to see that scoring average tick up to the two zone. So you kind of have this interesting combination this year of potentially the driest masters that we've seen in a while, but also the least windy masters that we've seen in a while. So let's talk about Aaron loves to type out trends masters week. And I'm not a big trends guy in golf, kind of more like to live and die by the data, but I do think that there are when it comes to the masters, there's some stuff that's worth paying attention to like it. It's I would love to take the contrarian sense and say all of the like attention grabbing trend tweets are worthwhile and stupid, but I think there is some stuff that is really worth paying attention to, especially if you're trying to narrow down and define the winner. And I care about trends a lot less from a DFS standpoint. And I'll talk more about the DFS laid on the show tomorrow night, but like this to me is more of a betting centric preview where trying to help people narrow down the winner. So there are a couple trends that I do want to talk about that I do think are worth thinking about. I get it. Trends are meant to be broken. Trust me. I being that drum just as much as anyone at the masters. I think it's good information to talk about on a podcast because hopefully I can at least talk about the trends that I think are more important than others. So the trends that I'm going to mention, these are the trends that I care about, right? These are the trends that I think are worth at least having in the back of your mind. So the first one I want to say about which isn't like a typical trend that people think about for betting, but something that I've noticed in the data that I think you can take advantage of from a scoring average standpoint. If you're big, you know, in the inside sports community like us and you like to bet the round scores and try and take advantage of books in that way, there's been a very strong trend over the last five years that the final round. And somewhat agnostic to whether plays significantly easier than the other previous free rounds. And I know you think sometimes well, of course, gets the longest amount of time to bake out. Yes, it's firm over the weekend at the Masters for sure, but they also set the golf course up the easiest on Sunday, pretty consistently by pretty large margin, right? So the scoring average on Thursday, Thursday at the Masters is always the hardest day. Typically in terms of setup plays almost two strokes over par, Friday, it plays 1.6, Saturday, plays 1.4. And then Sunday drops all the way to 0.5. So it gets like over a stroke easier than even Friday by Sunday. And over the last five years, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, it's played well over a stroke in a quarter over par, and then you get to Sunday and it plays a half stroke over par. So just in terms of like what this will be our bread and butter in the discord, obviously, is talking about weather conditions from a scoring standpoint, but like just as a macro level, Sunday setups have played a lot easier at the Masters than the first couple of days. And the Masters actually over the last five years has gotten progressively easier by the day. It starts out hard on Thursday, and then it gets progressively easier, which is almost a little counter to what you think in terms of like giving the golf course time to bake out. I do think it sometimes does feel like it plays firmer over the weekend at Augusta, but I think that they counteract that with like some more of the easy and more getable pen positions over the weekends because they like seeing players make runs and also a big part of it is like. You get out some of the guys that are dragging down the scoring efforts on Thursday and Friday. So that's a part of it too. Don't get me wrong. But even with those guys out, the difference on Sunday is like so much more than even Saturday that I would pay attention to how easy they like to set up the golf course on Sunday compared to prior days when you're looking at round scores and such. Okay, so very obvious one here, like long shots don't really win the masters anymore. It doesn't really happen. It's not saying don't bet a long shot. I bet somebody had 150 to one, but the last 10 winners, all of them are top 30 in data golf, eight to last 10 top 20 in data golf. The debutants and I have no problem playing debutants in draft kings, kind of like Chris Goddard up this week, but no debutant has famously won the master since 1979. You know that, right? And eight of the last 10 winners had played in the last three masters. We don't really have to talk about like why that one's important. Obviously, it's a golf course where course know how and course history is pretty important. That one's pretty self-explanatory and obvious. One of the last 10 winners had posted a previous top five at Augusta. Course history quite important here. We'll talk about that a little bit more later. And then another very obvious one that I think is worth discussing. As you see that rowy number creep up is that only Jack Nicholas, Nick Fowldo, Tiger Woods have one back to back masters. Tiger Woods was the last to do it in 2002. Only three defending champions since 2007 have even finished top 10. Never mind to win. So in the last 25 years, only three players have finished top six the year after winning. Tiger Woods in 2006, Jordan Speeth in 2016, and Scottie Schaeffler in 2025. And only four of the last 10 defending champions even finished top 30. So not only is it incredibly rare to contend coming off a master's win, it's rare to even play that well. Another one that I thought was interesting. Don't peek too early, right? So this is going to be relevant to some of the guys playing at the Lero Texas Open this week. I think Ludwig O'Bare and Bobby Mack are going to be pretty popular master's bets. Every single one of the majors. I'm not just talking about the masters. I'm talking about the US Open, British Open, and PGA Championship dating all the way back to 2013 with Phil Mikkelsen. Phil Mikkelsen 2013, Rory McAroy 2014. Those are the only two guys in the last now 12 years that have won the week before winning a major. It's not talking about guys that have won in their prior start before winning the major, but I'm talking about the week before. The guy who wins the week prior to the masters, the Lero Texas Open this week, just doesn't happen. Scotty Schaffler, I would mention, well, this technically wasn't the week before. He missed a six-foot putt to win the Houston Open in his direct start before a major went on to win the masters that year. But generally, if you win the week before it hasn't been a good side to the masters, there's a reason to get off Ludwig or Bobby Mack or whoever wins this week if you like them, but just has been something interesting at the majors over the last 10 years. Nine of the last 12 winners have played in at least three masters, but the sweet spot is really between three and ten appearances. Corey was an exception there. He won playing in his 17th masters last year. Eight of the last ten had a top 12 in the previous month. That's pretty self-explanatory. You got to be playing good golf coming in. And then this is a one that I think feels pretty relevant to me. Like seven of the last ten masters champions won that year. So whatever it is about getting that confidence of getting a win under your belt in 2026, that's been a pretty strong trend seven out of the last ten years had a win that year. Two of the last three had a top five and all had a top 15 that year. You're not going to find a guy win the masters without really finishing having at least a top 10 that year. Now how much do I care about this trend? I bet a guy that doesn't have a top 15 this year. Now he has like six top 25s, but we'll get there later. It's very, very helpful to have won that year. It's very, very helpful. If you haven't at least won that year, then you're mixing and finishing top five often in the previous month. Nine of the last ten had posted a top six in a major one of the last two years. Five of the last six years, the winner of the masters has been one of the three best players in the world, right, with a decky being the exception. That feels like the strongest one, right, where five of the last six years outside of a decky. It's been the most obvious guy it really has. As much as I talked to myself out of Bory betting Rory last year because I felt I was going to become a cliche and I had bet Rory the prior year and I was really confident in Rory and Augusta in the past. Rory was the most obvious guy that year. Rory was playing better golf than Scotty Schaeffler, heading to the masters. He had won the players. He had won a Pebble Beach. He won Dubai earlier that year. He was fitting all of the trends and the same deal with ROM. ROM kind of threw some people off of his set because he played poorly at the API and I think with Drew from the players. Prior to that, ROM had won three times that year, including a signature of that. ROM was at worst a top three guy in the world. Obviously, when Dustin Johnson won the COVID Masters, he was playing the best golf in the world. He was the number one player by a healthy margin. When Scotty Schaeffler won his first masters in 2022, he had also won multiple times that year. He had an amazing, amazing start to the season where he was playing as the best player in the world, heading into that masters. Essentially, if I'm to put all of those trends together and draw a big conclusion, you want a player who has played well at the masters before, obvious, has played the masters between three and ten times, most likely. Before ideally, I should say, but didn't win the masters last year, didn't win the week before the masters, also has solid recent major success, has won a golf tournament this year and has a top three. Top 12 finish in the last month. That narrows it down to four names. And I do think one of these four guys will probably win the Masters in my opinion. John wrong, Cameron Young, Matt Fitzpatrick and Bryson D. Schampel. That's a pretty good list to pick who's gonna win the Masters. And you know, you can still get Matt Fitzpatrick and I know the Cameron Young number is going down, but you can still get Matt Fitzpatrick and Cameron Young at 20 plus. I think Matt Fitzpatrick should still be 20 plus. I don't think Cameron Young should be 20 plus to win the Masters this year. That's it. So those are the guys that fit the most trends. Okay, the next thing that we are going to do is we are going to play some fact or fiction on some of the prevailing narratives that you hear at the Masters and kind of break down whether they're really true or not from a data perspective. So first one, there's a big Masters narrative that we've heard this year. Fact or fiction, is this the most wide open Masters that we have seen in recent memory? Statistically, I think there's some fact to this. Here's the wheat and strokes gained of the foremost recent Masters champions, Rory 2.8, Schaeffler 3.0, ROM 2.73, Schaeffler in 2022, 2.5. So the last four years, the Masters champion has been averaging heading into the year above 2.5 strokes gained. This year, there are only two players above 2.5 and adjusted strokes gained. Scotty Schaeffler and John ROM, although Jake Napp is at 2.48. So Schaeffler ROM won the Masters this year from a statistical standpoint. It would fit the trend of a player at over 2.5 strokes gained winning the Masters. Now if we get someone other than Schaeffler ROM, you know, it probably speaks to the fact that neither Schaeffler or ROM this year have felt as dominant entering this week as the previous four Masters champions. Now, I think ROM is very well respected. Like in the betting community, his number has tamed on some really sharp books. I think people that are paying attention to live have a lot of respect for ROM heading into this week. But I don't think that he's getting the wider spread media respect that he would be getting if he had his strokes gained level and was playing on the PGA tour. So the data golf points have been more evenly distributed this year. You know, and ROM and Schaeffler this year, neither of them are playing as good as Rory played in 2025. Or a Schaeffler played in 2024. ROM is sneakily playing like almost as good as he played in 2023, not quite. And you know, last year Rory won Dubai, Pebble Beach and the players, I know he had a lot of Masters doubters and skeptics because he had that big curse, you know, over Augusta and Augusta was his big bugaboo. And after watching the documentary, even if you didn't believe that Rory was ever going to win the Masters based on the way that he talked about things, I think you're right to feel that way, right? Like he talked about how much this tournament was in his head. So even despite the fact that his stroke's gain, he was playing at such a high level, you know, there were a lot of skeptics heading into the week. And you know, in 2024 with Schaeffler, he won the API in the players, 2023, John Rom won three times, you know, so there was just, there's guys were playing the best golf in the world, right? And DJ was the same way the COVID Masters. But this year, Rory and Schaeffler both have not played since the players, they skipped their prior lead in events for different reasons. And basically, you know, Schaeffler just welcomed, or we think it hasn't been reported yet, that his wife was supposed to have the child a week ago or so. We don't know yet. I think maybe that news will come out this week. But Schaeffler withdrew from Houston, most likely to be with his wife either in labor or hopefully God willing right after the birth of a healthy child. And Rory has a bad back or bad enough back to not play Houston or Valero, despite that working for him last year. And John Rom, like I mentioned, has been playing his best golf sense joining the live tour, but fair or unfair, you know, there's still yet to be a player to win the Masters that has entered the Masters with lives lead in schedule. Live hasn't had a tournament for two weeks. None of the live players have played competitive golf in America this year. So from a purely strokes game standpoint, Rom and Schaeffler are both having almost as good of a season as the average of the last four Masters champions, but it still doesn't feel as dominant as what we've seen out of the last four Masters champions, even with the Rory skeptics. He was playing such dominant golf heading into Augusta. And I think that's likely contributing to a more wide open field this year, is that the two guys that are playing the type of golf that generally wins you the Masters, whether it be Schaeffler or Rom, there's questions about Schaeffler. And because Rom's doing it on live, I just don't think as many people are paying attention to it. Factor fiction, the Masters is the most predictable event on the PGA tour. So one I've heard a couple of times already this week. This is fiction. Let's take a look at the slope the last three years, which measures how much better players have separated from weaker players. You know, if the slope is greater than one, then better players have separated from weaker players at an above tour average rate. The slope on average at the Masters has been 0.95 below tour average rate. Now let's dive into that. Let's explain that. What seems to confuse many, I think, is that Augusta does have the highest course history correlation on the PGA tour, but that should not be confused with the predictive value of the golf course based on its ability to separate talent. In fact, the massive correlation of course, history at the Masters, likely has an inverse effect on the slope. So when a course has high course history correlation, it means that if a player has played well here in the past, they have a better chance of playing well here in the future compared to the average PGA tour golf course. And what we often actually see at Augusta is lower skilled players with great course history play well. So this has a positive effect on course history correlation, but an inverse effect on the slope examples of this would be like Phil Michelson or Fred couples playing well at the Masters like well into their 40s and 50s or, you know, Tiger making the cut despite it being his only tournament of the year. These are statistically very low skilled players at the time that play very well at the Masters somewhat randomly, but not really randomly because guys that are not playing good golf but have good course history at the Masters come in and exceed their expectations all the time. So this concept that Augusta separate skill better than any other course is fiction, but the reason why that's fiction is because lower skilled players with great course history have a better chance here than nearly any other course on tour. I was listening to that. The club can call Wiley pod and he talks about how Zach Johnson last year won him the milley. I'm like, I completely forgot that Zach Johnson finished T seven of the Masters last year. Zach Johnson has been terrible for three or four years straight and that's not me saying, well, you know, go play Carl Schwartz on bubble Watson and you're line up this year, but it happens a lot more than you'd think at this golf course. And that kind of like brings down the slope of and kind of the widens the range of outcomes that there really is all of this evidence that the one thing that can sneakily happen at the masters is you know if you are a guy that's played really well here in the past you can sneak out a top five regardless of how you are playing. So that's another interesting one. Now this next one this is an interesting one to get into and that is factor fiction Augusta is a Bomber's paradise because there's kind of some conflicting data to dive into. I think it's fact but let's talk about it. So if you look at kind of the data golf chart here very surprisingly Augusta has the only favorite bombers one out of the last six years and three out of the last six years it's actually favorite accuracy and in 2025 and 2022 it's strongly favorite accuracy. And if you look at the five year average long hitters compared to their baseline have actually lost minus 0.17. Short hitters have been neutral accurate players have been neutral and inaccurate players have lost 0.01. Surprising right I mean long hitters have lost at their baseline compared to other tour courses when they play Augusta and long hitter they're actually the largest discrepancy to their baseline. That's hard to believe right because Augusta is this driver heavy golf course where everyone hits fairways and it's got the 30s fairways hit on tour. Why does fairways on tour miss fairway the penalty middle the pack to on the lower end the rough penalties below average there's barely any penalty strokes out there the golf courses long and like these are all properties that make you think this is better for longer players Augusta has like all of these like tail tail old signs of like this is a golf course that is better for longer players than it is accurate players right and distance is predictive out of Augusta compared to tour average and accuracy is not distance is always more predictive than accuracy because it's a more predictive stat but over the last five years the players that it is favored have been more accurate guys and distant longer players have not performed as well but if you look at prior to 2021 prior to when we had strokes game data and data golf has like an amazing blog post on this that I would really recommend it's a great read prior to the last five years bombers really did tend to over perform at the masters while accurate players under perform and that resulted statistically in a bomber advantage of point two strokes per round so prior to the last five years Augusta was the fifth most bomber friendly venue on the PGA tour and that's something that like I think if you just look at the data golf data over the last five years you would think that oh like let me be contrarian here this is an accuracy over distance golf course you have to I found this in a blog post right and so the last five years we've seen that 20 year long history of favoring bombers by point two strokes foot right and longer hitters have now been under performing by point one strokes per round relative to accurate players since 2021 Augusta has still been one of the best golf courses for bombers to kind of realize their distance advantage off the tee right we lots of drivers wide fairways so how do we explain the fact that bombers have really under performed here the last five years versus accurate players especially given the fact that the golf course is long too and so you have more long arms at Augusta and which is actually going to help longer players separate even more and so logically taking in all of this information reading the data golf blog the best explanation of this that I would have that it appears to be to explain why bombers have under performed here the last five years is basically noise right that they have under performed on approaches and putting since 2021 pretty noisy like little predictive value and that kind of leaves me to believe that it's a sample size problem right and so before you say oh no look at the data here it's showing that accuracy it's actually more important than distance at this golf course nope if you go back even further there's kind of more of a 20-year larger sample size where bombers actually have over performed by point two strokes and accurate players have under performed and then you just kind of have like this weird noisy thing over the last five years where bombers have under performed at the masters compared to accurate players so personally for me my interpretation of the data is fact is that you still want distance over accuracy on this golf course I know you won't I know you wouldn't think that if you look at some of the charts from the recent five years but probably why they put a blog post down on this because the data surprised them as well and me personally like the last five years is far more a result of sample size that is very difficult to explain based on our anecdotal understanding of Augusta National and all the components that make this bombers paradise but I would still lead distance here 100% that confirms kind of like my anecdotal understanding like that bias that I have from understanding what type of golf courses is compared to other golf courses and it was at least like great to read that and see that over a much larger sample size it did go back strongly in favor of bombers if it's more accurate players are favored this year the sample size keeps growing and it's worth diving into further and seeing if there's an explanation that I might have missed or I might not be thinking of looking at the data but for me personally I would still say go with distance over accuracy on Augusta National without a shadow of it out that ends our factor fiction portion of the show let's go into talking about a couple other things that I think are important at Augusta and then we're gonna talk about who's going to win so some of the other stuff that I found interesting when like combing through some of my research it's an easy golf course off the tee it really is I don't know if that gets talked about enough but like there are a lot of drivers there's not many penalty areas but it's it's insanely challenging elsewhere it and I know there's been this like accuracy matters at Augusta more than you think I think it does matter more at Augusta more than some people think but I don't think it matters anywhere close to the challenge of it as an approach golf course as an around the green golf course as a putting golf course that has everything to do with these green complexes and how unique these green complexes are compared to other golf courses on tour it ranks 31st and off the tee difficulty third in approach difficulty second in around the green difficulty and fourth in putting difficulty so the data really supports that the easiest aspect of Augusta National by far is off the tee and that basically means that from any given distance where's they're going to hit it farther away from the pen hit fewer greens chip it farther away when they do miss a green and make less pots these are all things that are harder super super hard at Augusta National compared to the average PGA tour course once you get off the tee the greens in regulation percentage it's very low here it's around 55 to 60 percent maybe and around the green matters even more in the harder years I don't think it's going to matter as much as it has the chefler year when you gain like nine strokes around the green to win in 2024 but it is the toughest golf course in around the green difficulty from the fairway tenth toughest from the rough and 27 toughest from the bunkers so scrambling from the short grass remains so so relevant on this golf course we're ranked seventh in putting difficulty from inside five feet 20 second and putting from five to 15 feet and every year it has been the toughest lag putting course on tour so if you really want to highlight ancillary skills right and you want to model like on batsports or something putting from outside 15 feet fairway around the green shots very hard and very important And I was looking at this. This is in another blog post, but there's a very useful way of like, if you look at Augusta Nationals, expected shots from each bend, what you really want to value on this golf course in terms of ancillary skills, and you can kind of look at their data golf profile and see in the percentiles, whether they're good from like 30 feet plus, whether they're good in around the green play from the fairway, but around the green play from the fairway at Augusta National, plus 2.35 value, compared to the average PGA tour course. Like, that is so, so many more and so much more important, chipping from the short grass at Augusta. Like the data backs this up, I cannot emphasize how important this is. Approach from 100 to 100, excuse me, approach from 150 to 200 yards, very, very important, putting from two to five feet, very, very important at Augusta National, putting from 30 feet plus, very, very important at Augusta National. You gotta be fucking super confident on your short puts. You gotta be a great lag putter. You gotta be awesome at chipping from the fairway, and you've gotta be great from 150 to 200 yards. Things we don't care about at all at Augusta, skills that are devalued, approach play inside 150 yards, completely devalued at a golf course, like Augusta National, around the green play from the rough, completely devalued at Augusta National. Like the skill of chipping out of the rough, very, very devalued at Augusta National. So, we put, and based on shot distribution here, players are gonna be hitting two more longest iron shots per round, and one to two fewer wedge shots, plus two more pit shots from the fairway, and one point two fewer from the rough. So again, like at Augusta National, this is really, really going to favor players who are good mid to long iron players, and good chipping off of short grass. And if you're kind of looking for some of the players that are really good chipping off of short grass, on their data golf profile, you can see their percentile, if you look at the percentiles of fairway around the green. Very, very important this week, compared to fairway around the, compared to around the green from the rough. So what actually matters, I would kind of put all this together, and from like a predictive standpoint, for my modeling, for our projections, we have around the green play, super, super above tour average, from predictive value standpoint. That makes sense logically. We talked about like how many more short game shots you're hitting at Augusta National, around the green play on courses with a lot of short grass, tend to be a lot more predictive, then around the green play on golf courses with a lot of thick rough, 'cause thick rough dums things down, lowers the predictive value. That's why you see predictive value around the green play actually lower at Augusta, at excuse me, at Arnold Palmer in the Vitaitional, despite the low greens and regulation percentage. This has like all of the makings of a course where short game is insanely important. And I still don't know if people realize like the, it's tricky because around the green play isn't in general as predictive of a statistic as approach play, but compared to other tour courses, this is around the green heavy as you possibly want to be. This is as important as around the green play is going to matter at a single golf course on the PGA tour, both in terms of skill and in terms of importance. And so when I do my course fit adjustments, I'm up 5% in driving distance, down 15% in driving accuracy, up 5% in approach, up 45% in around the green play. And that is data driven based on the plot. That's not manually something I'm doing. That is me looking at the data in the radar plot and saying that around the green play matters 45% more at Augusta National, that it does on an average PGA tour course. -5% in putting. And if you look at the five year variance decomposition, off the tee moves the leaderboard less than tour average, approach moves it right around tour average, around the green moves it way above tour average, putting way below tour average. So off the tee and approach ball striking, in terms of how it moves the leaderboard at Augusta, it's not dissimilar from the average PGA tour course. What changes at Augusta National, if I could distill it into one sentence, like what changes at Augusta National, the most compared to another tour course, is that putting goes down completely and around the green play shoots all the way up. So kind of my weights after a 15% variance decomposition multiplier, 26.2% off the tee for projections, 27% approach play, 30% around the green, 16.6% putting, putting well below average around the green well above average, approach play right around tour average, off the tee play a little bit lower than tour average. Of that off the tee play, I have distance at 64.7% and accuracy at 35.3%. And as I have alluded to multiple times in this podcast, the last thing I would say before we talk about who I think is gonna win, in terms of the predictive nature of course history, Augusta ranks first on the PGA tour by really wide margin. It's nearly double the second highest correlated golf course. So it should not come as a surprise, like we said, we haven't seen a first time winner since Fuzzy's LR in 1979. But the one thing that I would mention is that from a DFS perspective, do not be afraid to take some players to finish top 20, right over the last couple of years, like 2023, so Hith finished ninth as a debut. Tom Kim, Sam Bennett both finished 16th as debutants. Prior year, Guch 14th, Minwoo 14th, Harry Higgs 14th, Sal Torres in 2021 finished runner up as a debut, Bobby Mack finished 12th as a debut, two years ago, Ludwig finished runner up as a debut. So twice in the last five years, we've seen a runner up, excuse me, we've seen a runner up finisher, Badaewton. And like, that kind of seems like they're sealing. Is that debutants can finish as high as second, but they never really seem to win. But it's just interesting, 'cause it's like, I think for a long time, we've kind of concluded that like, the greens at Augusta, you need to learn them. That's something I hear a lot, like, prior putting success at Augusta is more important than recent putting form, 'cause the greens are so specific, and you need to learn how to put on them. And like, Ludwig, led the field and putting in his first appearance at Augusta National. So, again, if I was to play factor fiction for the debutant thing, like, don't be afraid to play debutants in DFS, especially if they're playing great golf. I think God are up can totally mix at the masters this year. But they just don't seem to win. I don't know, maybe God are up for it, 'cause I'm trying to, I don't think he is like the strongest debutant that we've seen at Augusta coming in a while, but he's pretty damn close, based on his skill set and the way he's playing. God are up, he's got a really underrated short game. It's a ball mile off the tee. He's a good long-earn player, much better long-earn player than he is a wedge player. But I don't think that you need to, I don't think you need to be scared of these guys in DFS, especially if they come in with lower ownership, because of that narrative that people don't think that they can win. I think from a DFS perspective, like if you're playing a guy like Chris God are up at $8,000, he doesn't need to win to make you a million dollars in DFS. If a debutant this week was 10.5K, and your expectation was, if you're playing him in DFS, well, this guy needs to win, or I want this guy to win, if I'm going to win all the money in DFS, then yeah, don't play him, but there's no debutant above 8K in DFS this week. I wouldn't, I just, they finished top 20 at the Masters all the time. And multiple debutants will probably finish top 20 at the Masters this year. Two years ago, Adam Shank and Matthew Povina, finish T12 at Augusta as Debbie Todd's and they're not half the player that Chris Goddard is sorry, Devin, on the pivote and dry by. But anyway, you know, the comp courses that gets talked about a lot is Riviera. I think that's, it's not like a huge comp course week, really. I mean, Augusta is really this like singular, singular golf course and there's so many like ancillary important things to be like, oh, like this is a reason to be high on the player because he's fucking filthy with around the green play out of the fairway or he's an awesome lag putter or he's played great at Augusta all these times. I wouldn't like this guy's played great at Riviera. So that's my reason to be on it. But is that I guess like the the most similar golf course? Probably, I mean, quail hollow to me is pretty close, I think from a required skill set standpoint, that has like big, undulating greens, tons of short grass, no misfairway penority, particularly the way they've set it up recently for like the PGA championship, I think. You really have to look at much outside of prior master's performance, but I guess quail hollow and the way they've set up Memorial Park the last two years and Riviera isn't bad either. Okay, so I plugged all of this together in a model and you can look at my very more specific model weights on my article on InsideSportsSetwork.com as well as you know the full model from one to I think 92. But let's run through the top 20 and then I will tell you who I believe is winning the master's this year. Okay, number one, Rory McElroy. Now not factored in my models that he's dead because he's the defending champion, but Rory actually rates out very marginally, like very fractionally better than Scotty Schaeffler who's a close number two. A couple of reasons for this. Rory has been quite a bit better off the tee, quite a bit longer. Rory's been pretty significantly better approach player than Scotty Schaeffler this year. Scotty's had a better short game, but Rory's had a very good short game and Rory has particularly been gaining a lot more strokes on approach than Scotty Schaeffler this year with his long irons. Now again, their neck and neck, they are the difference between Rory and Scotty for me in terms of their total. Their total z scores, the difference between one, three, two, six, four and one, three, two, five, one. So point zero, zero, one, three of a difference, which is absolutely tiny. But yeah, Rory at 11.6 I think is totally playable. I would based on their draft King's pricing, I would actually probably play Rory at 11.6 versus Scotty at 14.14 K. Number three, John Rom. More on him later. Four, Zander Schaeffler and then there's a bit of a gap. So statistically like Rory, Scotty, Rom and Zander are really the highest rated players here. And then there's a bit of a gap before you get into Tommy, Morakawa, Mathets Patrick, Ludwig, maybe Ludwig goes up a little bit after we factor in his full arrow numbers. This is pure like data. You know, I'm not none of the trend stuff is a factor into my modeling. Nine Hedecki, 10 Cameron Young, 11 Minuli, 12 Bryce and D. Shambo, 13 C. Wu-Kam, 14 Harris English, 15 Victor Hoveland, who short game has improved. 16 Patrick Reed, 17 Jason Day, 18 Corey Conner's, 19 Patrick Cantley, 20 Jordan Speed. So who do I think is going to win the Masters, who have I bet to win the Masters? Because my betting card is done. I'm at Wood over 7X. It's my normal exposure. I'm not overexposed this week. I have been able to fit the three guys that I want on my card the same way it would be every week. The first bet that I made is John Rom, 12 to 1 on that Rivers. John Rom was the guy I had the last time I hit the winner of the Masters. So hopefully we can bring those good vibes forward. Let's talk about why I think Rom's going to win the Masters. Nine appearances at the Masters. He's made every single cut. Six top 15 finishes, five top 10s, three top 5s and a win obviously in 2023. He's been amazing here for the most part. He is eighth in recent off the T-play, 18th in distance, 90 second in distance percentile, 98th in driving percentile. He's one of the best drivers of the ball in the world. We all know that about rock. He's been arguably a better approach player this year. 12th in approach play from 150 to 200 yards, 18th from 200 yards plus, 98th in overall approach play, 98th percentile from 150 to 200 yards, 98th percentile from 200 yards plus. Dirty short game, 18th in around the green play, 96 in around the green percentile, 93rd in fairway around the green percentile. Rom's been putting great this year. 16th in recent putting, 6th in lag putting from 30 feet plus, 88th in putting percentile, 84th in lag putting percentile. Five starts this year. John Rom has five top 5s, three runner ups, and a win at live Hong Kong, and he is coming off a playoff loss in South Africa where he gained 4.1 off the T, 2.8 on approach, 1.8 around the green, 3.8 putting. The driver's been amazing. The approach play has been even better. He's got a way better short game than Bryson right now, and he's making more puts to. I think may not seem this way because a lot of people don't watch live, and I don't watch much live, but I do really pay attention to it as it pertains to lead in form in the majors. And Rom makes the most sense. He should win the Masters. Now does that mean that he's going to win the Masters? Of course not. In fact, totally think we're due for some trend breaking stuff based on the way that, you know, there's not a queer favorite this year, and there's chinks in Scotty. Chef or Sarmar, they're chinks in Roy MacCorey's armor. Colin Markcala isn't what we thought he was going to be based on a couple of weeks ago, but John Rom checks the most boxes for me by a healthy margin, and don't really care how popular he gets. Don't really care how many people are on him from what I've seen right now. Seems like kind of the right people are on him in terms of what I pay attention to and not really the tournament to outsmart yourself or overthink it. And I've made that mistake in the past. I made that mistake last year. I bet things like Justin Thomas at 25 to 1, and Hideki Matsuyama, who actually do really like this week. And Patrick Cantley and Bob Mac at Big Numbers. And, you know, I've been, I've been that guy that's like, man, I'm insecure about betting Rory again. I don't want to be a Homer. I get what everyone's saying that he can't win a Gusta. And it's like, dude, that didn't work at all last year. Like the guy that was checking the most boxes that was playing the best golf one. Doesn't matter how obvious he is. Doesn't matter how much of a square play he seems. Doesn't matter what media members are picking him. Or what narratives, you know, you have on him that generally the betting community will scoff at. The most obvious play the master's and I don't really care who else picks jog wrong the west of the rest of the way because he makes the most sense to me by a wide margin in terms of the things that I care about. I thought the decision between him and Bryson would be harder for me and it wasn't when I really dove into it. Another trend that I didn't really talk about that, you know, I think I don't this isn't the biggest reason about Bryson. I mean, I when it comes to ROM and Bryson because they're they're going to get talked about a lot together because they are both on live. ROMs, they both won the last three live events. Bryson just beat him in a playoff, but ROMs been hitting his irons a lot better than Bryson. His short game, I trust so much better than Bryson. And the other thing that I don't want about Bryson is he was in the final group last year and generally players that made it really far in the masters the prior year don't play great the next year. There's not a lot of top-end final group leaderboard carryover the year prior. It's hard to play in the final group at the masters and back-to-back years. And even if that didn't happen with Bryson, I would still take ROMs approach play around the green play and putting his far superior to Bryson's right now. And in the data for me, Bryson's ability to separate off the tee and gain like potentially eight strokes off the tee is not as valuable to me based on what I think I can get from ROM around the green and with his approach play. And potentially with his putting to Bryson, I set some shaky putting performances this year also. ROMs and putting better than Bryson too. So I think ROMs going to win. I will tell you who I don't think ROMs going to win. This is my second bet and it's at 25 to 1 on bet online. I believe 25 might still be available on Cezars or Bet MGM and if not, he's still 22 or 23 at on bet online. I think he should be like 18 to 1 to win this tournament and that's Cameron Young at 25 to 1. He missed a cut last year. I don't think that's a bad thing. He has dominated off the tee here has two top tens in four appearances. And he is a dominant driver. The golf ball fourth in recent off the tee play, 97th driving percental 88th distance percental, 20th in recent approach play, 90 second in approach percentile, 91st in approach percentile from 150 to 200 yards, 20 second in recent around the green play, 75th in around the green percentile, 76 and fairway around the green percentile. Very good short game like not elite doesn't have the short game of ROM or Shaffler or even Roy. Very good short game, totally serviceable. And he's been a great putter. He is 95th percentile in putting, 92nd percentile and 30 feet plus. He's not those two top tens at the masters. He's coming off a win at the players where he gained 2.6 off the tee seven strokes on approach gained 4.8 putting. Don't know why he hasn't played since the players. And I would really like him even more than I like him if he had played since the players, but I don't think it's a reason why, you know, he hasn't played since the players in the same way that like Roy might have some injury concerns and Shaffler, you know, just had a kid. I just don't think he like felt like he needed to play call after winning the players. And I think he's confident in this game and completely ready. And he's a total stud and a total alpha. And I hit him at the players. And I'm going back for more. I love the guy. I think he can absolutely win the masters. The guy who's won the players has won the masters the last two years. Cameron Young showed he was the alpha on the PGA tour this year. And the alpha on the PGA tour that year has won the masters in the last two years. He's made every cut this year. He's got three top tens. He's entering the masters with three top 10 finishes in a row. The driver is outstanding. The approach plays great. The round the green play is good enough. He's great putter with solid course history. And, you know, as close as Xander for me, I like Xander quite a bit. I would have liked to see him win this year. And I just think like Cameron Young getting that win at the players has been such like this massive confidence booster into winning the masters that I think Cameron Young is playing more confident golf right now. And he should walk into this masters believing that he is one of the two to three favorites to win this golf tournament. I know the odds board doesn't reflect that. My numbers wouldn't even reflect that. I still don't think that Cameron Young should be favored to win this tournament over Rory or Scottie Schaeffler. But I hope he's got a lot of confidence right now because it's why it's right. It's right there for him. And Cameron Young can look at this situation and say, don't know what's going on with Schaeffler. I don't know what's going on with Rory. I don't know what's going on with all those live guys who haven't played in America this year. I'm the guy. And I think in being higher on the odds board than Ludwig is a touch disrespectful based on what we saw at the players. Now Ludwig may win Valero and that be great. But Cameron Young I still trust his short game more. And his approach play has been just out of this world this year as we saw at the players. So give me Cameron Young 25 to one. 150 to one. I bet Harris English to win the Masters. I love Harris English. He's in a big lineup for me when he finished second at the PGA championship last year. He's been good at the Masters. He's got three top 25 finishes and he's finished 20 second and 12th last two years. His short game and putter has been great here. He has been driving the ball very well this year. 81st and driving percentile. He's a totally elite putter. He's second in this field in bankgrass putting 12th and recent putting 97th and putting percentile 94th and putting percentile from 30 feet plus. I think if you have that guy that contains based on the strength of his putter like Justin Rose last year. Harris English is my Justin Rose this year. A lot of people think that's Adam Scott. I like Adam Scott. Harris English is the Justin Rose of this year to me. They're the same price in draft games as Rose was last year. English has been playing great. He's got the form on difficult golf courses. He's got the form in recent majors. He just finished 21st in Houston where he gained 2.4 on approach and gained 4 putting in eight starts this year. He's got five top 25 finishes. The driving's been great. We got a nice approach performance out of him in Houston. He's been a lot better with his middle to long irons. Elite putter great chipper off of short grass. Serviceable course history. He's 150 to one and like if we get a master's winner that's random. You know that like I said that Justin Rose of last year. It's Harris English to me. I love love love the bet at 150 to one and will most certainly be placing a pretty big position on him and looking for him in matchups. That's it. Like I said a little over 75 minutes. A lot of players I want to talk about that are interesting. I have opinions on, you know, if if I didn't go the rom route, I would have absolutely bet Matt Fitzpatrick and Min Wouley. I like both of those guys quite a bit. I'll talk about them more on the other shows I did. But let's call tonight. It's well past midnight for me on the East Coast. I went straight from a wedding into this podcast and you know if you like this content, I would say you find a lot more of it on Inside Sports Network this week. We really do it out for the Masters extra premium show with Twitter. Let's Steve we have a very big golf better coming on our premium show on Wednesday night as well. Our weather information will be top tier. Our projections will be top tier thanks to Tyler and just been really really proud of my team this year, they've just done an incredible job. And they're just they're just winning. You know, like everyone on set like Josh, back Kyle, like all these guys like three outrights in a row, four outrights in a row, two outrights in a row. So, um, join in on the fun. It's been another good week for us at Polaro and at InsideSportsNetwork.com. Great time to sign up for the Masters and you know, if if you don't want to do that, I will always continue to prioritize free content. Um, and, um, for me to keep doing that, it really means a lot on these big weeks. If you could give a like and a thumbs up, leave your Masters winner in the comments, share the show around on Twitter. Um, these weeks are really, really are big ones. And in what I do, really try and put a lot of effort into them. And my team really does as well. So, um, telling a friend about the pot or sharing it around or leaving a nice comment on Apple podcasts or YouTube really means more than you know. And I hope that this preview was very educational for you and gives you, um, pretty much everything you need to go make your own decisions at at the Masters. Cause you can definitely tell you that the data analysis is as good as I've ever been on data analysis. But you know, I don't always make the best subjective decisions based on, um, strong data analysis. So hope there was something in there that maybe was useful to you and then put you on a different player that maybe I'm overlooking or didn't think of and can help you in that way as well. Um, so best of luck with your bets this weekend at the Valero and it's frickin Masters week. So let's dial in, um, hop in that discord. If you want to talk more Masters with me and have any more specific questions that you want to talk about, we would love to have you at ISN shoot me a DM a message in the discord. And, um, I'm fired up as ever for this week. Um, have a great rest of the weekend again, shout out to my dad. Um, it's a beautiful wedding. I think I, the speech was a big hit, which I was, which I was happy about. Um, I get pretty nervous on those things despite talking into a microphone for a living. But, um, the jokes, the jokes seem to land with the, uh, with the over 60 crowd. It was, it was an easy audience tonight. So that will do it for me. I'm going to get some sleep, got a big travel day back to LA tomorrow. And we'll see you back on this podcast feed for the DFS show tomorrow. Cheers. ♪ And then send the back roll ♪