The Masters 2026

This is the week where you know why you’ve been patiently banking favours all year. It’s time to cash in, take control of the remote control and settle down for four of the finest days of sport of the year. Major season is upon us and Augusta National takes centre stage for the Masters tournament.

Rory McIlroy returns to defend the title he won so memorably last year. During a dramatic final round, a surging Justin Rose eroded what had looked for so long like an insurmountable lead, only for Rory to put his approach in the playoff to a couple of feet. In doing so, he finally secured that elusive career grand slam and cemented his place amongst the legends of the game.
As ever, we rely on the established patterns to help us narrow down the search for value. More than any other venue, Augusta takes time to learn and a solid history here is virtually essential to be considered a realistic prospect to win. While everyone knows that rookies never win (at least since Fuzzy Zoeller bucked that particular trend a couple of generations ago), we shouldn’t discount them entirely for betting purposes given that the likes of Will Zalatoris and Ludvig Aberg showed that it’s perfectly possible to contend on debut. History shows that there is very rarely a complete surprise here, with the winner almost always coming from the top 30 in the world rankings. Even Danny Willett, who was considered a surprise winner, ranked inside the top 15 at the time.
It’s pretty well-known that Augusta is primarily a second shot golf course. Being able to control your ball flight, hit your landing spots, making sure that you leave your approaches on the correct side of the hole are critical. And when you do miss, those misses simply must be on the less-penal side. This key element is the main reason that Scottie Scheffler has performed so well here and is likely to continue to do so, since he is arguably the finest approach player we’ve seen in many years.
Beyond approach play (particularly from 150 yards plus), sharp scrambling skills are certainly helpful too, since the severe nature of the greens can mean that even the slightest mishit on chips or bunker shots can make a huge difference to the resultant putt. While much is made each year of the undulating, lightning fast greens, you definitely don’t have to be a great putter to win at Augusta, perhaps because they are so challenging that even the very best putters will have their fair share of three-putts and misses from short range. Driving distance certainly doesn’t hurt, particularly when the course is playing soft and long, but the likes of Zach Johnson have shown that you can compensate for a lack of distance by taking down the par 5s with a razor-sharp wedge game. The fairways are wide enough that they should be easy enough to hit for most players in this field, so we’ll be downplaying the importance of driving overall in our analysis.

Overall, Augusta represents one of the very best tests of all-round golfing prowess in the world – the field tends to spread out quickly, with a wide range of scoring, showing how the slightest differences in ball striking are magnified here and only the very best will be able to master (pun intended) the challenge.

Four players dominate the market: Scottie Scheffler, Rory McIlroy, Bryson DeChambeau and Jon Rahm, and we’ll start our preview by giving a brief overview of each of them.

Scottie.

We’ve long been of the opinion that we’ve never seen a golfer so perfectly suited to the demands of a particular golf course than Scottie Scheffler is to Augusta. Yet to finish outside the top 25 in 6 visits, he’s already a two-time winner and has managed a further two top 10s when not at his very best. Last year in particular it felt as though he never really came close to having his A-game, yet he still finished hot on the heels of the winner in 4th. The key question this year is whether he is anywhere near to having his A-game. His approach play in particular has been way off his usual standard in the early part of 2026, while the arrival of his second child in the last few days is likely to mean his preparation has been (at the very least) somewhat interrupted. At his best, odds of 6/1 would be one of the bets of all time, but there are enough reasons to be cautious.

Rory,

Now that Rory McIlroy has the Augusta monkey off his back, will he be able to play with the carefree abandon that we associate with him at his very best, or will he regress now the burning desire for the career grand slam has been satisfied? We know this week will come with plenty of distractions as defending champion, plus he has been working his way back from a back injury sustained in March, which caused him to withdraw from the Arnold Palmer and perform below his best in the Players, so it’s hard to get a gauge on his current form.

Bryson & Rahmbo,

DeChambeau and Rahm remain the most likely players from the LIV circuit to be able to translate their form to majors. Rahm in particular has a strong Augusta history with a win in 2023 and four other top 10s from his 9 appearances. It took Bryson a little longer to learn to play Augusta, with a few missed cuts early on, but a T6 in 2024 and T5 in 2025 show that he’s now become a realistic green jacket contender. At similar prices, we’d just favour Rahm of the two given his superior approach play and short game skills.

Headline pick:

Jon Rahm (8 units win +1100, 8 units top 10 +125)