It’s finally the best time of the year for golf fans around the world. It’s Master’s week. That rolled off the tongue as I typed it. And we may even see Tiger swing a golf club in a major for the first time in almost a year and a half. It doesn’t get much better than this. With a tournament as rich in history as the Masters is, some things are bound to stand out and rear their ugly head year in and year out. While they’re not always shoe-ins to keep on happening, some trends, stats, and random correlations continue to pop up. And we seem to never realize them until someone has that green jacket. I decided to do some digging, and here are some things I came across to keep in mind before the Masters tees off in a weeks time.
1. Don’t completely ignore the debutants – Yes, a debutant hasn’t won at Augusta since 1979 when Fuzzy Zoeller, who has arguably the best greatest name ever, took home the green jacket. You will hear that a lot this week, and it will have an impact on how you view the rookies this week. But ultimately, it really shouldn’t, especially from a DFS standpoint. Debutants, while having not notched a win in 40+ years, have still performed well at Augusta, with at least one finishing T12 or better in 7 of the 8 last tournaments. These results include Spieth’s almost win in 2014, Zalatoris’s Solo 2nd last year, and Sungjae’s T2 in the November tournament. This year’s group of debutants isn’t too shabby also, including the likes of Sam Burns, Talor Gooch, Sepp Straka, Seamus Power, Cameron Young, and more. I want to include Luke List here since he hasn’t played here since 2005 (this has to be the longest gap ever), but the rules are rules. Anyway, don’t be surprised if you see a debutant near the top of the leaderboard when all things are settled.
2. World #1s struggle to win at Augusta (and at majors in general) – Dustin Johnson in 2020. That’s the only #1 not named Tiger Woods to win at Augusta in the last 30 years. And that’s even if we count that Dustin Johnson win considering it practically wasn’t even played like a Masters Tournament. At the Masters, and overall, it seems like it’s never talked about how mightily guys ranked #1 struggle to win the big ones. If you throw out Tiger Woods, who is an anomaly in any golf statistic, guys ranked #1 have won 4 of the last 88 majors. Yes, only 4. How that number is that low is beyond me. Not to say Scottie couldn’t easily go out and win any given week, but we’re going to have to ride this narrative until a #1 proves he’s built for it. This may be just the narrative push Rahm needed.
3. Don’t overlook the home course advantage – The narrative of “a guy being from xxx playing at a course in xxx” seems to be something that gets easily overlooked every week in golf. However, we tend to see this narrative come in to play a lot more then we realize. For example, in the past month, we’ve had Cam Smith winning at the PLAYERS practically in his backyard, along with Scheffler at the Match Play right down the road from where he went to school. Guys just seem to play better when they’re close to home and in a comfortable setting. That’s why I’m going to take a close look at guys from, who live in, and went to school in the Georgia area. Guys that quickly come to mind are Russell Henley, Bubba Watson, Patrick Reed, Luke List, Kevin Kisner, Harris English, and Brian Harman. I may be missing some names, but these guys give you the idea. A Georgia homer may well be in contention yet again this year.
4. Pay attention to the Augusta Women’s Amateur – Hideki Matsuyama won the Masters in 2021. 17-year-old Tsubasa Kajitani won the 2021 Augusta Women’s Amateur. Both golfers are from Japan. This is something to keep note of. I cannot remember the trend for the life of me, and I looked up and down through the internet to no avail. I do promise, however, that this was the not the first kind of correlation of the Women’s Am Winner and the Men’s Masters winner being from the same country. Yes, the Augusta Women’s Am has only been around for 2 years, but some tournament prior helped play in to this correlation. Make sure you take a look at the country of the Women’s Winning Am just for your consideration. If Alexandra Forsterling wins, I guess you just have to bet Bernhard Langer. The rules are the rules.
5. Each of the last 13 Masters winners were T-11 or better after Round 1 – This is a gimme stat every year, but it’s something anyone involved in wagering money in golf should be aware of. You saw the stat, basically summing how hard it can be for a guy to make a late push/have to be on the comeback trail in this tournament. Think it’s only T-11 because Tiger was T-11 before his win in 2019, while everyone else was somewhere in the Top 10. This Tiger guy just can’t stop showing up. Just make sure you think about your live bets/hamper your expectations depending on where a guy sits after Round 1.
6. Live or die on the Par 3s and 5s – The Par 4s are the least sexy holes on what feels like a lot of courses, but this is mainly true at Augusta, especially when it comes to finding our winner. Your tournament is won or lost here on the Par 3s and Par 5s. Every Master’s Champion in the last 10 years has gained a least a stroke on the Par 3s, and every Master’s Champion in the past 10 years minus Danny Willet was also at least 3 under par on the Par 5s. You can see how big a role these holes can play into the tournament, and how easily it can be to shoot yourself in the foot on them (circa Xander hole 16 last year). A guy who excels on these holes is already putting himself in a great position to win.
7. It’s hard to be the defending champ at Augusta – Winning at the Masters is what most golfers would pin as the highlight of their career. The next year back at Augusta however? Not so much, as the previous results of defending champs have not been so bright. Defending Master’s champs have amassed just 1 Top 5 (Jordan Spieth T2 2015) and 1 Top 15 (Adam Scott T14 2014) result over their last 11 tries, to go along with 3 MCs. If we give the MCs the places where they finished, we’d get an average result over the last 11 tournaments for the defending Master’s champ of 41st place. That is pretty bad, especially considering how the Masters usually only fields around 90 golfers. That place would even be bad in a full field golf tournament. Sorry Hideki, but history isn’t taking your side here.
8. Course history stands tall – Approach, Tee-to-green, proximity, bogey avoidance, you name it. There’s a myriad of statistics we can analyze week in and week out to tell us how x tournament will play out. But this week, we’re at the one tournament where one not-so-seldom “statistic” rears its ugly head. Course. History. No tournament in the world has seen more correlation with course history then at Augusta National. Guys that play well here continue playing well, the likes of Spieth, DJ, Tiger, and more being poster boys for how consistent results from the same players get turned in. No other tournament plays its eventual winner into course history more. It’s just that type of course and atmosphere. Sadly, there’s no SG Course History stat, but it should certainly be in your best interest to take into account guys previous results at Augusta National.
Probably Wondering 