EXPERT GOLF TIPS: US MASTERS 2026

The 2026 season has been a strange one so far. The form at the top of the world rankings is flatter than in years past, the established elite have looked mortal, and the LIV guys have been quietly building cases that are hard to ignore: Rahm hasn’t finished outside the top five in any LIV start this year while DeChambeau has won his last two events. Meanwhile on the PGA Tour, the leader and fifth placed-name on the Fedex Cup leaderboard  — Jacob Bridgeman and Chris Gotterup — are making their Masters debuts this week. For the first time in 2026, the best from the PGA Tour, DP World Tour and LIV Golf converge in the same field, and the storylines heading into Augusta are as rich as any in recent memory.

The headline absences are significant. Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson are both missing — the first Masters since 1994 without either of them in the field. Woods stepped away following a DUI arrest in late March and is reportedly seeking treatment overseas, while Mickelson withdrew citing a family health matter. While neither was a plausible chance even if they had lined up, between them they’ve won eight green jackets and their absence removes two figures who have essentially defined multiple eras at this place.

Rory McIlroy returns as defending champion after his playoff victory over Justin Rose last year, a win that completed the career Grand Slam and put him alongside Sarazen, Hogan, Player, Nicklaus and Woods. A back-to-back win would make him the first to do it since Tiger in 2001-02. His build-up hasn’t been straightforward though — back spasms forced him out of the Arnold Palmer Invitational in early March, and he managed only a T-46 at The Players in his most recent start. His putting has been a concern too, ranking 108th in strokes gained putting this season after entering last year’s Masters ranked ninth.

Scottie Scheffler heads the betting at $8 despite coming in on the back of his worst form in years – the poor bloke has gone three starts without a top 10! He skipped the Texas Open because his wife Meredith was due with their second child, meaning he arrives at Augusta with less competitive prep than usual. And yet it’s hard to argue with a man who’s 101-under par in major championship career scoring, the best mark of all time. A third jacket would put him alongside only eight other players in the tournament’s history. The big question mark is his iron play: he’s ranked 80th in strokes gained approach this year, a dramatic drop from the player who led that stat for three consecutive seasons.

Jon Rahm and Bryson DeChambeau arrive from the LIV circuit in strong form. Rahm won in Hong Kong and hasn’t finished outside the top five in any start this season — and notably, there’s no LIV event the week before the Masters this year, which may give him a chance to arrive at Augusta with a fresher mind and body than in previous editions. DeChambeau has back-to-back LIV wins and unfinished business at Augusta — he’s been inside the top ten at the end of every round of the last two Masters, with only Scheffler able to say the same.

Then there’s Justin Rose. At 45 and in his 21st Masters, he’s a three-time runner-up including two playoff losses — to Sergio Garcia in 2017 and McIlroy last year. Only Nicklaus, Hogan and Weiskopf have finished second here more often. He’s already won this season and skipped the Texas Open to do extra prep at Augusta, which tells you everything about where his priorities lie. On the 40th anniversary of Nicklaus’s famous win at 46, Rose lifting the jacket would be something quite special.

And perhaps the most compelling story of all belongs to Gary Woodland, who earned his invitation just two weeks ago by winning the Houston Open — his first Tour victory in nearly seven years and his first since brain surgery in 2023. Earlier in March he revealed he’d been battling PTSD since the surgery, with doctors telling him that ideally he probably shouldn’t be competing at all. He went out and won by five shots, setting a tournament scoring record. With 12 previous Masters starts but only one top-20 to his name, nobody’s tipping him for the jacket, but his mere presence on the grounds is a remarkable story.

The narrative heading into this year’s Masters feels different to the last four editions. Since 2022, the winner has been the player who dominated the first three months of the season — think Scheffler’s back-to-back wins, Rahm’s hot streak, and Rory’s Players-Pebble double last year. This time around, no one has produced that level of pre-Masters dominance. Fedex Cup Points and form have been more evenly distributed through the early season than we’ve seen in years, with second-tier players hoovering up opportunities that would typically concentrate among the elite. This is shaping up to be a genuine battle between the established top end reasserting their dominance and a new wave chasing a career-defining win.

Course organisers have largely left things alone for 2026. The only change of note is a lengthening of the 17th hole (Nandina), which now plays as a 450-yard par 4. That’s classic Augusta — no sweeping redesigns, just subtle recalibrations that keep asking the same timeless questions. The lingering impact of Hurricane Helene is still visible in places, with around 1,500 trees lost when the storm tore through Augusta back in September 2024. Regulars will notice more open sightlines behind the 10th, 11th, 12th and 13th greens and around the 16th, though the playing corridors themselves are largely unchanged. The arborists still play their tricks — those tree-lined driving corridors are framed by imposing branches that make the holes seem tighter than they really are.

Off the tee the course plays relatively easy — lots of drivers, not many penalty areas — but from any given distance, players hit it further from the pin, find fewer greens, and hole fewer putts than at a typical Tour stop. Approach shots from under 150 yards, fairway chips around the green, and putts from outside 15 feet all play particularly difficult here. Greens are average in size but famously undulating, with a number forcing players to read breaks in both directions even with a well-landed approach. Iif the undulations weren’t enough, the speed will be unlike anything players experience for the rest of the year — the SubAir system-controlled surfaces are maintained to a standard usually reserved for museum masterpieces. Runoff areas are steep and brutally unforgiving, making around-the-green play absolutely critical. The smart miss matters as much as the good shot here; short-siding yourself is where rounds get wrecked.

One thing that has changed across the year is the advantage afforded to long hitters, which has effectively disappeared. Prior to 2021, longer hitters held a meaningful edge here, making it the fifth-most bomber-friendly venue on Tour. Since then, accurate players have actually outperformed bombers on a strokes-gained basis, with the reversal driven primarily by longer hitters underperforming on approach — surprising given they’re hitting fewer wedges and more long irons into greens, which should theoretically play to their strengths.

Looking at the strokes-gained category data from the last five Masters, around-the-green play has driven more scoring variation here than at a typical Tour stop — partly because players hit about one extra chip or pitch per round, but also because where you miss the green matters far more at Augusta than anywhere else. Tellingly, every Masters winner since 2021 has had putting as their worst SG category for the week, while around-the-green has consistently been among their strongest. That tells you a lot about what profile of player tends to prevail here.

The four par 5s provide relatively easy scoring opportunities, but the other 14 holes rank as some of the toughest on Tour. Distance off the tee can be advantageous, though the weather forecast suggests breezy northeasterly to east-northeasterly winds through Thursday’s opening round before conditions settle into warmer, calmer weekend weather in the low 80s. The forecast looks tame on paper, but as we know, Augusta never truly opens its arms — a dry, warm Sunday can whisper that aggression is available, and that whisper is what makes this place dangerous.

By virtue of being played at the same course and by largely the same players, Augusta represents an exceptional opportunity to apply some course history analysis. 

The course history model is handing out by far the biggest overlays it will all year and heading up the list is last year’s runner up, Justin Rose. The English veteran holds on of the most exceptional single course records in the database, playing an entire stroke above expectation across an enormous 70 round sample. The combination of this outperformance and the consistency of it sees him take an almost two-thirds of a stroke per round overlay on his baseline skill into this event.

Just behind him is pervious winner Jordan Spieth, whose recent trajectory has followed very closely to Rose – mixing top finishes with missed cuts. If you believe in patterns then he’s due for an MC here but the model sees that an unlikely given his half stroke per round bump to a baseline that has quietly been on the up this year. Other notable overperformers include Hideki, Reed, Scheffler, Cam Smith and Morikawa.

There’s a few names worth calling out at the other end of the course history leaderboard, with Serge Garcia, Hatton and comeback story G-Wood all playing some forgettable golf on these hallowed grounds.

I’ve already covered a lot of the course fit angles in the lead-in but let’s take a closer look at the actual overlays that are being applied. Despite the recent trend towards longer hitters underperforming, they’ve still been gaining strokes off the tee so will continue to receive a course fit benefit.

Cam Smith and JT’s elite short game and poor accuracy off the sees them pick up the biggest adjustments while accurate hitters Aaron Rai and Si Woo, who gain their strokes through accuracy, won’t benefit from that this week.

Great flows as would be expected for golf’s marquee event and Scheffler comes in as a clear favourite ahead of an in-form Jon Rahm. Scheffler traded as low as 4s in the futures markets and has seen his price sky rocket since this market became the main focus for punters. His current price is about bang on where the model has him so the market has gotten this one right. Rory’s iffy form has also seen his price balloon while the LIV boys have both been backed in heavily on the back of the strong short-pants form. The model has Bryson in particular as well under the odds so I won’t be joining punters on that train.

The biggest movers are in the next tier down, with Matt Fitzpatrick and Cam Young finding huge support from punters following their recent wins and given the relative strength of the PGA compared to LIV you could make an argument for these two coming in on the back of the strongest form in the world.