The Masters 2023 Side Markets

*Winner without Scheffler, Rahm, McIlroy, Spieth and Cantlay.

The top 3 in the market, Scottie Scheffler, Jon Rahm and Rory McIlroy, take some shifting from any shortlist despite the conditions and, in the case of the defending champion, Masters history. Jordan Spieth and Patrick Cantlay also have their merits and cannot be discounted from this year’s renewal either.

Any of those players could win, or come very close to winning this year’s Masters, which could potentially reduce the number of each-way places that are available on the outright market, or indeed sap the value out of any other players if all we’re playing for is an each-way place.

The alternative of course is to play the ‘without’ markets and take a number of dangers out of the equation, which then brings the win element back even if one of the big 5 does slide on the Green Jacket on Sunday evening, especially when the odds on offer about some players aren’t massively different to their outright prices.

Given his outright market price of between 20/1 and 25/1 depending on the individual bookmaker terms, the 16/1 about Xander Schauffele when taking the big 5 out of the equation is an attractive proposition, especially when you consider that the 29 year-old has finished 2^nd and 3^rd here over the past 4 years and is playing some tidy golf at present, including a quarter-final appearance at the WGC Match Play on his last start.

Five top-7 finishes at the US Open from six appearances and a runner-up finish to Francesco Molinari at the Carnoustie-hosted Open Championship in 2018 reinforce the fact that the world number 7 is a top-class Major Championship performer.

There’s scope of course for the Californian to win this outright, however with a strong case to be made for each of the top 5, should he come up a little short this week then there’s still scope for this bet to be a winner.

A total of 16 players tee it up here at Augusta National for the first time this week, headlined by the young superstar Tom Kim that’s seen him flirt with the OWGR top 10 already in his very short professional career.

Kim though might find the dimensions at Augusta a little stretching for his game with cooler temperatures and wet weather likely to make an already long course play even longer. At 3^rd favourite in this market, Mito Pereira should have no such issues with the length of the course and the Chilean holds much more appeal in my view.

Having been one of the more recent recruits of LIV golf, we have full statistics for the 28 year-old pretty much up until the end of 2022 and it was clear that he was hitting it long and at times relatively straight as he played his final few PGA Tour events, 4^th at the Shriners being the highlight before he finished runner-up to Kazuki Higa at the Dunlop Phoenix in Japan in November.

An 11^th place finish in Oman on the Asian Tour to start his year paved the way for progressive finishes of 15^th, 6^th and 5^th on the LIV circuit with a number of raw statistics catching the eye which bode well for this week. 4^th, 5^th and 7^th for Driving Distance over that trio of events was backed up by 4^th, 2^nd and 1^st for GIR as well as 10^th, 12^th and 1^st for Scrambling, with both of those field-leading numbers coming last week in Orlando.

Mito will undoubtedly be best remembered as the player who snatched defeat from the jaws of victory at last year’s US PGA Championship, relinquishing a one-shot lead on the final hole and making double bogey to miss the eventual play-off between Will Zalatoris and Justin Thomas. Maybe full redemption is a little optimistic here on his Masters debut, however a bold showing relative to his fellow debutants is more than possible.

For much the same reasons as the debutant market, I’ll also take Mito Pereira to finish as the top South American.

In what is a three-horse race with Joaquin Niemann and amateur Mateo Fernandez de Oliveira, Niemann rates as the bookies favourite for this at a shade of odds-on, however I see it a little differently.

Like Pereira, Niemann is also now a LIV player, however where Mito’s game seems to be trending upwards of late, Joaquin’s appears to be going in the opposite direction. Against the aforementioned finishes of 15^th, 6^th and 5^th for Pereira, his Chilean compatriot has recorded finishes of 11^th, 36^th and 31^st over the same three events with his all-round statistics looking decidedly ragged in comparison.

Niemann does have the benefit of three outings here at Augusta to justify his favouritism, however finishes of MC/40/35 looks beatable unless he can pluck out a significant personal best here this week which is far from assured.

In his outright market preview, Steve Bamford has gone heavy on Jordan Spieth to win this year’s Masters, and if truth be told I’m inclined to agree.

16/1 is the best price we’re getting in the regular market which is fair for a player who’s won this in the past (2015) as well as another two Majors (US Open 2015, Open Championship 2017), and after a 5-year Major hiatus he’s starting to look like the kind of player he was back when he first hit the scene, bar the odd short putt missed.

Marriage, becoming a father, an approaching 30^th birthday this summer – all factors that may have helped focus the mind of the Texan, and the fact that he’s twice lifted trophies on Easter Sunday also bodes well for this year’s event which finishes on the same occasion this year.

Of course though, to win this bet we need Jordan sit atop the leaderboard after all 4 days, hence the hefty premium on the odds versus his outright price. Wire-to-wire wins aren’t uncommon though – there have been five here are Augusta over the years including Arnold Palmer (1960) and Jack Nicklaus (1972) – and the last person to achieve the feat was, you’ve guessed it, Jordan himself 8 years ago.

Spieth’s Open Championship win at Royal Birkdale two years later came in the same commanding fashion, and twice more in his career – at Pebble Beach and TPC River Highlands, both in 2017 – has he recorded such victories.

Wire-to-wire wins can’t happen unless a player is in at least a tie of the lead after round 1, so a fast start is imperative. Fortunately then, from his 9 starts here at Augusta, Jordan has led or co-led 3 times after the first 18 holes, and he’s been at the top of the pile after Thursday already this year when shooting a 64 at the Sony Open in Hawaii.

It’s dangerous when Steve and I are aligned in our thoughts on any given week, especially at The Masters or any other Major for that matter, but I also fancy that Justin Thomas could go very well this week as well as Jordan Spieth. It’s not inconceivable that the best of friends finish in the top two positions this week, and should that happen then I want to have a slice of the action.

You have to wind back to 2017 and the Dell Technologies Championship, which replaced the Deutsche Bank Championship in the FedEx Cup Playoffs at the time, for the one and only instance where the pair finished in the top two positions, with JT taking the plaudits that week by 3 strokes.

As I’ve articulated above, my feeling is that Spieth is the most likely to prevail this week should the pair find themselves deep in contention on Sunday afternoon, however that’s not to say that Thomas can’t chase him all the way, particularly if the putter is anything but stone cold this week. However I’ll play it relatively cautious and place this bet as a dual forecast rather than straight forecast just in case it were to go the other way.

Major pedigree isn’t in question for Justin given his two US PGA Championship wins, including last year’s at Southern Hills, and finishes of 4^th and 8^th over his last 3 starts here at Augusta show an increasing level of comfort in these surroundings, with last year’s effort in particular showing a strong level of determination having opened with a round of 76 before recovering in impressive fashion.