With due respect to the many top-category tournaments held around the world in the first quarter of the year, all roads are essentially leading to Augusta National in April. The year’s first major (at least in the men’s game, as the women will be competing in their opening Grand Slam event, the ANA Inspiration, from 29 March to 1 April) is generally viewed by both players and fans as the real starting gun to the season’s serious business.
The 2018 edition of the U.S. Masters also has some added spice. First of all it will mark the re-appearance of a player whose first name is that of a large cat species and who is hoping to rekindle his stalled quest to beat a long-time record held by another legendary figure named after a member of the mammal class. Tiger versus the Golden Bear: 14 career majors versus 18.
Having made an impressive return this year from long-term injury, personal setbacks and back fusion surgery, Tiger Woods is – perhaps remarkably, perhaps not – third favourite (best odds: 9/1) to win a fifth green jacket and 15th Grand Slam title at Augusta from 5 to 9 April.
Also making a return to Augusta this year after falling down the stairs at his rented house and injuring himself on the eve of last year’s event, when he was world number and tournament favourite, is 2016 U.S. Open champion Dustin Johnson – just marginally the second favourite if odds from all the main betting houses are taken into account.
And the favourite – at least until the conclusion of this week’s World Golf Championship-Dell Match Play event in Florida? Northern Ireland’s Rory McIroy (best odds: 8/1), whose roller-coaster recent form hit a crest last week when he won the Arnold Palmer Invitational, his first victory anywhere in the world since the 2016 U.S. Tour Championship.
No pressure, of course. McIlroy is just seeking to become only the sixth player in history to win at least one of each of the four majors (after Gene Sarazen, Ben Hogan, Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player and Tiger Woods), having previously collected a British Open, U.S. Open and two U.S. PGA Championship titles. He also will be trying to erase the traumatic memory of the 2011 Masters when he led by four after the third round and shot a final-round 80 to finish joint 15th.
Rounding out the top-10 are (in order): Justin Thomas, who broke through last year for his first major, the PGA Championship; Jordan Spieth, the winner of a Masters (2015), U.S. Open and British Open, so just needing the PGA to complete his own Career Grand Slam; Justin Rose (2013 U.S. Open and 2016 Olympic champion); Jason Day (2015 PGA Championship winner); Jon Rahm, the Spanish rising star and world number three who is seeking his first major; three-times Masters champion Phil Mickelson (2004, 2006 and 2010); and Ricky Fowler, arguably now the unfortunate holder of the “best player not to have won a major” moniker following Sergio García’s victory in 2017.
The defending champion and new father (of Azalea) is down at 13th place in the cumulative betting odds, behind two-time Masters winner Bubba Watson and Paul Casey, who won the Vaspar Championship on the PGA Tour two weeks ago. Reigning U.S. Open champion Brooks Koepka has been forced to sit out the Masters as he recovers from a wrist injury.
So where does that leave the rest of the Augusta field? Places 14 to 20 in the betting odds are held by, respectively: Hideki Matsuyama, Henrik Stenson (2016 British Open winner), Tommy Fleetwood (last season’s European Tour number one), Thomas Pieters, Marc Leishman, Adam Scott (who in 2013 became the first and to date only Australian to be fitted into the famous green jacket) and Patrick Reed.
The third leading Spaniard in the field, Rafael Cabrera-Bello, is at odds varying from 80/1 to 100/1; current leader of the European Race to Dubai Shubhankar Sharma (who has received Augusta’s only special international invitation this year) is at 125/1; Andrew “Beef” Johnston is at 250/1; 2016 Masters champion Danny Willett is languishing at around 200/1; dominant Champions Tour stalwart Bernhard Langer (Masters winner in 1985 and 1993) is at around 500/1; and José María Olazábal (Masters champion in 1994 and 1999) is at 1000/1 to 2500/1, closing the list with other former champions including Mike Weir, Ian Woosnam, Larry Mize, Mark O’Meara and Sandy Lyle.
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