A Comprehensive Guide to the 2024 Masters with Steve Bamford
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Code Andy to get you that 15% off discount. Try it for a week. It's a phenomenal week to join. I promise you will not be disappointed. Okay, coming up on this podcast, it's that time of year again, maybe my favorite podcast of the year, an annual tradition for every major, myself and Steve Bamford of the Golf Betting System. We get together and do this four times a year, and we dive into

Pretty damn deep into just about everything you need to know about Augusta National and the 2024 Masters. This is the first look. I will do my in-depth betting breakdown on Sunday, an in-depth DraftKings breakdown with Kobe DuBose, as we always do. Maybe Monday night, maybe Tuesday. We'll see. We will both be at Augusta. So these are big weeks for me. Try not to ask questions.

Too often outside of the five or so biggest weeks of the year. But if this podcast helps you at all, share it around on Twitter. We have a five-star review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. It means more to me than you know on weeks like this. So without further ado, welcome to Masters Week. Let's bring on Steve.

All right, Steve Bamford's here. I've missed you, my friend. We do this every year. We do every single major. It's my favorite way to start off a major week. Of course, we're recording this about eight days out from the Masters, 7 a.m. Pacific time for me.

You're, of course, in UK time, and we're doing this the Wednesday prior to the start of the Valero Texas Open. So we have a lot of information on our hands. I'm sure there's some things to be learned at the last minute here in Texas for us. But as we sit eight days out, Steve, how are you feeling about the 2024 Masters? What's the excitement level this year? Feels like it came around fast.

It's coming around very quickly. Thanks to have me on board again, Andy, as ever.

Me and you are the major twins, aren't we? We do get together across the majors just to chew the fat and get lyrical about course design and the like and agronomy. Am I excited? I've got to say, up until this point, relatively no. But now we've kind of cleared through the Valero content and all of our thoughts and wishes on that. Now that I'm actually digging and...

doing all the stuff that you have to do once a year, the anticipation levels are growing rapidly. Put it that way. I would agree. I just finished all my Valero stuff as well. Over these next couple of days, I am in full-on master's grind mode. I already started a bit yesterday as well. And so I want to

I want to start macro level big picture here. We do this for every major. You've been, how long have you been doing golf betting system? 15 years. Yeah. Yeah. Sounds about right. One of the longest, by the way, what, I mean, I, I would also credit you as a,

Yeah.

performance on certain corollary courses matter, which we'll, we'll get to on this podcast. Some of the other golf courses that I think have a little bit of a gusto in them, but in all the time that you've been doing this, Steve, um,

Is there anything you're approaching differently this year for this master's? Have there been any lessons learned in the past couple of years that have made you say, okay, now in 2024, I'm going to keep this in mind. I'm going to favor this a little bit more heavily in years past. Andy, I am the world's worst at math.

avoiding my experience and gut feel and finding ways of taking away players that I want to back and then don't back because there's one particular statistic or reason or trend that doesn't perfectly fit the mould. Do you know what I've done this year? And I was having this very same conversation with my partner

at Golf Betting System, Paul Williams yesterday, I said to him, I am completely changing what I always do for Augusta because however hard I try, I struggle, if ever at all, to have actually got the winner, believe it or not. Great at the PGA Championship, have a US Open winner, have never got the Masters winner.

I know it's an absolute shock and most people will be turning off your podcast right now. That is shocking to me, I have to say. For 15 years, I have had, you won't be surprised, plenty of seconds, plenty of places that have never got the winner. So I need to change something. So I'm changing things. I'm not getting as statistically mired as I always have done. It feels good, Andy. It feels good.

Yeah, I could certainly relate to that as well. I was able, we did this last year and I remember I had raw, so I got the Masters and you got the PGA, I believe. That's right. So we were two for four at least. So I picked up the slack on the Masters and then you chipped in on the PGA with Brooks, who I'm sure we'll get to. I've got a lot of thoughts on how to handle the live players as well. But I agree with you in terms of

There's so many trends with the Masters that become such a big talking point. There's so many of the nine of the last 11 winners have done this. Eight of the last 11 winners have done that. There's a lot of noise in there as well. But at the end of the day, I mean, how would you cut through some of that? What would you say is like, okay, here's the –

absolute most important things that if they're not checking these types of boxes these certain players are cross-offs in my mind can i can i just throw this at you i said i i i sent a um a um a note what do you call them you can't call them tweets what are they when you send them out now

On X? Xs. I mean, I still call them tweets. Yeah, I sent out an X, a tweet. And this Joel Collins came back to me. Very kind of him. Steve, I was just doing my research on the Masters. Great. Since Adam Scott.

Wait for it. 11 of the last 12 winners had a top 15 in a major in the year prior. And 10 of the 12...

had won in their last six starts. And then you get it, Andy, and this comes right back to what you just said. In brackets, Reid and Matsuama were the exceptions. And there's always an exception. Always an exception. And what do I think is key?

People shoot me down in flames, okay? People genuinely shoot me down in flames, and I get a lot of feedback, a lot of comments, and people can say what they like. I've got broad shoulders. People often question me on my, I wouldn't say addiction, but I do like to look at the historic odds of past winners, okay? Because to me, it paints a picture of a tournament.

If you're getting a tournament where you're getting 25 to 1, 30 to 1 average winners all the time, you're not going to spend so much time looking in the depths for long shot winners and this kind of stuff. Let's get this out there. There is an exception. Four of the last five winners of the Masters have been 16 to 1 or below.

Rahm at nines, Scheffler at 16s. I still believe that Scheffler number was crazily high on the basis that he came in such hot form, but clearly he'd never won a major. Dustin Johnson, nine to one in November. He was in absolute red hot form, wasn't he, DJ? Tiger Woods, 16 to one. The exception, Hideki Matsuama, 45 to one. So then, okay. So if they weren't at 16 to one or less, where were these winning prices? Just to get a feel for it.

Watson, the second time he won, and Adam Scott, 28-1. So we've jumped from 16s to 28s straight away. There's a desert. There's a death zone there.

45-1 Matsuama and Garcia. 55-1 Reid and Bubba Watson the first time he won. Danny Willett, 66-1 in that year when it blew and it felt like spring in England rather than spring in Georgia. Charles Schwarzschild, the complete outlier, 90-1.

So you say to me, what kind of things do I definitely want to look for? In my mind, that sets the scene for me. And it's also going to cut out a lot of players who we will discuss later. In a way, do I go for one of the top four players in the market? One, unfortunately, being a four to one.

There's three within 16 to one at the moment. The only one that I can see potentially reaching that price point would be Brooks Koepka, if he plays particularly well this week on live down at the Blue Monster at Doral. And then you jump, and then that's to me saying, forget about 20s, 25 to ones. Maybe we then need to look at that

that area 28 to one through to 66 to one for players that do fit a certain pattern whose game shapes suit Augusta National. And a lot of them won't. They probably won't be long enough of the tee. They probably won't have a high enough ball flight and all manner of things that you can start to weed players out with. So that's kind of where I'm coming at it. Well, I would add one more. I mean,

if jordan spieth finishes top five at the valero he's 16 to 1. i would say i mean he's already 22.

Yeah. Okay. So we've got five runners and riders that can be at that 16 to one or less price point. I'm with you on that. Yeah. So yes, I'll add speed to that list. Yeah. Okay. So we're going to get, we're going to get to the specific players as well, but I want to zoom out for a second and talk a little course conditions too. And we'll weave a lot more trends. I have a couple of interesting data points I want to get to as well, but I want to start more big picture with the golf course.

Have you been looking at weather at all? It's another staple of our pot. We're both big weather guys. What are you seeing? Worst conditions this year compared to years past? I've been looking. Me as well. Looks great, right, Steve? I think we're knock on wood here, but it looks pretty phenomenal weather. I'm a little biased because it's my first year going, but it seems like it's going to be warm, sunny, firm, maybe a little breezy. Yes.

First thing I'll know, Augusta's had a hell of a lot of rain. So I'm seeing four, three-quarter inches in January, and everyone will go, sub-air, Steve? Yeah, okay, it's all relative, though. I mean, they had sub-air in November, didn't they? Remember our softback course, Blake? Yeah. I know that the temperatures were clearly a lot lower, but almost four inches in Feb, five and a half inches last month in March.

If you're in Europe, 121mm, 98mm, 143mm. There's already been a little bit in April. I must say, the weather forecast now, right through to the start of tournament week, does look dry. So they're going to do their standard, get the sub-air working as of Monday of tournament week and start sucking the living daylights out of the moisture on the course.

Over and above that, I mean, the forecast I'm seeing potentially is a little bit of rain on Thursday and some breeziness. But, you know, that's like you said, it's eight days away, isn't it? Right. I was speaking to somebody who is at the ANWA, the women's event that they have the weekend before the Masters, which I think you could...

it's actually pretty good viewing i think it's a fun event to watch and you can generally get a decent sense of the bounciness of the greens and obviously they're going to rev the course up a a fair amount more for for when the professional the men's professional tournament masters comes into town in a couple of days but the reports were i mean it seems like it's in phenomenal shape right uh

I would imagine that scoring conditions this year, I think with the Masters, you want to look for giant anomalies, right? So you look at the November Masters that DJ won. Those were dramatically different course conditions than typical Masters in the past. But if you look at like...

The difference between 2023 and 2022, 2019, the Tiger year saw some easier course conditions, but you look at like the last two years, not a fair amount of difference between the ROM year and the Scheffler year. I mean, it played 1.72 scoring average last year. I guess it was a kind of almost a quarterfinal.

quarter stroke easier than in 2022, but still the sixth hardest course on tour.

I wouldn't be shocked if we continue to see it trend maybe slightly a little bit easier just as a product of skill increasing on the PGA Tour. But I'm just looking here for giant anomalies, Steve. And based on this weather, maybe we get a little bit of rain. Maybe it's a touch softer than we have hoped for, even though from what I've heard, it seems like it should burn out pretty decently.

Point being, we're not going to see anything anomalous, right? We're probably looking at scoring conditions that would be in a quarter stroke to a half stroke of what we have seen outside of the November Masters the last couple of years. Yes. I don't think we're going to see minus five Danny Willett. No, no. I don't think we're going to see 20 under Dustin Johnson. No, no.

I, if I was a betting man, but it's difficult, I'm kind of shooting myself in the foot because I don't know what the weather's going to do. I'm with you, probably 12, maximum 14, something like that. I think that's where the kind of, you know, the Augusta membership are happy with. They didn't like the 20-under DJ score. No. We all know the reasons why. You know, last three winners, 10-under, 10-under and 12-under.

Right. Didn't run one by, was it four, five, three. Ron won by four. So he was at 12 under chef. I mean, chef were at 10 under outside of Rory holing out on the 18th hole for birdie. I mean, chef were pretty much one that and chef were three putting from five feet on the final hole. Chef are got to 11 and they're, you know, Rory finished at seven with a 64 in the final round.

So, I mean, they were, you know, second place was five strokes, really one player separated. And there really wasn't anyone lower than five under that year. The scoring isn't as easy as it used to be. No.

You know, you can remember, you can remember Phil buccaneering around there in 2010, 16 under. Right. Well, they keep, they keep, they keep beefing it up, which they did again this year. Although I think the differences will be negligible, but I mean, you just have to, one of the things that Augusta does well, um,

They do their best to keep up with technology. I mean, they're running out of space, but 2022, 2023, 2024, every single year, the last three years, the second they saw the 20 under from DJ, despite it being in much different course conditions, every single year they've made a concerted effort to at least attempt to protect par.

Yeah. They hate, they hate that school. Genuine. Yeah. I don't think the, the, the one major change that we should probably highlight is, is two. Yeah. Do you think this is, they added 10 yards to the second hole, a par five, which has played historically as one of the easiest golf holes on the course. I mean, there's only, there's the four par fives. They added 10 yards and,

move the tee box back a little bit. Does that change the complexion of the hole at all for you whatsoever? I don't think much. You've got to call these holes by their names, Andy. Come on. Pink Dogwood? Pink Dogwood, yeah. Come on. I think what they're trying to do is bring that right fairway bunker more into play.

So they've moved that tee box to the left, like you said, and back 10 yards. So yeah, I think they're trying to bring the right-hand bunker into play a bit more. But 7,555 yards on the scorecard this year. A standard par 72 with your four looks at par fives. But as we know, we know all the little tricks that they do here and they mow...

They mow the grass against the flow of the hole to stop the ball running. I think this course will play, especially if you've got wind and breeze in there, 7,900 yards in reality. It's a long, long golf course. I don't know about you as well. What I seem to have noticed here, if you look at the last couple of winners, especially from a traditional statistics perspective,

You know, we're hitting, even Hideki was, and he's not the straightest, is he? He was hitting 65% of fairways. Scotty Scheffler, 79%, ranked 10th in the field. And John Rahm, give the guy credit. We know he's a total driving monster, but he was actually far more accurate. He hit 85.7% of fairways, which was fourth in the field.

And actually took, I mean, so this is only driving distance on the measured hugs, but he only sat there in 24th spot for driving distance, which kind of suggests to me that someone, you know, John and his team have come up with, if I take a little bit off the driver and actually keep the ball in play and straight, it's going to give me far more of a chance.

Now, I don't know if that, clearly they don't have Ruff here, but there might be something in this situation where people are saying, and I've noticed with Scotty Sheffield and his numbers this year, he seems to be not driving the ball flat out as much as he used to.

I don't know if this is kind of a moving thing in golf where players are actually saying, I'll tell you what, I'll go for a, rather than a 100% flat out drive every time, I'll actually go at 95% and hit far more fairways and keep the ball in play. I think that's something we're seeing quite regularly across a lot of the elite golfers these days, apart from probably Rory McIlroy. But there might be something in there about, you know, just people that literally coming into Augusta

have got a very nice total driving, the combination of both distance and accuracy in their games.

in their armory actually arriving at the golf course. I don't know if you really want to be finding your driver Augusta National in Masters Week. Put it that way. Right. Well, one of the bigger misnomers about Augusta National is that you can just spray the ball off the tee and it's purely a second shot golf course. My friend, Joseph, well, mine has been talking about this for a while, but

Where you put yourself off the tee, like not every fairway hit at Augusta National is created equally, right? Like based on what side of the fairway you are in is going to create a dramatically different angle in terms of the difficulty of your approach shot. That's not to say I'm looking at stats like driving accuracy this week. But if you want to sort of look at things like

what type of players keep the ball in play and put themselves in a position to hit the green in regulation most often on these driver-heavy courses. I actually think there's some value in that as well, which could also maybe transition us into the second thing that I wanted to talk about. One of the things I've been trying to do this year in my course previews and Sunday podcasts is

Just dumb things down a little bit more and talk about like the three or four pillars on every single golf course of like, okay, if there's three or four things that I want to, um,

simplify this golf course into as these are the three or four most important things. Cause you know, it's very easy for us to get bogged down in, you know, our agronomy and strokes game putting on fast greens and on back grass greens and three putt avoidance from 25 feet plus and all of these stats that, that you and I love. But at the end of the day, there's a lot of noise in a lot of those things. So when you think about Augusta,

If you're just breaking this down into two, three, four major stats, major key components, I have my answer of the three main things that I would focus on. But what would you highlight? Greens in regulation. Absolutely critical here. I mean, I'm going all the way back to 2010, which I probably shouldn't, but I am. That's 14 renewals.

If you just look where the winner of the Masters sat in the field for greens in regulation that year, just average it through, sixth. That's a crazy stat. The other number in there that really grabs me isn't driving distance.

I know where you're going here. There is this misnomer that you can be Cameron Champ, who has actually got a half-decent record here, and just literally lash it off the tee. Sure. It's almost like, it's a bit like a Carolina golf course. I know we're in Georgia. It's a bit like a Carolina golf course on steroids, where it's dog legs. There's trees in play. I mean, 15's key, isn't it? They get tucked in behind the tree on the left there.

The fairways of why... Do you mean Firethorn, Steve? Oh, sorry. Yeah, I asked for that. Yeah, Firethorn, yeah. I did ask for that. But yeah, this is it. It's...

The fairways are so wide, it's kind of tempting you into being far too aggressive, where actually what you need to be doing is placing yourself precisely in the right spots. And that can also be from not just a positional perspective, but also from a live perspective, because this golf course has so many uneven lives, it's absolutely incredible. And as we know, certain players struggle with that

with uneven lies and having to hit shots against the line, whatever. I mean, I've made the mistake many years and I keep seeing his name mentioned on X at the moment about Bryson DeChambeau. And as someone that has backed him here too many years, I wouldn't personally go anywhere close to Bryson DeChambeau. Because especially if there is breeze, if there is weather, I just think his analytical mind is,

And the fact that this course is so, it's got so many natural features that are difficult to actually build your game for anyway. I just think it all gets a little bit too much for him. Cannot compute. Anyway, back to the question at hand. Greens in regulation, I think, is absolutely critical.

I also think ideally you would be wanting to look at players who have a history of hitting the ball quite long here, say 290, 295, that kind of area. You'd be surprised how many players do not hit that length of driving distance around here, which tells me they're either intimidated to do so or just haven't really got the minerals to do so.

I also think distance to apex, high ball flight is very, very important here. And I did say to you before we started the pod, one that might take a lot of people by surprise, because we don't talk about it a hell of a lot. You genuinely need to be a, it's difficult to say this because clearly so many good players on live these days, but

You need to be a player that has an excellent short game, be that scrambling and around the green. Actually being able to gain shots around the greens here does seem a prerequisite of players that actually win this in the end. I mean, I'm seeing around the green rankings here for the last three winners. John Rahm was 7th.

Scotty Scheffler was third. We know Hideki, he's around the green games just immaculate. He was third. DJ has a really underrated short game too, particularly that year when he was playing great. He was chipping the ball phenomenally. That was like one of Danny Willett's biggest strengths coming in as well was short game. And then obviously Spieth goes without being said. You had me thinking a little bit about what you said with Bryson in terms of

How's there's just so many more calculations at Augusta national, right? And the single length irons off of those uneven lies can cause some, some difficulties and some issues for him. We can talk a little bit about some of the corollary courses that may be indicative of potential predictive success at Augusta. You think about a golf course like Kapalua, right? I know that the

The scoring conditions are a couple of that. I mean, that one's one at like 2530 under par far, far easier than Augusta National. But if you think about the rolling fairways, the massive elevation changes, the uneven lies, the hitting dramatically downhill shots, hitting dramatically uphill shots.

And you look at, I'm just looking, Steve, of the active players in this field, minimum two appearances at Kapalua. The best players have been Joaquin Neiman with a second and a fifth. That's interesting. I'm sure we'll get to him. Joaquin Neiman, Jon Rahm.

Colin Morikawa, Jordan Spieth, Xander Shoffley, Dustin Johnson. I think those guys have been pretty good at the masters as well. So I agree. There's that there's something unquantifiable about Augusta national in terms of like,

It mitigates a lot of the track man golf that you say you're going to be hitting shots at Augusta national that are a lot more difficult to practice on the range. And that's why I think you want to look at some of these golf courses like.

the plantation course with all these uneven lies Riviera, which has these very panted sloped fairways and interesting short game shots as well. LACC actually as well. Um, just walking that property and playing LACC, uh,

I'm not saying it's the perfect comparison to Augusta, but in terms of the wide fairways where you still have to put it in the right spot to have the most advantageous angle and hitting off of downhill lies into uphill greens and off of uphill lies into downhill greens. I mean, there's just a lot of, there's a lot of feel on, on both of those courses. And, and I would say the major thing with Augusta too, and this is why course history is,

is just so much more dramatically correlated to Augusta than any other golf course on tours because there's that qualitative aspect of it too that you can't really prepare yourself from driving range shots for it because the golf shots that you're going to hit are so dramatically different than what you see at the average PGA Tour course. I do remember the LACC

Yeah, we talked about Augusta a lot. We did. They had Barranca, didn't they? And it was set in a valley and it was kind of climbing along the top and then it dived down and up. I can see that. I can see that with this golf course for certain. I really can. I was teeing your Wyndham-Clark bet up too a little bit there as well. Oh, if only. You know who I'm seeing bottom of the strokes gained around the green category on the PGA Tour so far this season?

Knowing you, I think you'll probably get it right. Yeah, I'm going to go Hovland. Yeah, you're right. 183rd. Yeah. Kind of a cross off, right? I feel like this is a guy that everybody had penciled in for the Masters in December. And it's difficult for me to see it in the range of outcomes that Hovland wins this event. I mean, I think that if he hits a million greens, he could still win.

I'm tentative to say the word surprise because he's such a great player, but God, how quickly things change on Victor Holland. I mean, Sam Burns is down there. That's one that I would never fancy here. Rory McIlroy is down there. Cam Young, you know, there's some players here that you could build some serious cases around, but historically they're not going to win the Masters just looking at this rolling statistic that

The last eight seasons, it's the lowest rank that I'm seeing. And clearly, I know, again, we're talking about PGA Tour. This is a very dangerous angle because there is a thing out there called live and you have to keep your eyes open now. But yeah, I am seeing some players that I could have some serious interest in. Straight away, it's a big, big red cross there. It's like, whoa, you know, they're around the green game, just isn't there this year.

So that's a major concern here. Major concern. Yeah. Yeah. I just was looking at the Zalatorra short game numbers and they started out the season pretty good and then have started to fall off a little bit more. Even, and this surprises, Sahith Tagala. Saw that too. We're looking at the same things, I believe. Yeah. Yeah.

Which is Morikawa I would add into that mix as well, where some fairly serious warning signs. I've never had Colin Morikawa, Andy, for this golf course, because I do not think he has quite got the power that is needed to win here. And people come out, yeah, but he's got good record. Yes, okay, placing, I'm talking about winning. That can be a three to four shot difference, but I genuinely think that Colin just hasn't quite got the pop to win around here.

Or the creativity and feel, right? Like if you think about where Collins won, you think about Harding Park, that PGA Championship at Harding Park, really flat golf course that emphasized driving accuracy. Even the Open Championship win at St. George's,

Again, a bit of a misnomer. I mean, that was not regular open championship conditions as you remember. I mean, that was a much easier open championship that we've seen in the past. I don't love Colin and weather. It looks like the weather is going to be pretty benign this week at Augusta. But again, there's sort of that creativity free balling aspect of Augusta where, you

You're just not hitting driving range shots, and I worry about Colin being a bit more of a track man golfer than the type of player...

I would put Spieth into this category. I would put Justin Thomas even a little bit in this category in terms of he doesn't get the credit he deserves in this. I think Scheffler has a lot of this as well, where Scheffler talks about, I don't really focus a lot on my swing. I focus a lot on how to shoot the best score playing golf. I think Gaviria

Guys like Colin sometimes play a little bit more golf swing than they do golf. And I worry about that a little bit at a course like Augusta where it's so much feel-based and you're going to be thrown to the wolves in terms of the shots that you're going to have to hit compared to the ones that you typically practice week to week out on the PGA Tour.

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Ryan Reynolds here for, I guess, my 100th Mint commercial. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I mean, honestly, when I started this, I thought I'd only have to do like four of these. I mean, it's unlimited premium wireless for $15 a month. How are there still people paying two or three times that much? I'm sorry, I shouldn't be victim blaming here. Give it a try at mintmobile.com slash save whenever you're ready. For

$45 upfront payment equivalent to $15 per month. New customers on first three-month plan only. Taxes and fees extra. Speeds lower above 40 gigabytes. See details. Where are you, Andy, in terms of your fundamentals from a skills perspective? How do they stack up with what I've just been through? I'm totally with you on short game. I think scrambling from the short grass, like again, not to get super, super in the weeds here, but

I'm looking at how players have performed chipping off of tight lies. I'm looking a lot at long iron play. I mean, Augusta last year, Steve, 75% of approach shots came from 150 yards plus. I mean, you're, you're basically looking at, okay, uh,

The third hole, obviously a must a drivable par four. And then you have 12 as the 12 and 16 is kind of shorter par threes. It's got the longest par fours on the PGA tour. Steve outside, I think Memorial park actually is the only one up there. And that's actually a decent indicator of how that course was set up to what we'll see at Augusta. But I think if I'm taking an incredibly over simplistic approach, uh,

The number one thing that I want this week is mid to long iron play at Augusta National. Number two, I'm going to take kind of 2A and 2B, chipping off of short grass, creativity around the greens.

And three putt avoidance from 25 feet plus. Black putting. Because these greens are large, right? So there's going to be a lot of instances where you're going to hit the green in regulation, but you're going to be 50 feet away and you're going to have to go through six different humps and hollows to access that pin. So I think if you're not checking the box of either being an elite lag putter or

or an elite chipper, then you're going to find yourself in some serious, serious trouble here. And then I would suppose, I mean, course history here, Steve, like I'm not typically a course history truther. If you look at statistically,

the correlation of course history at this golf course compared to any other pga tour golf course i want to say that riviera bay hill are second and third but i mean it's almost double what you see and i think the reason for that as well is

Augusta national is a golf course that you learn, right? It's an, and this is such a different and unique and singular week compared to other weeks on the PGA tour. Like you're going to get thrown off your routine so much this week, just because of how different it is. Right. And how many quotes have we heard over the years, Steve about, you know, the first couple of times that I showed up at Augusta national, I,

I had no idea what to do. Was I supposed to play 36 holes a day? You're staying in a different place. I mean, the housing arrangements are all different for all of these guys. Did you say in full swing too when Tom Kim's trying to find the rest? He's trying to find the canteen. Exactly. No idea. About half an hour.

Right. And I think that's why it's not just the fact that the golf course is overly nuanced. It's also the fact that this week is so singular in its experience that guys that have

figured out what to do and what their routine is. Guys that have like, I've been here 10 times. I know every master's week I'm playing nine holes Tuesday afternoon. I'm playing nine holes Wednesday afternoon. I'm skipping the par three contest. That's it. That's what I'm doing. I think there's a massive leg up for those guys that like, here's where I'm staying. Here's where I'm eating. I'm

This is my practice routine. I think those guys got a massive advantage here and, and Rory, it seems like may not fall into that category because it seems like he tries to do something every different every single year, but yeah, long iron play course history and lag putting chipping off of short grass. Those are kind of the big, big four pillars for me, Steve. Okay. That makes a lot of sense.

Makes a lot of sense. Is there anything we should add? Anything ancillary before we start talking about the players? I don't think so. As we see this golf course every year, and most of our listeners would have done that, there aren't many surprises, are there?

No, it's probably one of the more easier tournaments. And a lot of that has to do with the correlation, of course, history, right? As it ends up being one of the easier golf tournaments to predict on in terms of talking to a guy who's never had the winner in 15 years. Yeah. How many second places have you had? I've always got players in the mix, but they just haven't fallen over the line.

Right. So, yes, I think it is easy to easier here to cross a lot of players off the list. Put it that way. Can we have the chef our conversation? I mean, how are you? How afraid are you of this guy? Plus 450 is the best price possible.

I best lowest odds, right. For anybody in a master's since I, it's been a decade at least. Like, do you almost have to go back to like, Oh, wait tiger to find a plus four 50 is the favorite. I mean, you look at how dominant DJ was playing in the COVID year. Like you said, seven, eight, nine to one, uh, Sheffler's half of that. Yeah.

It's a different scenario this time to any that I can remember. It is. We used to sit and talk, didn't we? Every major. Who of the top three? It was always top three. It was always those super top three guys. That isn't the case anymore. No. Schaeffer or everyone else. I think he is...

I'm hesitant to say this because we just don't have a ton of data on what Jon Rahm is doing in live, and it's a little bit harder to contextualize that. But we are now having conversations of to Scheffler or to not Scheffler, whereas that has not been the case with any player in previous Masters since Peak Tiger, essentially. You're talking to a guy here who I don't like.

backing golfers win only. It's hard enough finding players to win golf tournaments, but to actually back them to win a tournament with another 143 players, say, for example, last week at the Houston Open, is something I don't like doing. But...

I did it at the players and it came up trumps because clearly I had Scotty. I also had Brian Harmon in the mix, which was great. I also had Hideki in the mix. So that was a nice bumper week for me. It would have been better clearly if Brian had won rather than Scotty, but, you know, we can't have everything.

Now, last week, Scotty went to a golf course at Memorial Park, and I've heard your comments on the course, and you're absolutely 100% correct. It was the kind of course where you just know it's atypical in the fact that

that people with seriously good weeks on the putting greens can rack up such big strokes gain numbers that it almost eradicates someone of even Scottish Heffler's elite tee to green game and actually made it a level playing field. And that's why Scottish Heffler come Sunday was fighting with the likes of David Skins, Alejandro Tosti and Steven Jaeger. It was incredible to watch.

It begs the question why would Scotty play that tournament rather than say something like Valero this week, which is far more up his cup of tea because it is team no putt. It's all tea to green, very little putting. Do you know what? I think he plays it because he knows what he's got to work on. He's got to work on the putting because that tea to green game is so strong. It's so super elite.

you know, he has separated himself away from the rest of the PGA tour as it stands. So maybe he wanted to play there just to, to actually test himself at a tournament where you had to putt. Well, now we all know, we all know the conversation John Rahm was having at the, uh, the Amex a few years ago when he was calling it a, what was he, what was he muttering under his breath of his walking off the green? Piece of shit putting contest. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This is it. Putting contest. I, I,

I don't know if I've got the answer. All I know was I was on him again, win only last week at 3-1, and that was when there was still a little bit of 9-2 around him actually winning the Masters. So not only did he not win for me, but his price got cut again, which is a double whammy.

My angle on this is that Scottie's rivals this week may well not be playing on the PGA Tour regularly this season. Put it that way. I would certainly agree with you. And I got to say, Steve, I'm not the biggest fan of Lev's product. With that being said, I'm going to be watching Doral pretty damn closely. I mean, that's a Florida...

grainy Bermuda golf course, a very different agronomically, but guess what you have to do at Doral. You have to hit a bunch of long irons to firm greens. So I actually think, I actually think if you're not watching and paying attention to what's going on at Doral last week, just take your feelings about live out of the equation for one second. If you're trying to accurately predict what's going on at Doral last week,

who's going to win the Masters, and you're not at least paying attention to what's going on at Doral this week. You're doing yourself a major disservice. If you are... If you're one of these guys... I mean, to be fair...

It's taken me a while to understand that I need to be paying a lot closer attention to live. And the reason I've worked that through is because you're starting to see live players with majors. You cannot just turn your back on it. It still holds some of the best players in the world. That's just fact. Well, think about it. Think about it too, Steve. Think about the conversation that we had before the PGA championship last year, where you were on Brooks and I, I,

I was not. I was a lot cooler on Brooks than you were. And there were a lot of warning signs. If you're paying attention to what Brooks was doing specifically on live in terms of the ball striking stuff that you were seeing out of Brooks heading into that PGA championship, obviously he had the spike performance at the Masters as well.

But we were seeing Brooks in some really impeccable ball striking form, which is not what you always see Brooks in, in live tournaments. He can mail it in on the PGA Tour in the past and in live on the past. And like there was something really specific happening with Brooks right before that PGA championship in terms of the confidence that he had with his driver and his overall approach play.

Like I missed it. I missed it because I wasn't paying close enough attention to lift. I just wasn't. Well, we don't get the data either. We just don't get the strokes gained. But you can see some of these trends via traditional stats. I know they're archaic, but you can. You listen to this. You want another warning.

Yeah, yeah. You listen to this winner's list at the Blue Monster at Doral and runner's up list. I mean, the last time they played there, the WGC Cadillac Championship, this is frightening, it has to be said. Adam Scott won. And guess who was runner up? Bubba Watson. Yeah. The year before that.

Dustin Johnson won. And who was second? J.B. Holmes. Well, J.B. Holmes is a top five at Augusta. Yeah. And the list just goes on and on. Justin Rose, big Justin Rose, Patrick Reed. Patrick Reed, Justin Rose, Bubba Watson, runner-up. Yeah. Tiger Woods. Oh, he's not too bad around Augusta, is he? No, he's crazy. In 2010, Charles Spartzoff in his second. It's just uncanny. Phil Mickelson won there in 2009. Yeah. So, actually, I think...

Watching what happens at Doral this week is a very important indicator. And yes, try and put to one side the live PGA situation if you're listening to this podcast and you're there to actually make money from betting. Try and just keep an open mind on it because there could well be players at this live event this week and just the way that they've been playing that can seriously, seriously contend at Augusta.

Just to completely agree, just to put a bow on the Scheffler stuff because we're going to – I want to dive into some other players. In my opinion, the biggest pro Scheffler argument, and I am not going to be betting Scheffler at plus 450. If you're asking me to vacuum the field or Scotty Scheffler, I'm still taking the field.

But the biggest pro Scottie Scheffler argument, in my opinion, of why I think he's so terrifying here and why I can't say I have like a tremendous amount of confidence going up head to head against him. I had Jaeger last week.

And, you know, not a second of that was comfortable. Not one second of that. I felt I felt that I was going to be OK. If you let Scotty linger, she's the boogeyman. I mean, you got to you got to kill him. If you enter a weekend where Scotty Scheffler is within five, six strokes, he's reached the point now where.

Every player's focus in that golf tournament should be where Scottie is on the leaderboard. And if you let him linger, it's only a matter of time before he's going to be there on Sunday. And the thing about Augusta with Scottie, you think about the golf courses where it's easier for Scottie Scheffler to separate himself, right?

How, how, why was it so easy for Scotty to separate himself at Bay Hill and the players championship? Well, because those are golf courses, which have a low greens and regulation percentage and a high miss fairway penalty. Right. And so what Scotty Scheffler does well is going to be accentuated at those golf courses. And it's going to be harder for a guy like David skins to keep up with Scotty Scheffler on these golf courses with a lower greens and regulation percentage and less wedge shots.

The other thing that doesn't get talked about with Scottie enough is his course management and where he misses. Okay. And to me, this is Scottie's biggest advantage over any other player in golf right now, particularly juxtaposed with a player like Rory McIlroy. And I could give you a lot more in the weeds examples about like how those guys play certain holes, the decisions they make, how that gets, um,

accentuated and juxtaposed on like holes, like sex, that sex at Bay. I've talked about all of this on podcast before, so I'm not, I'm not going to totally reiterate. If you actually watch a Scotty Sheffield round, how many times that he misses on the right side of the hole? How many times that he leaves himself an easy chip? How many times that he leaves himself an uphill putt compared to some of the other better players in the world?

That type of golf is going to be, uh, valued at Augusta more so than any other golf course on tour. Right. And so if you think about what is Scotty's real advantage, is it his talent or his brain? Obviously it's both, but the brain cannot go under discussed on this. I mean, Steve don't, I mean, let's also consider the fact like, is there, if you're doing a caddy draft, uh,

For Augusta, I mean, maybe you put Bones ahead of Ted Scott, but the guy won two Masters with Bubba before he even had Scottie on the bag. So he's way around that. Right. So this advantage that Scottie has in terms of hitting the right and the smart shot, that is going to be valued and accentuated at Augusta more so than any other golf course on the PGA Tour. Agreed.

I think their combination is by far the best in golf at the moment. Agreed. I think clearly the major monsters, Rob Brooks, his association with his caddy is absolutely top-notch as well. I think the player-caddy relationship these days is far understated in pro golf, and it doesn't get talked about enough, that combination. Couldn't agree more. I couldn't back Rory McIlroy.

On the basis, I just think he needs a strong caddy on the bag in a major setting. He often talks about it, doesn't he, about he can't concentrate. He makes silly mistakes, tactical errors.

But if he had someone strong on the bag telling him not to do that, like he used to have many years ago, they might not occur as often. You know, putting that out there. It's catnip for me. If you want to start, if you want to start talking about this for 20 minutes. So, yeah, I know. Does the secret Butch Harmon meeting for Rory do anything for you? It's not very secret anymore, is it? No, it's not very secret. It does show a level of desperation, potentially.

Maybe he just wants to try. The thing with Rory is he's tried so many different things over the years. It's unbelievable. The sample size is so large with Rory that you could find literally anything to support a positive or negative narrative. I will say the last reported, and I say reported in quotes, time that he saw Butch Harmon was actually late 2020 before the pandemic.

Before the November 2021 masters, he went to go see Rory after he went to go see Butch in Vegas when he played the CJ cup in October of 2020. Uh, and then he went T 17 at the Zozo T five at the November masters and then took a month off and, uh,

Then debuted the 2021 season at Abu Dhabi. So went to go see Butch finish T5 at the November Masters. Again, Rorschach test on Rory. Your mileage may vary on what that means. I think on Harry too, Steve. I think the problem with it is

Just because I don't want to spend a ton of time on Rory. I think he's kind of reached the point with Harry where there's a stubbornness aspect to it, where I think he's not going to fire him until he wins one with Harry because Harry is his best friend. So I think he needs to think he needs to prove he's more so in the mindset of I need to prove that I can do this with Harry. Then I need to seek external answers, seek external look in the direction of

of other guys that potentially could be more advantageous to this situation in terms of getting a different voice in there. Agreed. Let's move on. Let's move on. Should we move on to John Rahm? Yeah, let's do Rahm quickly. What is it? Jack Nicklaus, 65, 66, Nick Faldo, 90, 91, Tiger, 2001, 2002. Yeah.

That was off the rep. I could be wrong there. But point being, it's hard to go back to back in the Masters. I've got here Fowler 89-90, but I'm not going to shoot you down, and you're probably right anyway. But it's a select group. And even more chilling is this statistic.

From an each-way punting perspective, so for you guys, for guys in North America or certainly the United States, what I mean by that is each way where we're getting paid out for the play. So you have two bets, one on the win, one on a place. Even from an each-way perspective, we do a lot of this each-way betting over here in the UK.

Only Woods in 2006, since Tiger defended in 2002, only Woods in 2006 and Jordan Spieth in 2017 have finished in the top five when defending. And we see it quite regularly, don't we? The kind of green jacket curse. Players that win the green jacket and then kind of disappear from winning golf tournaments. And Rollins being one of those, unless it's my imagination, he hasn't won for a whole year since he put the green jacket on.

Now he's been, he's been like very consistently solid on live, but not winning. Yeah. So since Spieth in 2016 finished, I think fifth, the year after winning only two of the seven defending champions finished top 30. Yeah. I'm not going anywhere near John. Me as well. So this next tier, you're starting to get into, uh,

Brooks, Wyndham Clark, Xander Shoffley, Joaquin Neiman, Jordan Spieth, players like that. Yeah. I will say this, Steve. I think one of the better pro Scotty arguments outside of the brain advantage that he has at Augusta National is like, if not Scotty, then who? And if you're running through these guys, you're

We just gave strong counter arguments on why it can't be Rory. We just gave strong counter arguments on why it can't be wrong. Um, when did Clark we'll talk about, but the obvious glaring red siren is that he's never played Augusta before. Spieth serious questions about his form. Xander, can he close the door? Um, Neiman, um,

He's I know he's playing great golf. Neiman's been a bad major player. He just hasn't been good in majors over the course of his career. Has he had the top 10 in major championships ever? I think one, I don't think maybe, maybe zero. I can effort that in a second. The, the point I'm coming around to here on is probably the guy with the least amount of holes that you can poke through in terms of

Why can't this guy do it? Probably Brooks, right?

What holes are you poking in the Brooks case right now? Form? He hasn't been anything special on live this season, but when has that mattered for Brooks? Brooks doesn't peak for things like that, does he? He never has done. Right. Probably the number one draft pick, right? In terms of if it's this guy and Scheffler down the stretch, who do you trust to hit the shots and make the putts? I put Brooks as my number one draft pick there as well. So, I mean...

I'm typically not usually a Brooks guy as much as other people in terms of like my fandom, but 20 to one feels pretty darn fair on a five-time major winner. I think the one thing holding me back is like, I don't think people realize that.

What it is like in golf history, if Brooks gets to six majors, I mean, as you, as you filibuster, I can pull up the list of like what Brooks is really doing from a historical context standpoint, if he gets to six majors and what sort of tier that puts him in, in terms of like.

the eight to nine best golfers in the history of our sport well yeah it isn't just 20 to one man i mean it there isn't a number is it it isn't just a number that that would be the third of his four majors you know i'm looking at the prices that he's won majors at forget about the first u.s open that was 45 to 1 but 25 to 1 when he defended in 2018 the u.s open

You then look at his PGA Championship wins, yeah? 11-1 joint favourite in 2019. In 2018, he won at 20-1, yeah? And last year, he won the PGA at 22-1. And where is he priced right now? The standard 20-1.

I think he's going to get backed in. I genuinely think he's going to get backed in. And I would not, as we said at the top of the show, I would not be surprised to see Brooks at 18s and even 16-1 come when the real markets open on Monday next week. I really don't. The other player that seems to be getting backed in really heavily at the moment as well is Xander. I'm seeing him 16-1 in three or four different operators over here. But genuinely, generally, he's more 20s.

Who would you take, Brooks or Zander? Probably Brooks. Tiger, 15 majors. Jack, 18 majors. And then you read off the other guys that have sex. Hogan, Blair, Sam Snead, Walter Hagen, Arnold Palmer, Gene Saracen, Tom Watson. But that's not going to intimidate Brooks. That's not going to intimidate Brooks Koepka. He wants to be part of that group. He was mentioned in full swing this season, wasn't he? He wants 10.

He's not interested in six. He wants 10 double digits majors. It's what drives him. God, he's passing savvy and all these. I mean, it's just, it'd be, I keep a little bit of a golf history pyramid here. If Brooks wins, if Brooks gets to six, I mean, he's at worst the 14th most accomplished golfer to ever play the game. And that's with winning like 13 times, uh,

total, and almost half of them are majors. I mean, it's truly the most anomalous career I've ever seen. I mean, in terms of like all these other guys with six majors, Steve, they've won like 50 times. But this, I know people will say, no, it was for money. And I get that. But I think that's one of the reasons why Liv was an easy sell to Brooks. He doesn't care about PGA Tour titles. All he cares about is majors.

That's all he's... He's a major machine. He just wants to get his game in the right shape to go and compete at four times a year. It's fact.

The reason I think he felt that he needed to get a very strong win the week before last year's runner-up position at Augusta was he hadn't won for a period of time and he was recovering from the rehab, the lack of confidence in his game that he'd gone through that. I mean, he was even placing in the top five regularly in majors when he was basically playing on one leg. The guy's just a machine. Speaking of full swing too, did you get suckered into the...

you know, Wyndham, I think with Wyndham, like one of my big takeaways in, in terms of full swing is I think he's really well prepared for,

I think that, and that's the counter argument to he's never done the Augusta thing. But if you're making me power rank, and I think this is highly correlated to the reason why he just shows up in massive events and raises his baseline in these signature events on tour. And obviously we talked about the

connection to LACC in terms of a course fit standpoint, but talk me through why you think Wyndham could be that guy. You got him at 50. I'm seeing him down his best odds at 32 to one as well right now. So from a closing line value standpoint, I think you're holding a pretty strong ticket there. I backed him when he started well at the players. Mm-hmm.

And that was on the back of finishing second the week before. And I just went and it was like, he's still showing that 50 to one. Yeah. That's just not right. No. Um, he could Wyndham Clark be the first debutant to win around Augusta national since fuzzy Zeller. Yeah. Was that 97? The thing with Wyndham is he's got the kind of game shape that you would need for here. He,

He's tidied up the driving. He's not quite as errant as he used to be off the tee. He seems to play a lot more conservatively off the tee. I mean, just look at the way he was playing 18 at the players with a driving iron. He seems to be putting a lot more thought into his play.

than just gripping and ripping like he used to. And he's a lot more, you know, clearly he's a lot more kind and positive about himself. And that comes through in his performances. Shout out to the mental coach. Yeah, of course. Would we be shocked if Wyndham Clark won the Augusta National Masters and put a green jacket on at 28 to one when we know that 28 to one is a price point that has historically seen winners? I'd be more surprised if Justin Thomas won at 28 to one next week. Put it that way.

The other thing with Wyndham too, he's an unbelievable lag putter. If you're telling me 40 feet plus, 50 feet plus, who's going to get this to tap in range, it's really underrated skill of Wyndham Clark. And you think about some of these bigger ballparks, I know

there's really no pebble beach or TPC sawgrass in Augusta. But you think about a golf course like quail hollow, right? Where it's very driver heavy, a ton of long irons, same, same thing with LACC too. Like so many drivers and long irons on that golf course where you have wide fairways, but where you are in the fairway ends up being tremendously important.

And I mean, the fade thing too, I mean, there used to be a giant, you've got to hit more of a draw at Augusta. That's why all the lefties have won there. I mean, Rom is hitting exclusively a fade. Yeah, that's gone now. I just don't think that's as important as people have made it in years past. It's not a thing anymore. There's enough width and enough control that these guys have right now. Yeah.

So let's look at these 28 to one shots, 28 to one Clark, Thomas, Hovland, Neiman, Hideki Matsuama. There's only two of those five, five I'm interested in. One is Hideki. Yep. Yep. Have to be interested in Hideki. There is a big correlation as well, Steve, in terms of,

It's almost like the reverse scar tissue effect that it feels like we have with Rory, where a player that has won the green jacket, that has won the Masters, typically it's almost like you break through the seal. And this is another pro-Sheffler argument, but there's this weird...

Obviously, it's hard in your title defense, right? But then the year after, like Arnold Palmer won the Masters every other year in the 60s, like three different times, right? You had Bubba winning in 2012 and 2014. Phil's won it the year after, right? So again, another pro Hideki argument would be that, and this is again why you see

Guys like Fred Couples continue to make the cut here in their 50s. But it seems like when you win a green jacket, once you get that, once you get the monkey off your chest of saying, okay, I've done it before. I have nothing more to prove. There's no longer that monkey on my back. You see a lot of guys win a second, not even just the greatest players of all time. You see...

You see Baba be able to do it, right? So I think the fact that Hideki has gotten one a couple years ago would be a pro argument for Hideki compared to some of these other guys. Another pro positive point for me with Hideki was he's gone through a terrible time of injuries. He's had neck problems. He's had a lot of issues in his upper spine, neck,

You can tell that as well. You can just tell that from the numbers he's been playing, you know, driving distance down significantly, driving accuracy down significantly. He's had terrible troubles with injuries. The one number that really grabbed me at the players, and I know he's playing the Valero this week, I get that, but the one number that really seriously grabbed me at the players was he gained over 1.15 strokes with the driver

at a TPC Sawgrass per round. He ranked third for strokes gained off the tee and I'm scanning and I'm scanning. That's his best driving performance since the 2021 Memorial Tournament. And I think a great driving performance with Hideki when we know how great his long, short iron play around the green game is, that really does go full circle.

He's then just got to make some putts. And actually, at Augusta, as you said, it's more about lag putting and avoiding three putting than actually an all-out strokes game putting fest, which it clearly isn't.

I like Hideki. I think Hideki is in great shape. He also fits into this pattern. You know the pattern we were talking about earlier? There are some exceptions, chaps. Look out. But 10 of the last 12 winners had won in their last six starts. Well, you can cut that list too. Scheffler, Clarke,

Neiman, Matsuama, Dustin Johnson, Tommy Fleetwood of the main runners and riders this week.

McElroy won in Dubai. That's technically going to be his seventh tournament. Clearly he could win Valero. Ketka's in the same boat. He won in Jeddah 2023, which would actually be his seventh. But I mean, we're clutching at straws. But yeah, he's ticking a lot of boxes, Hideki Matsuo. I'm a hell of a liar. In fact, I don't think I'm going to be able to find a box you can't tick with him. That's the trouble.

Right. The other thing is the golf course that he won at. Like, is there a better golf course to win at coming into the Masters? And he loves bent grass greens. It's always been his favorite putting surface. Always. Okay. Let's move down here.

If I give you this giant tier of, I mean, gosh, Cantlay and Xander are usually like two points apart at most in the odds board. I'm seeing Cantlay as high as 36 compared to Xander 18, which is wild to me. But like Hovland, Cantlay, Zalatoris, Ludwig, Cameron Smith, Dustin Johnson,

JT, getting into Tony Finau, Cameron Young, Colin Morikawa, Max Holm, Bryson. Who would be your favorite of that group? I have my opinion, but I'm curious to see who else you want to highlight quickly before we wrap up with a couple longer shots. I don't like Cantillay.

I saw something. I was looking at something earlier, actually, about just the way that the schedule works and winners of this who literally had either played the week before or played the world match play. You're not getting many winners here that have had a month off. And actually, you look at Cantlay, he hasn't played since the players. So I think that's another negative against Cantlay. Well, that's the thing with Cantlay, Hovland and JT. Neither of them played Valero or Houston. And they're all coming off

Like in their last start were poor finishes. Right. And that's the, that's the biggest issue that you might have with can't lay Spieth and can't lay JT and Hoffland. I can feel people throwing daggers at me down the line, but the player I like in that, in that area and one that I managed to grab at 40 to one couple of weeks ago was Dustin Johnson. Yeah. I think Dustin's again, full swing. You can't, you know, just watching it. I think that started to hurt him last year that,

he just wasn't anywhere near in majors. I think that's motivated him and the fact that he took out that title in Las Vegas earlier this year, I think that would have done him the world of good. You look at his numbers, he's hitting lots of fairways, he's hitting lots and lots of greens, his ball striking looks great and that's how DJ flies. So yeah, I thought 40-1

That was a number I had no hesitation picking up on. Anyone else there? I mean, Zalatoris is going to be tempting to a lot of people because he performs in majors. He is a major championship kind of player. He is not a Houston Open where you've got to be gaining one and a half strokes on the greens every round kind of player. Could he disappoint at Houston and pop up here and contend? Yeah, he could. Can I get to him?

I'm doubtful right now. I think there's going to be players that are ticking too many boxes that I, going back to gut feel, that I would prioritize over Wils Allatoris at the same price point. Yeah, I don't know how much of a hot take this is at this point because I didn't expect you to agree with me here. But once you get past...

Once you get past Brooks and Rahm at the top of the odds board, to me, this middle tier of live players like Cameron Smith, DJ Bryson and Hatton, to me, I'm typically a lot lower on Cameron Smith than market, although I'm not looking past the course history. I know he's been phenomenal at Augusta. Of that group of Cameron Smith, DJ Bryson and Hatton,

Give me DJ 10 times out of 10. I think DJ, I think he's got one more big major run in him. A real Sunday afternoon. DJ is in the mix on the back nine. I think we're going to see that one more time in the next two years. Um, and this, and this might be the week, the only other guy that I would throw out there as well. I know you're going to laugh because there's no, uh,

There's no conceivable scenario that he could probably be the last man standing. But Tony Finau is hitting the ball unbelievably well right now. His problem this year hasn't been his tee to green game. It's been immaculate. It's been so good. It's been so, so good. I mean, he hit the ball. I was tracking him very closely in Houston because he was in a couple of big DraftKings lineups for me that I needed. I mean...

Tony Finau missed a two-foot putt on 16 and finished one stroke back of Stefan Jaeger. A two-foot putt on 16 on Sunday. I mean, Tony Finau's playing phenomenal golf right now. And I think if you're asking me who do I trust the most to be there based on his ball striking, the guy does love Augusta. He's played here a bunch, and he's got his routine down.

I'd probably want a 50 or 60, and I'm seeing 45s. I don't think you're going to get that, my man. Yeah, probably not. But Tony Finau's major championship record is severely underrated. Agreed. From an each-way perspective, to get someone in the mix on the first page of the leaderboard on Sunday evening over here in the UK, clearly in the afternoon over with you,

Tony Finau is not a bad shout, and I would take him over a Bryson DeChambeau, for example, on this particular golf course. I'd take him over a Homa. I would take Finau over Morikawa right now. I'd take him over Burns. But then once you get a little bit farther, guys past 50. Now, it's important to keep in mind, looking back at the winner's pricing that you've mentioned, like...

66 to one, I believe is the low watermark over the last decade. Is there anyone else you want to highlight here before we get out of here in terms of longer odds players that may necessarily not be able to win, but could be a key piece in a DraftKings lineup, could be a nice top five, top 10 bet. There's one or two guys I want to touch on, but give me yours first. Well,

I don't think Sahith Tagala is a bad bet at 50 to one. Catching some steam. Seeing a lot of Sahith as folks' favorite long shots, and I can't say I disagree with that. He let me down last week. I thought he was going to seriously contend, and he just never got going. Me as well. The other player I like at that kind of watermark, especially if this is going to play 10, 11 under as the winning total,

and there's a bit of wind and there's a bit of moisture around and things aren't nice. My old friend, Shane Lowry. Yeah. Yeah. That is totally where the dependent note, if the weather is pretty calm and,

We're looking at an easier golf course. I am not taking Shane Lowry. So that literally is going to be weather dependent. I tell you as a player, I don't know. I can't believe I'm about to say this, but there's two, there's two that I'm, I'm kind of targeting at bigger odds. One would be Patrick Reed. Yeah. Yeah.

You can say all manner of things. His stats have never been any good because he's not that kind of player. Patrick Reid is up and down and you're never going to see him being generated out of stats generators. But Reid at 80-1, I'd like to see something positive from him this week at Doral and that is likely. He's a cause he really likes.

The other one that's kind of sneaky and hasn't got a great majors record, but it is President's Cup year. And this guy from tea to green has been absolutely immaculate in 2024. Siwoo Kim. Yeah. I don't think he's got the pop. He hasn't got the full game to win here.

But I think from memory, he's got kind of top, he's got top 20 finishes here. Maybe he's got an excellent short game too. Like see who is one of the best around. Even if you think there's a bit of weather, a bit of wind, I don't think that'll actually trouble him. And I'm seeing him at triple digits here, a hundred to one over in the UK. Okay.

I think there's worse bets than see where Kim, you know, just to kind of steady himself around and never really get in the fight, but just hang around enough to get you a, an each way or a top 10 or for a top 20 bet, something like that. Oh yeah, for sure. And I don't think you'll be overly owned on DK either. Cause he just won't be right. The last guy that I would throw out there as well, in terms of a top five, top 10, this guy can surprisingly max, uh,

Go on.

somehow find their way and raise their baseline to the top? Who is the type of player that isn't afraid in terms of they're going to be intimidated in these major championships? Straka has had a lot of, for the caliber of player that he is, Straka has had a lot of success in majors. He's had a lot of success in the Southeast, the Southeastern portion of the United States.

I think Strzok is a great play this week at Augusta. I know he doesn't have the power per se off the tee, but I think he has the long iron upside and putting upside to surprise a lot of folks this week. He's got a bit of pop. He does. He's not right. He's not right at all. No, no.

Okay, Steve, you've been incredibly generous with your time. Any closing thoughts before we get out of here, my friend? I know you're the host and I have asked you some questions on this, but I think we kind of breezed over this without really dumbing down on it.

Yeah, we did. There is an elephant in the room here and his name is Xander Schauffler. I know. I've been trying to avoid it. Talk me through it. Yeah. So I've talked a lot about Xander on this podcast in the past. I'm a fan of his. I mean, one of, again, the biggest misconceptions about Xander is...

that he lowers his baseline and final rounds. He can't close the door and contention. I mean, statistically from a strokes game perspective, um,

Xander's been great on Sundays. Xander's been great in contention. I mean, the guy has won seven times and he probably checks the most boxes as well in terms of form. Like a lot of these guys on the PGA tour just haven't shown up for work this year. Like can't lay speed. Hovland Rory on the PGA tour.

They just haven't shown up for work this year. And Xander did. Xander has. Xander has been the third best player on the PGA Tour this year outside of Windham and Scheffler.

I think I need a 24, Steve. And I think the only way that I'm getting to a 22 or a 24 this week is if you get something magical out of Rory or Spieth or Hideki. That's my take, is that I think that for Xander to get to 20, even 22, 23, 24, I think you need Rory to go down.

Or I think you need speed to go down. Or I think you need Hideki to enter the 20 to 25 range.

I think you need one of those three that happened to get a little bit of drift on Xander, but I don't know if I'm there at 18 or 16. You're probably going to need Rory McIlroy beating Jordan Spieth in a playoff at the Valero and Brooks Koepka winning at Blue Monster Doral, and you might get 23s on Xander. Right, right. Maybe if DJ or Cameron Smith

Or Bryson's down to like 30 in some places, which is, which is interesting to me. But yeah, I think you need one of those, one of those couple of things to happen. But if you're asking me, you asked me this earlier and it, it pains me to say this because I root for Xander over. I root for Brooks. I think Brooks is at 20 is, is a way better bet. I do personally. I, I'm not there on either yet.

But I would take Brooks over Xander. Was it you that I heard the other day? It might have been. It might not have been. I'm 51 now. I have memory problems. You have to apologize. But was it you that was saying that Xander could be the modern-day Ricky Fowler? Yeah, I've made that comparison before. And that was why I hoped he'd win that players. Yeah, that's right.

And it made so much sense. It did make so much sense. Yeah. I mean, you think about this could be the Ricky Fowler 2014, or you remember, you think back in 2014, Ricky finished top five in every single major. We're actually, interestingly for not to turn this into a Ricky thing, but we're going back to, I was on him at the U S open and the PGA championship that year. Pinehurst that year. Yeah. I remember we're going back there and to Valhalla where he contended at both. Uh,

Okay, Steve, what do you got going on this week? Golf betting system. Plug everything you got going on. All of our statistics as ever. Strokes gained rankings. We will have our predictor model. We will have all of our form tables. It will all of them be available first thing on Monday in the UK. So probably East Coast time. You might even be getting some of it on Sunday evening. Of course, you can follow me on X at BamfordGolf.com.

And there will be the golf betting system podcast, both the research podcast and our full tips podcast next week. And of course you can pick up my betting preview at golf betting system as of Monday. Cheers, Steve. I'm excited, my friend. It's going to be a good week. Thanks for joining me as always. We'll see you at Valhalla, my friend. Thanks Andy.

All right. That's it for the podcast. Special thanks to Steve Bamford. Special thanks to Rumpier Sports. Special thanks to BetSports Golf and The Rabbit Hole. If this podcast helped you at all, quick reminder, share it around on Twitter. We have a five-star review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. It truly means more than you know on Masters Week. So until next time, we'll be back on this podcast feed when I've done a lot more research and my thoughts and ideas have

have been able to marinate a little bit and I have a much better sense of who I will be betting. Uh, so look out for the betting preview on Sunday, the DFS breakdown with Kobe on Tuesday morning, have an amazing week. Uh, and we will see you next time. Cheers.

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