PGA Betting Guide to Specials and Props: The Masters
We've had a jam-packed week of Masters content here on numberFire. With my course primer, DraftKings picks, and outright betting guide, along with Brandon Gdula's FanDuel picks, there's just one thing left to cover -- prop bets!
Whereas outright bets only pay out if the golfer wins the event, specials and props can keep bettors interested all the way through the end of the tournament. Golf is always a variant sport prone to unpredictability, but The Masters is a unique animal in and of itself. The cream often rises to the top when it comes to donning the green jacket, but with 12 golfers offered at 30/1 or shorter, we can't very well bet all of them. We'll focus on finishing position, tournament matchups, and other props available on FanDuel Sportsbook this week.
Finishing Position
Brooks Koepka (+170 for a Top 10 Finish) - While the outright odds are tasty enough at 18/1, getting this price for a top-10 is a great way to start our specials card. Koepka's finishes at Augusta starting in 2015 are T33, T21, T11, out with an injury, and T2. He showed enough in Houston to grab our attention this week. While he hasn't won in over a year and has battled a knee injury since last October, he's showed enough recently that he can still compete with a runner up in Memphis, pole position at the PGA Championship before an uncharacteristic sputtering on Sunday, and perhaps most importantly, last week in Texas, where he putted the lights out en route to a T5 finish.
Jason Day (+125 for a Top 20 Finish) - Except for a withdrawal in 2012, Day has played The Masters every year since 2011. In that span, he has finished inside the top 20 every year except 2015 (T28) and 2017 (T22). He was just one stroke shy of the top-20 in the latter and had to shoot the worst round in the field on Sunday in the former to miss out on such a finish. With four straight top-10s over the summer and a T7 finish in Houston last week, Day is primed for another great finish at Augusta and is a must-have at plus money.
Adam Scott (+135 for a Top 20 Finish) - Scott paces the field with 10 straight made cuts at The Masters, and with only 50 golfers making the cut, he's just about halfway there right out of the gate. His strength (long irons) match perfectly to the demands of Augusta, and it will be no surprise to see the Aussie once more in contention this week. Over those 10 years, he has 7 finishes inside the top 20.
Henrik Stenson (+160 for a top 40 Finish) - As mentioned above, only 50 golfers will make the cut this week, and while four missed cuts in his last five events might lead some to believe Stenson will be on the wrong side of that number come the weekend, his history at Augusta would say otherwise. He has played The Masters each of the past 14 years and has four missed cuts and 10 top-40 finishes.
Tournament Match Betting
Jordan Spieth (+118) over Scottie Scheffler (-144) - Augusta is one of the few stops on Tour where course history truly matters. Or perhaps it's more appropriate to say experience matters. And Spieth has had the full spectrum of experiences here. Even in his downswing over the past couple of years, Spieth has managed a T21 last year and a 3rd in 2019. Scheffler, on the other hand, is making his Augusta debut and will have no feel for the undulating fairways and, more importantly, lightning-fast greens.
Koepka (+128) over Bryson DeChambeau (-158) - This could be an all or nothing week for DeChambeau. Either his plan comes together perfectly and he tears through the field, or he struggles and can't seem to get his game right around and on the greens. Koepka has the higher floor and we know what his ceiling looks like, and while most of the other top players are close or even favored over Bryson, Koepka is available at a great price for the head to head.
Top Debutant
Cameron Champ (+900) - Champ has a fair amount of competition for this honor, with Scheffler (+750), Matthew Wolff (+550), and Collin Morikawa (+470) ahead of him in the odds. We'll bank on Champ's long game, which is overshadowed by the DeChambeau clown show in the driving stats, but in any other world would be jaw-dropping. Especially in wet conditions, Champ's ability off the tee can propel him to a strong finish just as it did at TPC Harding Park, where he gained 6.3 strokes off the tee to finish T10.
Top Asian Player
Hideki Matsuyama (+125) - Matsuyama is a big favorite in this category, but his experience at Augusta versus the rest of his competitors is so lopsided that he still looks like a good bet. His runner-up finish in Houston was exactly what he needed to do heading into Augusta, where he's had solid finishes each of the past few years. A T32 last year was his worst finish since he missed the cut in his debut in 2014, but it was mostly a product of a disastrous opening 75. He dug himself out of that hole with a 70-68-72 the next three days and had he just played to that scoring average in Round 1, he'd have flirted with the top 10.
