A tradition unlike any other is finally here. The azaleas are in bloom, the pimento cheese is on ice, and the first major of 2026 tees off Thursday at Augusta National. For fantasy players, bettors, and golf fans alike, there's no bigger week on the calendar, and this year's Masters may be the most wide-open we've seen in a long time.

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This week's field is absolutely loaded. 66 of the top 100 and 53 of the top 53 in the Official World Golf Ranking are teeing it up at Augusta National, headlined by world #1 Scottie Scheffler, defending champion Rory McIlroy, Cameron Young, Tommy Fleetwood, and J.J. Spaun rounding out the top five. Compared to last year's Masters, which saw 70 of the top 100 and 52 of the top 52, the top of the board is just as deep as ever.

The field also features 23 of the top 25 in the 2026 FedEx Cup standings, with only #19 Ryo Hisatsune and #21 Sahith Theegala missing the cutoff.

Eighteen past champions return to Augusta this week, including Rory McIlroy (2025), Scottie Scheffler (2022 & '24), Jon Rahm (2023), Hideki Matsuyama (2021), Dustin Johnson (2020), Patrick Reed (2018), Sergio Garcia (2017), Danny Willett (2016), Jordan Spieth (2015), Bubba Watson (2012 & '14), Adam Scott (2013), Charl Schwartzel (2011), Angel Cabrera (2009), Zach Johnson (2007), Mike Weir (2003), Vijay Singh (2000), Jose Maria Olazabal (1999 & '94), and Fred Couples (1992).

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This could be the widest-open Masters of all time, and for once, Rory and Scottie might not be the real favorites. The five most recent PGA Tour winners heading into Augusta (Akshay Bhatia at the Arnold Palmer, Cameron Young at the Players, Matt Fitzpatrick at the Valspar, Gary Woodland at the Houston Open, and J.J. Spaun at the Valero) have a combined 31 Masters starts between them and only four top-tens (two apiece from Fitzpatrick and Young), with best finishes of T-7th. Hot form doesn't automatically translate to Augusta.

More realistically, two LIV players have won in the last five weeks. Jon Rahm already owns a green jacket, and Bryson DeChambeau has two top-10s at Augusta, including a T-5th last year playing in the final group with Rory.

Our favorite with a great Masters record who's also playing well in 2026 is Xander Schauffele. He has five top-10s in eight Masters starts, finished 8th last year and in 2024, and was runner-up in 2019 and T-3rd in 2021. After a slow West Coast swing, his game has sharpened, with a 3rd at the Players and T-4th at the Valspar.

Ludvig Aberg is another we're watching closely. He finished 2nd in 2024 and 7th last year in his only two Masters starts. After his own slow start to 2026, he's found his form with a T-3rd at the Palmer, T-5th at the Players, and T-5th at the Valero. His final rounds at the Players and Valero were shaky, but he's still one of the favorites.

Justin Rose deserves a long look. He's been runner-up three times at the Masters, including last year's playoff loss to Rory. His 2026 has been up and down, but he did win the Farmers and was T-13th at the Players.

Laugh if you want, but we're also watching Patrick Reed. He won the Masters in 2018 and has five top-12 finishes since, including a 3rd last year. Reed left LIV in January and has been sharp on the DP World Tour, with wins at the Dubai Desert Classic and Qatar Masters and a playoff loss at the Bahrain Championship in between.

Two Englishmen round out the group. Tommy Fleetwood has been in great form with a T-4th at Pebble, T-7th at Genesis, T-8th at the Players, and T-10th at the Valero. Matt Fitzpatrick finished 2nd at the Players and won the Valspar. Neither has lit up Augusta historically, but both are playing some of the best golf in the field.

And then there's the rookie jinx. In 89 editions of the Masters, only three rookies have ever won: Horton Smith (1934), Gene Sarazen (1935), and Fuzzy Zoeller in a 1979 playoff. Sadly, we lost Fuzzy to a heart attack last Thanksgiving, so it would be fitting to see the first rookie winner in 46 years. There are 22 rookies in this year's field, and we like four of them: Tom McKibbin, Ben Griffin, Jacob Bridgeman, and Chris Gotterup. All four have already won pro events around the world. Griffin is the most interesting: he won three times in 2025, hits fairways and greens, ranks 11th in Strokes Gained Around-the-Green, and can hang with the bombers. But the two we really love are Bridgeman and Gotterup, both of whom proved in 2026 they're ready to win on any stage.

Of the 91 players in the field, we see maybe two dozen with a realistic chance of winning. Every year, the same names contend on the PGA Tour and then fade at Augusta: Adam Scott, Jason Day, Si Woo Kim, J.J. Spaun, Corey Conners, Harris English, Daniel Berger, Patrick Cantlay, Sepp Straka, Shane Lowry, and Keegan Bradley. Some will bristle at including 2013 champion Adam Scott on that list, but his last Masters top-10 was in 2017 and he missed the cut last year.

Two others we expect to struggle are Justin Thomas and Collin Morikawa. Thomas has only two top-10s in 10 Masters starts (best finish 4th in 2020). He had back surgery in the fall and has struggled since returning, though he did finish T-8th at the Players after a weekend of 72-72.

But the biggest disappointment is Morikawa. In six Masters starts, he's been outside the top 14 just twice. He looked like a favorite coming into the year after winning at Pebble, a T-7th at Genesis, and 5th at the Palmer. Then on his second hole of the Players, he took a swing, walked off the course, and said his back wasn't right. MRIs showed "nothing worse than what it's been," and he withdrew before last week's event even began. He was at Augusta on Monday hitting balls and told writers he's optimistic but admitted it's become a mental battle. His short game and putting are actually fine right now. The problem is the fear of making one bad swing. We've seen where that road leads. Ask Will Zalatoris, who won the 2022 FedEx St. Jude, tweaked his back the next week, and is still trying to recover three and a half years and two surgeries later. Don't expect much from Morikawa this week.

That brings us to Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy, the #1 and #2 players in the world and both with legitimate question marks heading into Augusta.

After Scheffler won the American Express in January, the sky looked like his only limit. We also learned at the Amex that his wife Meredith was pregnant. Since then, his results have followed a strange pattern: a rough opening round, then a huge charge to salvage a finish. T-3rd at Pebble after opening 72 (he played the last 54 holes in 20 under with a final-round 63). T-12th at Genesis after opening 74. Then the wheels wobbled, with a T-24th at the Palmer after rounds of 70-71-72-73, and T-22nd at the Players with 72-73-67-71. He withdrew from Houston to be with Meredith, and on March 27 their second son, Remy, was born. When his first son Bennett arrived just before the 2024 PGA Championship, Scottie seemed to handle it seamlessly. He'd already won the Masters and RBC Heritage weeks earlier and won the Memorial and Travelers the month after. This time feels different.

On Tuesday, Scheffler held his first press conference since the Players and was cagey about his preparation and whether the newborn was affecting his game. It's fair to wonder whether a player with such strong family values can compartmentalize at the level required to win a major right now. We've seen this before. Jordan Spieth had four incredible years before starting a family and hasn't been the same since. Even Tiger's game changed after his kids arrived. We're not saying Scheffler won't play well. He always gives 110%. But we don't think this is the week he wins. It's a timing issue more than a game issue. We may be wrong, and we'll find out soon enough.

How about Rory?

Rory is a completely different player than he was the week before he finally got his green jacket last year. He's still giving 110%, but after accomplishing the career Grand Slam, it's fair to wonder whether the hunger is the same. In the year since winning the Masters, he has just one win at the Irish Open in September. He had a T-3rd at Abu Dhabi, 2nd at the DP World late in 2025, T-3rd at the Dubai Invitational, and T-2nd at the Genesis in 2026. Solid, but not sharp. What worries us more is his back. He withdrew on Saturday at the Arnold Palmer, then finished T-46th at the Players with rounds of 74-71-72-71. And now he's taking three weeks off before a major, something he has never done in the last five years. Is it strategic rest, or is his back acting up again?

We're passing on Rory this week. The back is a minor concern, but the bigger concern is whether he can lock in the way he did last year. We'd love to see him win again, but we don't think it happens.

Augusta National Golf Club
Augusta, Georgia
7,565 yards  |  Par 36-36–72

This week marks the 90th edition of the Masters. It has been played every year since 1934, with the lone exception of 1943 to 1945 when World War II suspended the championship, and remarkably, it's the only major played on the same course every single year.

The tournament was the brainchild of Bobby Jones, who originally wanted to host a U.S. Open at Augusta National. When the USGA turned him down because of Georgia's sweltering June heat, Jones and co-founder Clifford Roberts decided to stage their own event starting in 1934. Roberts wanted to call it the "Masters Tournament," but Jones thought the name was too presumptuous, so for the first five years it was officially known as the Augusta National Invitation Tournament. Jones finally relented in 1939, and the Masters name stuck.

After retiring from competitive golf following the 1930 U.S. Amateur, Jones set out to build his dream course near his Atlanta home. With the help of New York banker Clifford Roberts, he landed on Augusta because of its mild winter weather. The piece of land they eventually settled on was a former indigo plantation called Fruitland Nursery, the first commercial nursery in the South, famous for popularizing the azalea. When Jones first walked the property from what is now the practice putting green, he famously said the ground had been lying there for years, just waiting for someone to lay a golf course on it.

Jones brought in Scottish architect Dr. Alister Mackenzie, designer of Cypress Point and Pasatiempo (two California courses Jones had fallen in love with), to help bring the vision to life. Construction began in July 1931, and the course opened for limited play in December 1932. Mackenzie, sadly, died before the course was fully grassed in.

Augusta National has been tweaked and lengthened countless times over the last 90 years. Today, the tees and fairways are Bermuda grass overseeded with rye in the fall, and the greens are bentgrass, which is why they run so fast and so smooth. Water comes into play on five holes on the back nine, and there are only 43 bunkers on the entire property. For this year's event, they added 10 yards to the 17th hole, bringing it to 450 yards. That's on top of last year's change to the 2nd hole (now 7,565 total yards), the 2023 overhaul of the 13th (35 yards added, which forced half the field to rethink their second shot), and the 2019 lengthening of the 5th into a true monster.

Weather outlook: Good news for scoring this week. Winds will be mild across all four rounds, between 6 and 11 mph. Thursday starts cool at 73°F with a chance of clouds, but temperatures climb each day to reach 86°F on Sunday. No rain is in the forecast, and the course should play firm and fast. Without much wind to defend it, Augusta may give up a low number this week.

Not every stat that wins on the PGA Tour wins at Augusta. This course rewards a very specific skill set, and the betting value this week lives in the gap between tour-wide form and what actually matters around Augusta National. Here's what we focus on when we're handicapping the field.

Precise ball striking: Augusta's steeply contoured greens demand that you land your approaches in the right quadrants. Miss on the wrong side and you're facing a three-putt before you've even started reading the line. It's why players like Ben Hogan and Nick Faldo each collected multiple green jackets. They could put the ball exactly where they wanted it.

A hot putter and no three-putts: Poor putters simply don't win the Masters. Avoiding three-putts is essential. In his 2024 win, Scottie Scheffler had just two three-putts and 33 one-putts over 72 holes. In 2023, Jon Rahm navigated Augusta's greens with the same precision. Hideki Matsuyama had four three-putts in 2021, Dustin Johnson had just one in 2020, and Tiger had two in 2019. The pattern holds year after year.

Length helps, but isn't everything: Yes, Tiger, Rory, Phil, Scottie, and Vijay all bomb it, and bombers have won plenty of green jackets. But short hitters like Mike Weir, Zach Johnson, Mark O'Meara, and Ben Crenshaw have won too. Jordan Spieth ranked 52nd in driving distance at Augusta the year he won. Length matters when you're reaching par 5s with wedges, but touch and positioning can beat raw power in the right conditions.

Experience and wisdom: This is why Jack Nicklaus has six green jackets. The last player to win the Masters in his very first start was Fuzzy Zoeller back in 1979. That's 46 years and counting. Of the 22 rookies in this year's field, history says they're fighting an uphill battle.

World ranking matters too: Since 1988, only two Masters champions have come from outside the top 50 in the world rankings: Zach Johnson (#56) in 2007 and Angel Cabrera (#69) in 2009. The average Masters champion over the last 35 years has been ranked 14th the week before winning. Twenty of 34 winners were in the top ten going in. If history repeats, this year's winner is already near the top of the board.

For the complete statistical picture, including course history, form, key stats, and our proprietary composite rating, check out our Composite Rankings, updated this week for Augusta National.

Below the fold for premium subscribers: our complete Players to Watch board (Best Bets, Best of the Rest, Solid Contenders, and Long Shots), plus where we're putting our money this week.