Toph's Thoughts: The Masters
Gold jacket, green jacket
I love The Masters. It’s something my grandfather and I shared together and it’s my favorite Thursday-Sunday stretch every year in golf. Give me all the pomp and circumstance. I love it. Part of that, however, is the fact this is the only major played on the same course year in and year out. It’s a pretty widely known fact that Augusta is the easiest to pair course history to golfer in terms of trying to be predictable with your choices. If they usually play well at Augusta, they’ll probably keep playing well. I’m not telling you anything new here.
The fairways are notably incredibly wide and that helps lead us to bombers. There’s been rain and the forecast has a lot more hitting early Friday afternoon through Sunday. The only actual concern I have is whether there will be a postponement of round two or not. I could see a world where they try to go off two tees and move tee times up to at least get the weekend field set. Does this give any sort of advantage to late Thursday/early Friday scheduled golfers? I’m not building my lineups based solely on that, but it’s something I may use as a tiebreaker if I’m really torn.
I already have it baked into the model, but if you’re doing separate research, I really like bombers (especially if course conditions are a touch softer than normal) that pair with elite ball striking. If you’re not an elite around the green player, you can get in trouble in a hurry.
LIV guys - been covered ad nauseam, but a few guys that DID have data points made it into the trend table & model. A guy like Patrick Reed has won here. Same goes for Bubba & DJ. Cam Smith has a ridiculously good Masters resume. If you’re going to bet or click on one of them, I’m leaning on course history.
If I had to bet my bank account on someone, forced at gun point, it’d be Scottie Scheffler. He’s just other worldly right now and every stat points to him, including course history. But, I’ve also become enamored with Patrick Cantlay. His average driving distance hovers around 310 this year and that length will help as Augusta plays the longest it ever has in its history. He’s 5th in my trend table in terms of positive movement, is deadly accurate in approach and what could be his most common approach shot of 125-150, he’s hitting over 70% of those approaches on the green in regulation. And if all of that fails? He’s above average around the green and that’s trending positive as well. And one of the best parts? He’s tops in the PGA in par 5 scoring. We are begging him to bring a decent putter to Augusta.
Danny Willett is $6,600, he’s 4th in our trend table, he’s not losing strokes anywhere in his current game (16 rounds) and he’s a past winner at Augusta who placed T-12 last year. I’m willing to eat any potential of a MC for that. Doesn’t hurt he has made the cut in his previous five tournaments and his lowest finish was a T-41 at the AT&T Pro-Am.
Very into Keith Mitchell. The price point is fantastic, his past 16 rounds, he’s not losing strokes anywhere in his game. Not only does he pound the ball off the tee, he’s extremely accurate as well. I’m not sure how chalky he’ll be, so someone like a Kurt Kitayama could be a nice & direct pivot (both $7,100). While Kurt has never played Augusta, he’s not losing any strokes in his game over the last 16 rounds and he’s 2nd on my trend table.
Shane Lowry - you’re trending and you’re only losing strokes in the last 16 rounds with your putter. Please fix that and you’ll keep your Augusta record shining (T3, T21, T25 in the last 3 Masters!)
Hatton is 8th in the model, but I’m using extreme caution. He talked about an injured hand, got wiped out at Dell Match Play and missed the cut by 1 at Valero. His approach game is really the only positive trend he has going.
Rahm, Morikawa, Finau, Homa & Zalatoris are the bottom 5 in the trend table. Overall, it’s not a massive dip in performance, so don’t read too much into it. But, Homa and slightly Rahm are the two I’m most worried about. If I’m betting anyone to have a random blip and have it not be concerning it’s Rahm. Homa’s ball striking and tee to green numbers are two of his biggest sliders. Not exactly what you want heading to a course you don’t have a tremendous history at (watch him win now that I’ve given my kiss of death.)
Scottie Scheffler is incredible at avoiding three putts. I know this is shooting fish in a barrel, but unless he gets food poisoning from his championship dinner, I don’t see any way he’s not in contention on Sunday. Or Monday. Or Tuesday. Whatever the weather dictates. (MC incoming)
I don’t think the greens are going to rapidly slow down as I’ve seen some folks say. Augusta greens have some of the best tech in the world and have systems that can remove moisture from the greens. What I’m saying is, even though he’s not in the field, don’t play Luke List or others of his ilk with the flat stick on the hunch the greens will be slower and allow bad putters any relief.
Hit me with any questions. You can find me on Twitter at TopherThinks. Subscribe if you haven’t, share, let me know how much you win. Let’s get 6/6 through!