Breven Honda
The 90th Masters Tournament gets underway on Thursday with first-round action at Augusta National Golf Club.
Sitting a couple of miles from the Georgia-South Carolina border and two hours east of Atlanta, the flowers have bloomed, and the players are ready to begin their quest to wear the coveted Green Jacket on Sunday.
Only four rounds and 72 regulation holes separate them from winning the first major tournament of 2026. However, the challenges the course faces are always daunting.
Here are 10 bold predictions for this year’s Masters Tournament.
Reigning Masters winner comes short
The reigning champion has returned to Augusta National. Rory McIlroy won last year’s Masters Tournament in a playoff. However, reigning champions have not fared as well 12 months after putting on the Green Jacket. The last player to win consecutive Masters Tournaments was Tiger Woods in 2001 and 2002. McIlroy is also trying to join Woods, Jack Nicklaus (1965-66), and Nick Faldo (1989-90) to successfully defend a Masters title. As a result, McIlroy falls short, and Woods’ streak continues for another year as the last man to go back-to-back.
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Justin Rose records another top 15 Masters finish
Justin Rose, who lost to McIlroy in the playoff last year, also made history 12 months ago. Rose is one of nine players in Masters tournament history to finish as the runner-up three times after also doing so in 2015 and 2017. However, in the ensuing year after his runner-up, he finished inside the top 15. Rose placed T10 in 2016 and T12 in 2018. Rose has shown this year he can battle on the toughest of courses, highlighted by his wire-to-wire win in January at the Farmers Insurance Open.
PGA Tour star misses cut
One of the stars so far this PGA Tour season is Chris Gotterup, who won twice within the first three weeks. He won the Sony Open in Hawaii and followed that up with a win at TPC Scottsdale for the WM Phoenix Open. Gotterup is also coming off a T6 at the Texas Children’s Houston Open a couple of weeks ago. The Rutgers alum is trying to become the fourth player overall and first since Fuzzy Zoeller in 1979 to win the Masters in their first start. Ultimately, Augusta National gets the better of Gotterup, who is teeing it up at the Masters for the first time. Competing in a featured group with Jon Rahm and Ludvig Aberg, Gotterup will fall short of making the cut.
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Bryson DeChambeau repeats 2025 Masters performance
The difference in Bryson DeChambeau putting on the Green Jacket and losing has come down to his putter. Despite having a positive 0.6 strokes gained putting all week, it was -2.32 strokes in the final round last year. That was while he was paired with McIlroy, en route to shooting a 3-over 75 to finish T5. He is coming off wins in South Africa and Singapore in the last two LIV Golf events. This year, DeChambeau once again falls just short of putting on a Green Jacket.
Scottie Scheffler’s struggles continue
To Scottie Scheffler’s standards, he has struggled as of late. He finished T24 at the Arnold Palmer Invitational and T22 at The Players Championship in his last two starts. With his recent form and some back injuries from McIlroy and Collin McIlroy, it makes this tournament a little more wide open than the last couple of years. Those struggles of trying to find that success will ultimately challenge the two-time Masters Champion.
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Matt Fitzpatrick records best Masters finish, contends
Matt Fitzpatrick enters this year’s Masters Tournament with a win at the Valspar Championship a few weeks ago. It also comes one week after losing the lead at the Players Championship on the back nine during the final round. Fitzpatrick’s best finish came 10 years ago when he tied for seventh. This is the year the Englishman puts it together and contends come Sunday.
Cameron Young returns to Masters contention
Outlasting Fitzpatrick at The Players Championship was Cameron Young, who got a birdie on the 17th hole to get his premier PGA Tour victory. Young is trying to join Woods and Scheffler as the only players to win the Players and the Masters in the same year. He had back-to-back top 10 finishes in 2023 and 2024 before missing the cut last year. Young returns to that form, and last year’s missed cut is an outlier.
J.J. Spaun struggles at Augusta
J.J. Spaun enters this week coming off a win at the Valero Texas Open in his final tuneup before the Masters. The last 13 months have looked a lot different for Spaun. He was the runner-up at the Players last year, won the U.S. Open, and competed on the U.S. Ryder Cup team before winning last week. With his win last week, Spaun enters a difficult history of trying to win the Masters Tournament as well as the previous week. Only four players have accomplished that, and once in 38 years, which was Phil Mickelson two decades ago. As a result, it will be a challenging task to try to get major win No. 2.
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One Masters long shot to win the Green Jacket
Jacob Bridgeman would be a long shot to win, but he has the metrics that other champions have coming in. At +8600, he would become the first longshot winner since Danny Willett (+6600) in 2016 and Charl Schwartzel (+9000) in 2011. Bridgeman has shown he can win against the best, having won the Genesis Invitational, a Signature Event. There are only two golfers on the planet who have statistically played better than Bridgeman: Scheffler and Rahm. Even if it is his first Master’s, as mentioned before with Gotterup, Bridgeman is an interesting look
My Masters pick: Xander Schauffele
Two years ago, Xander Schauffele put it all together with two major wins at the PGA Championship and the Open Championship. Not only does he have that major championship experience, but he also has the history at Augusta National. In the last 20 years, the average Masters champion was competing in their ninth Masters, which Schauffele is gearing up for this week. Schauffele has also finished among the top 30 in all 15 majors since the 2022 Masters. He has five top 10s in the last seven years, including a runner-up finish in 2019 and a T3 in 2021.
Recently, Schauffle won in Japan back in October and comes into Augusta with a third-place finish at the Players and a T4 at the Valspar. As a result, I have Schauffele edging out DeChambeau, like at the 2024 PGA Championship, with Fitzpatrick in the mix.
