The Masters offers the casual gambler many different ways to put a little skin in the game. The usual PGA Tour stops will often have head-to-head bets or three-ball options, but when the majors come around, we get Super Bowl-like prop betting options.
No player drove golf prop bets more than Tiger Woods when he was in his prime. The field versus Tiger to win at a major championship in the 2000s seemed like a long shot.
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Scottie Scheffler isn’t on Woods’ level of dominance yet, but some of the odds being offered are putting him close. Scheffler has been as low as +350 to win the Masters in 2024 and sits at +400 right now. His level of performance coming into this week has made bettors start to get creative. For better odds, they’ll look at a prop where you can take a player to finish with the lowest score to par excluding Scheffler. So, instead of betting Xander Schauffele to win at +1400 (the line has moved since yesterday), you would take him at +1200 to be the lowest total score excluding Scheffler.
With that said, though, the betting favorite hasn’t won the Masters in the last 18 tries.
For those who like to root for the underdogs and play the long shots, there are some decent long-shot options in this year’s field. A long shot hasn’t won at the Masters since Danny Willett in 2016, but that doesn’t mean you can’t leverage a long shot to live bet on a winner on Sunday. Following some of the trends of past Masters winners, we may be able to zero in on a few long-shot options to add to our betting slip.
All odds from BetMGM.
Masters sleepers picks
Patrick Reed (+8000) won at Augusta National Golf Club in 2018 with a tremendous wedge game and is coming off of a fourth-place finish here in 2023. The golf course and the greens are firm this week, with mid-irons bouncing over the greens on the par 5s in the early practice rounds. Players may be forced to lay up and play higher-lofted clubs into the greens, and there aren’t many players who do it better than Patrick Reed. Ten of the last eleven winners have gained at least .25 strokes around the green in the 16 rounds prior to the Masters, and Reed is well within that range.
Si Woo Kim (+8000) checks a lot of boxes when it comes to past Masters winner trends. The last 12 winners have gained at least 18 strokes combined tee to green in the four events prior to their Masters win. The last 14 Masters winners have ranked inside the top 30 in strokes gained tee to green for the year prior to their Masters win. Thirteen of the previous 15 Masters winners have won four or more times before they won the Masters.
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Justin Rose (+17500) is my nostalgic long-shot pick this year. Prior performance at the Masters is the trend that holds the most weight. Justin Rose has two second-place finishes at the Masters in the last 10 years. He has five other top-16 finishes here in that time frame and has always been a threat to be a first-round leader. He loves it here, but he hasn’t been able to break through yet, with his closest call being a loss to Sergio García in a playoff. Rose has struggled in 2024, but he just might rekindle some magic when he steps inside the ropes at Augusta. It makes me sad that Ernie Els never won a Masters, and I don’t want that fate for Rose.
Masters prop bets
Tiger Woods to make the cut (+100)
Woods hasn’t been able to finish a golf tournament since the Hero World Challenge in early December. He was forced to withdraw from the Masters in 2023 because of injury, and he withdrew from the Genesis Invitational due to flu-like symptoms. The early reports are all positive on how Tiger looks this week. Will Zalatoris played a practice round with Tiger and said it was the best he has seen him play. The cut at the Masters is the top 50 and ties, and there are only 89 players in the field. I would rather root for Woods to make the cut at +100 than bet against him and win a little money watching him struggle.
Hole-in-one made on 16? Yes (-120)
There have been 10 hole-in-ones made in the last 10 Masters tournaments with all but one coming on the 16th hole. Last year saw no hole-in-ones made, which made fans and bettors a little disappointed. I would rather bet that a hole-in-one will be made. After all, we have the best players in the world hitting as little as a 9-iron into a pin that has a backstop that brings balls back toward the hole.
Top debutant
Wyndham Clark (+333) is already a major winner and looks like he is making the jump to being one of the very best players in the world. Augusta is always a tough course to get used to, but Clark’s game seems tailor-made to fit it. He traditionally plays a power fade off the tee much like past Masters winners Jon Rahm, Dustin Johnson and Jack Nicklaus. He has gained over 18 strokes combined from tee to green over his last three tournaments, so his recent form is a big plus.
Top LIV golfer
Joaquín Niemann (+550) might be the second-best golfer on the planet at this moment. He has experience at the Masters where he has improved his finishing position for three straight years. He has gained over 20 strokes tee to green combined over his last three tournaments played. Brooks Koepka comes into this week with some question marks around his recent form and Jon Rahm has a lot to do as the defending champion and face of the PGA Tour and LIV Golf split.
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Top amateur
Christo Lamprecht (+188) has the distance off the tee that you want to see from someone competing at the Masters. Lamprecht also has some experience on the leaderboard at a major, which could help him here. Neal Shipley (+450) has the hair and the attitude that make it fun to root for him. But the amateur I am backing is the 33-year-old (today is his birthday!) U.S. Mid-Amateur champion Stewart Hagestad (+330), who has experience at Augusta and has made the cut here before finishing T36 in 2017.
Top Irish finisher
Rory McIlroy (-250) over Shane Lowry
McIlroy only needs to don the green jacket to secure his career grand slam and he has seven top 10s here in his last 10 tries. Lowry comes into this week in good form and has had some good finishes here, but his ability to contend for a top-five finish is well below what McIlroy can produce. McIlroy has gained over 22 strokes tee to green combined over his last four tournaments, so his current form is excellent.
Bonus future bet
Xander Schauffele and Patrick Cantlay to make the cut in all four majors (+275)
Schauffele and his current form is the easy side of this bet. He finished inside the top 20 in all four majors last year and hasn’t missed a cut in a major since the Masters in 2022.
Cantlay has struggled ever since the Ryder Cup loss in October 2023. He has lost strokes on approach in every tournament since, besides the Genesis Invitational. He lost almost 10 strokes on approach combined at the Arnold Palmer Invitational and The Players Championship. But he has been in the lab working on his swing ever since. I believe Cantlay will bounce back, and his advantage off the tee will help him make the cut in every major in 2024.
(Photo of Patrick Reed: Megan Briggs / Getty Images)