The betting favorites, value picks and longshots to win the 2023 Masters

The 2023 Masters is here.

Practice rounds begin Monday at Augusta National Golf Club, while the first round commences Thursday morning.

Scottie Scheffler has a green jacket to defend. Rory McIlroy, too, will look to find himself back in the winner’s circle at a major for the first time since 2014. That’s not to mention the ongoing jockeying between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf that’s hung over the sport over the last year-plus.

So who could get in the mix at this year’s Masters? Here’s a look at some of the candidates:

Note: All betting odds current as of April 1 via Draft Kings

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Any discussion about this year’s tournament has to begin with Scottie Scheffler (+700).

The sweet-swinging Texan has held onto his world No. 1 ranking and has already won twice on tour this year — including two weeks ago at the Players Championship at TPC Sawgrass. More impressive, Scheffler has finished in the top 10 in seven of his 10 events played this year, and he hasn’t finished worse than T12 in an event since the CJ Cup in October.

No one has won back-to-back Masters titles since Tiger Woods (+6000) did it in 2000 and 2001. Scheffler feels like a pretty good bet to do so this week.

If Scheffler doesn’t take home a green jacket, Rory McIlroy (+700), John Rahm (+850) and Justin Thomas (+2200) feel like good picks.

McIlroy finished alone in second last year at Augusta National with a closing 64 to finish three shots back of Scheffler. He’s finished no lower than eighth in all four of last year’s majors and has one win (CJ Cup) and three Top 10s in his six starts in 2022-23.

Rahm may well be the best all-around player in the game right now and, even at 28, it feels like he’s been finishing toward the top of major leaderboards forever. The Arizona State product has come close at Augusta before, finishing T4 in the 2018 tournament. Rahm’s T27 showing at last year’s event was also the first time he finished outside the event’s top 10 since his first appearance in 2017.

Thomas almost has to be included on this list of favorites after his legendary win at the PGA Championship last year. He hasn’t missed a cut this year and has finished in the top 25 in six of his eight appearances. Thomas has finished in the top eight in two of his last three Masters appearances, and he rode his play at the 2022 event into his third major win at Southern Hills.

Good value picks

Tony Finau is due (+2200). The towering Utah native has been one of the more talented players on tour in recent years, but he’s never finished better than third in his 26 major appearances.

Finau came out with a 1-under opening round to go into Friday at T10 last year, but he faded down the stretch and fell out of contention. He won the Cadence Bank Houston Open back in November and hasn’t finished worse than T24 in an event since the World Wide Technology Championship — his first start of the year.

Lost a bit in Scheffler’s rise is that of fellow American youngster Sam Burns (+3500). The former LSU standout has four top 10s in his 10 starts this year, including a win at the World Golf Championships-Dell Technologies Match Play event two weeks ago. Burns was cut in his first Masters appearance last year, but he should find himself playing on the weekend.

Speaking of overshadowing, it’s easy to forget Sungjae Im (+3500) was the first round leader at Augusta last spring. Im pushed himself out of the top five with a 75 closing round, exacerbated by five bogies on his final 10 holes. The South Korean has been a bit up and down this year, but he does have eight top 25s in his 13 starts this year.

Maybe we shouldn’t consider Matthew Fitzpatrick (+4500) a “best of the rest” name these days. Fitzpatrick took home his first major title last year at the U.S. Open and was right in the mix with Thomas and Mito Pereira (+13000) at the PGA Championship earlier in the season.

The Englishman has averaged a 27th-place finish over his last seven Masters appearances, which seems odd considering Augusta National usually rewards world-class ball strikers like Fitzpatrick. He’s been cut in three of his last five events, but Fitzpatrick feels due for a top 10-ish finish at the Masters.

Longshots

These guys almost certainly aren’t winning this week, but they make for fun picks given their long odds.

Si-Woo Kim (+8000) won at the Sony Open in Hawaii in January and has made the cut in 12 of his 13 events this year. Kim finished T39 at last year’s Masters, but his T12 result in 2021 is his best major finish to date. Perhaps he channels something unique this week.

Sahith Theegala (+11000) has become one of the more fun young players on tour to track. He was part of the crew that appeared on the Netflix documentary “Full Swing” earlier this year and his play has steadily progressed. Theegala has played a ton of golf this year — 14 events, to be exact. He recorded top 10s at the Farmers Insurance Open and the Genisis Invitational during the PGA’s west coast swing this winter and hasn’t missed a cut since Oct. 2.

Danny Willett (+13000) has exactly one (!!) career PGA Tour win — the 2016 Masters. That’s a wild stat considering the names that have won at Augusta National (Willett does have seven international victories). He started hot in last year’s event, going 3-under in the first round, but waffled a bit on the weekend with a 72-73 to close his tournament. Still, Willett’s T12 finish was his second-best effort at a major since that 2016 Masters title. Can he find that form again?

How about the LIV Golf guys?

There should only be two real threats to win the title this week among the LIV golfers — Cameron Smith (+2000) and Columbia native Dustin Johnson (+2500).

Smith has become one of the more polarizing figures in golf after he defected from the PGA Tour to the rival Saudi-backed league shortly after his win at the Open Championship last year. Still, he’s still probably one of the five most talented players in the 2023 Masters field.

The Australian beat out McIlroy and Cameron Young (+2800) down the stretch for his first major title in 2022 and took home the Players Championship before leaving the PGA Tour. Smith won the second of his four starts on the LIV tour last year, but what kind of form he’s in is hard to peg. He’s finished T2, T10 and T3 in his last three Masters starts. It’d be surprising if Smith isn’t in the mix on Sunday.

Johnson is a past champion at Augusta National and figures to have a decent shot at this year’s title. The one-time Coastal Carolina golfer is the LIV Golf Series money leader and individual champion during its inaugural campaign. Johnson finished no worse than T10 at the Masters between 2015 and his title in 2020, but he missed the cut entirely in 2021 before a T12 finish last year. Like Smith, we’ll see what kind of form he’s in.

Phil Mickelson (+18000) will surely draw headlines, assuming he shows up at Augusta National this year after withdrawing amid the scrutiny of comments he made about the Saudi backers of LIV Golf. It’s hard to imagine Mickelson winning, but droves of patrons will follow his every move.

Masters TV schedule this week

First round, Thursday, April 6

Time: 3 p.m. — 7:30 p.m.

Channel: ESPN

Second round, Friday, April 7

Time: 3 p.m. — 7:30 p.m.

Channel: ESPN

Third round, Saturday, April 9

Time: 3 p.m. — 7:30 p.m.

Channel: CBS

Fourth Round, Sunday, April 9

Time: 3 p.m. — 7:30 p.m.

Channel: CBS