The most wonderful week of the golf calendar year has arrived! Regardless of who wins the green jacket on Sunday, Augusta National is always the highlight of the PGA Tour’s season. The top golfers in the world are tested on this course to maintain perfect control over their swings, with the added wrinkle this year of the perceived villains from LIV Golf being on hand for this one.
The prerequisites are anything from straightforward, despite their seeming simplicity. Players will be asked to hit tee shots in both directions and the further the shot, the better. On the putting greens, where subtlety and deception lurk in every blade of grass, the experience will be important. But recent years have also shown newcomers can compete.
Let’s take a closer look at a few spots I’m on this week with our friends over at PrizePicks.
The most wonderful week of the golf calendar year has arrived! Regardless of who wins the green jacket on Sunday, Augusta National is always the highlight of the PGA Tour’s season. The top golfers in the world are tested on this course to maintain perfect control over their swings, with the added wrinkle this year of the perceived villains from LIV Golf being on hand for this one.
The prerequisites are anything from straightforward, despite their seeming simplicity. Players will be asked to hit tee shots in both directions and the further the shot, the better. On the putting greens, where subtlety and deception lurk in every blade of grass, the experience will be important. But recent years have also shown newcomers can compete.
Let’s take a closer look at a few spots I’m on this week with our friends over at PrizePicks.
2023 Masters PrizePicks Predictions
(Totals courtesy of PrizePicks)
Scottie Scheffler: Total Strokes 70.5 (LESS)
Since winning the Masters last year, Scheffler has competed in 22 different competitions; and his pace has been staggering. He has two wins, four runner-up spots and 15 overall top-15 finishes. Since October, or 11 starts ago, he has not finished outside the top 15.
According to the golf database at RickRunGood.com, he is the top tee-to-green golfer in the world over the last 100 rounds, as he is marginally outpacing his co-favorite this week Rory McIlroy (+2.03) in terms of stroke gains per round with 2.08 strokes. Nobody else in this field is better than +1.50 per round during that time, showing just how big the cut above the rest is.
Scheffler is an elite golfer with an outstanding mental game, and right now, he is entirely focused on winning his second straight green jacket, becoming the first since Tiger Woods in 2000 and 2001 to do so. Look for a hot start to set him on his way.
Rory McIlroy: Total Strokes 70.5 (LESS)
Although McIlroy has recently changed his driver and putter, his confidence currently seems high. McIlroy was remarkable even though the strokes-gained statistics from the Dell Match Play can be a little off (hole concessions and the fact that not every golfer played the same amount of holes). He gained 8.5 strokes off the tee and 2.37 with the putter, which propelled him to a third-place finish, his eighth top-five performance in his previous 12 events.
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