The 90th Masters Tournament begins Thursday with first-round action at Augusta National Golf Club.
Just a few miles from the Georgia-South Carolina border and two hours east of Atlanta, the flowers have bloomed, and 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 their first major tournament of 2026. However, the challenges faced by the curriculum are always difficult.
Here are 10 bold predictions for this year’s Masters Tournament.
Current Masters winner falls short
The defending champion returns to Augusta National. Rory McIlroy won last year’s Masters Tournament in a playoff. However, the defending champions have not performed that well even after 12 months of wearing 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) in successfully defending the Masters title. As a result, McIlroy lost, and Woods’ streak continued for another year as he was 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 playoffs last year, also created history 12 months ago. Rose is one of nine players in Masters Tournament history to finish as runner-up three times, having also done so in 2015 and 2017. However, following his runner-up finish in the following year, he broke into the top 15. Rose ranked T10 in 2016 and T12 in 2018. Rose has shown this year that he can battle on the toughest courses, highlighted by his wire-to-wire victory at the Farmers Insurance Open in January.
PGA Tour star misses the cut
One of the stars of this PGA Tour season so far has been 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 few weeks ago. The Rutgers alumnus is trying to become the fourth player overall and the first player since Fuzzy Zoeller in 1979 to win the Masters in his first start. Ultimately, Augusta National had better success than Gotterup, who is competing in the Masters for the first time. Competing in a special group with Jon Rahm and Ludwig Aberg, Gottrup would miss making the cut.
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Bryson DeChambeau repeats 2025 Masters performance
Bryson DeChambeau’s difference between wearing a green jacket and losing comes down to his putter. Despite gaining a positive 0.6 strokes throughout the week, it was -2.32 strokes in the final round last year. This was when he was paired with McIlroy on his way to shooting a 3-over 75 to finish T5. He has been victorious in the last two LIV Golf events in South Africa and Singapore. This year, DeChambeau once again missed out on wearing a green jacket.
Scotty Scheffler’s struggle continues
By Scottie Scheffler’s standards, he has struggled recently. He finished T24 at the Arnold Palmer Invitational and T22 at The Players Championship in his last two starts. With their recent form and some back injuries to McIlroy and Colin McIlroy, it makes this tournament a little more open than it has been in years past. Those struggles of trying to find that success would ultimately challenge the two-time Masters champion.
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Matt Fitzpatrick claims record for best Masters finish
Matt Fitzpatrick enters this year’s Masters Tournament fresh off a win at the Valspar Championship a few weeks ago. This also comes a week after he lost the lead on the back nine at the Players Championship during the final round. Fitzpatrick’s best performance came 10 years ago when he finished seventh. This is the year the British get it together and claim to be on Sunday.
Cameroon returns to Young Masters competition
Finishing ahead of Fitzpatrick at The Players Championship was Cameron Young, who birdied the 17th hole to earn his major 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. Before missing the cut last year, he had made consecutive top 10 finishes in 2023 and 2024. Young has returned to that form, and missing last year’s cut is an outsider.
JJ Spaun struggles at Augusta
JJ Spawn is coming off a win at the Valero Texas Open in his final tuneup before the Masters this week. The last 13 months have looked very different for Spawn. He was runner-up at the Players last year, won the US Open and competed on the US Ryder Cup team before winning last week. With his win last week, Spawn enters the difficult history of trying to win a Masters Tournament like last week. Only four players have done so, and once in 38 years, the latter being Phil Mickelson two decades ago. As a result, trying to get big win number 2 will be a challenging task.
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A Masters long shot to win the green jacket
It will be a tall order for Jacob Bridgman to win, but he has the metrics that other champions have. At +8600, he would become the first longshot winner since Danny Willett (+6600) in 2016 and Charl Schwartzel (+9000) in 2011. Bridgeman has shown that he can win against the best by winning the Genesis Invitational, a signature event. There are only two golfers on the planet who have played better than Bridgeman statistically: Scheffler and Rahm. Even though this is his first Master, as mentioned before with Gotterup, the Bridgeman is an interesting looker.
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 major championship experience, but he also has history at Augusta National. Over the past 20 years, the average Masters champion was competing in his ninth Masters, which Schauffele is preparing for this week. Schauffele has also entered the top 30 at all 15 majors leading up to the 2022 Masters. He has five top 10s in the last seven years, including runner-up finish in 2019 and T3 in 2021.
Most recently, Schauffele won in Japan in October and came into Augusta with a 3rd at The Players and a T4 at Valspar. As a result, I have DeChambeau edged out Schauffele and Fitzpatrick in the mix for the 2024 PGA Championship.
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