Picks and predictions for the 2019 Masters

The 2019 Masters may not have the same pop as last year’s run up to the men’s first major championship. Tiger Woods’ comeback is not as fresh, but it’s still an opportunity to watch him at the biggest event in the sport. We thought those opportunities had come and gone. Even Woods thought he was done playing this event, telling people at the 2017 Champions Dinner that his competitive career was over. Now we get him for a second straight year and in good enough form to be competitive at the highest levels of the sport again.

The bright minds that crunch the numbers say that The Masters should be considered the most predictable event on the golf calendar. The field is small, the course stays the same, and history matters more than anywhere else. But still, picking a winner, any winner, in a full-field golf event is a crapshoot. We make our best attempt at this and other predictions below:

Brendan: So the Masters has such a small field that it’s hard to truly find a dark horse. There’s the set at the very top of the world rankings, the past champions who have no chance, and then just a whole bunch of really good players. It’s just too small to be full of multiple “dark horse” options.

Here’s mine for this year — Ian Poulter at 100-1. He has made 12 of 13 cuts at the Masters with three top-10s in the mix. We’re looking for dark horses here and Poulter has experience, has rounded back into top 50 OWGR form in the past couple years, and has value at 100-1

Kyle: Matt Kuchar comes in at 50-1, but to your point it’s absolutely a cop-out to call him a dark horse. He’s in the middle of perhaps the best season of his career, and on top of the FedEx Cup standings.

I’ll throw a name out from a bit further back: Matt Fitzpatrick at 125-1. I’ve been impressed with Fitzpatrick since his win at the European Masters in Switzerland last fall, and I’m bullish on his chances after his solo second at Arnold Palmer’s event. He burst onto the scene a few years back as a guy everyone thought had a couple of majors in him, and I’m finally starting to see a glimmer of that over the past few months.

Brendan: Jordan Sp — nope! Not going to do it. Can’t. Won’t do it. Phil Mickelson’s history is incredible at this course. And I’m not just focusing on wins. For about a decade, he was a lock to finish in the top 10, even top five. But he’s not been a factor at Augusta in six years. It’s exceedingly rare for Mickelson to miss the cut here but I think we tend to over-emphasize the entirety of his history at this event and not the most recent history. I don’t think he MCs but it’s another quiet weekend.

I am also very worried about Brooks Koepka’s chances this week. He said on Tuesday that this is a “recovery week” after three weeks on the shelf, ill, losing weight, and not working out at all. Koepka shows up in the biggest events and should be a favorite at Augusta, but this doesn’t seem like the ideal way to enter the biggest event of the year.

Kyle: I’m struggling with classifying him as a big name, but I don’t see Patrick Reed hanging around through the weekend this week. It’s exceptionally hard to repeat at Augusta, and Reed’s been a replacement-level tour player for most of 2019. Expect him to have a close up seat (that he didn’t have to pay for himself!) for the current champion on Sunday.

Brendan: The popular choice will be the Norwegian standout and reigning U.S. Amateur champion Viktor Hovland. But I am going with Mexican sensation Alvaro Ortiz, who will be turning pro on Monday after the Masters. I admit a bias here as I met a contingent from Mexican golf federation at the start of the week and they seemed wonderful and I want to walk around with them shouting “Vamos Alvaro!” But he was also a college standout and reputedly better than his older tour pro brother. Hovland is a great choice, but Ortiz is a stud and I’m going with the heart here.

Kyle: I’m all in on Hovland. I’ve got him in the top-30 in my field rank, and I think he’s actually going to play his way into the coverage for a short window over the weekend. I think one of these days we’re going to look back and go, “Holy hell, Viktor Hovland and Matt Wolff were at Oklahoma State at the same time.” I’m not going to pretend I’ve got a ton of sample size to base this on, but I’m convinced that Hovland has It. I think this is his “hello world” type week.

Brendan: Woods will not win but he’s back to being the kind of player that can contend even when he doesn’t have his best stuff. It has been 14 years since Woods won the Masters. We tend to default to the talking point that he knows this place better than anyone in the world. But that’s a long time since his last win. It’s not exactly been smooth here since 2005. The Open is probably best suited for Woods to pick off a major in his mid-40s. That said, he does know this course and is striking the ball well enough again to compete at the biggest event in the game. I think Woods has a late Sunday tee time and finishes around 10th, failing to threaten some of the younger talent ahead of him on the leaderboard.

It’s still just a welcome sight to even have him in the field, let alone as someone who can actually be competitive. He’s the highest ranked player among the past Masters champions in the field, which is still an astonishing thing to say in the year 2019. If he’s in the final group or has a chance on Sunday, that’s a gift.

Kyle: I think I’ve been pretty conservative and tempered over the last year when projecting Woods’ chances during the comeback, so this is a turn for me: I think he’s going to contend. Like, really contend. Top four or five on Sunday stuff.

I’m going to fall back on the talking point that you just discounted above, but I think my optimism is driven more by the fact he’s had some game-action in majors now since the return. Winning golf tournaments, big golf tournaments, is a progression. I was convinced last year that Woods needed the mental validation of contending a couple of times in a major and winning a non-major before he was going to take down a major. Winning a green jacket as his first big win since the comeback always seemed unrealistic.

But now, Woods has had that. Contending at the Open. The magical Sunday at Bellerive. Winning the Tour Championship at East Lake. And, oh yeah, he’s had a rock-solid, sneaky-good start to the year. I’m thinking a third-straight major top five finish for Woods this week.

Brendan: There’s a Woods division for this, and then everything else. In the non-Woods division, Rory McIlroy completing the career slam is the dream scenario on Sunday. He’s the best player in the sport right now, one of the most interesting characters, and a win puts him in the company of just five other legends to complete the career slam. Woods winning any major again would be historic. After that, the McIlroy-Augusta relationship is the most fascinating and compelling storyline in golf and will continue to be until he wins a green jacket.

Kyle: My biases are well-known, and I’m ready for a vintage duel down the stretch with a little heat to it. Give me an old-fashioned Woods-Sergio Garcia finishing stretch. My backup list of players that could be involved with a duel with Woods: McIlroy, Mickelson, Jordan Spieth, Haotong Li.

Brendan: I cannot believe I’m typing this, but I think I’ve talked myself into Rickie Fowler winning the damn Masters. I’ve always been a major doubter of Fowler, especially at the Masters. Backing Fowler is just asking for it, but I’m jumping in now. The analytics show he’s significantly improved his performance at Augusta and course history matters here more than anywhere else on the schedule. He’s not fallen off a cliff this year, understands how to get around here, and is back to do one better than his runner-up finish last year.

Kyle: I’d rip you for the Fowler pick, but, oh God, I’m headed somewhere similar. Paul Casey.

Over the course of the last 10 days, I’ve talked myself into the fact that this week is finally the week the Englishman breaks through. This is probably stupid! Sure, yes, there’s few things that’s happened on a more regular cadence than Casey falling off the pace on the weekend at a major. But consider: Casey’s playing as well as anyone in the world not named McIlroy right now (four top-three finishes since February) and his worst finish in the last four years at Augusta is 15th.