Trees are budding, earthy aromas are in the air and 88 of golf's best are set to jockey for green-jacket glory at Augusta National Country Club. We can all say with great rejoice: It's Masters season.
Whether it's the dramatic reunion of LIV and PGA players, marquee names still chasing their first jacket, or the mere presence of Tiger Woods, there are a bevy of drawing narratives surrounding Augusta heading into the first round on April 6.
The Masters is golf's — and perhaps even all sport's — most cherished annual tradition, but it's also a bonanza of betting action across the nation. We've broken down all that the spectacle has brought with past betting behaviors along with what's trending heading into the 2023 Masters using data from the Action Network App as a microcosm of the greater picture.
So if you're fumbling to make selections for your friend pool or are simply seeking betting enlightenment on the Masters, these historical and current nuggets could be of aid.
Recency Bias Attracts the Buzz for 2023 Picks
Golf is certainly a game of recency bias and popularity — even when it comes to who bettors choose to back. Whether it's Official World Ranking, total professional wins or past majors performances, the players that attract picks tend to have the most hype.
Heading into this year's tournament, the personable fan-favorite Max Homa leads the pack with 493 picks tracked. Homa made a one-spot jump to No. 5 in world rankings over the last week, which is the highest position he's held in his 10-year professional career. The 32-year-old Californian has two wins and a runners-up this season, eight professional wins and zero majors. In fact, his highest finish in the Masters was T48 in 2022.
As far as Official World Rankings go, all top 10 players that bettors have tracked are in current top 16 standing except for Jason Day, who ranks at No. 35 this week. Day held the No. 1 world rank before, but it was last in September 2015. The 17-time professional winner has one major victory (PGA Championship, 2015) and his best Masters finish was T2 in 2011.
Jordan Spieth makes an expected appearance on this list due to having won three of the four major championships (Masters, 2015; U.S. Open, 2015 and The Open, 2017). But the former champion hasn't secured a win in almost a year (RBC Heritage, 2022).
Speaking of players that are one major victory away from a Grand Slam, Rory McIlroy has been chasing one since he won the Open in 2014 (PGA Championship, 2012 and 2014; U.S. Open, 2011). He came three strokes away from Scottie Scheffler in 2022 for a second-place finish. At +700 odds (tied for lowest with Scheffler), the market seems to think any year could — and should — finally be his.
Scheffler has cast a monstrous shadow on the golf world over the past year. The No. 1 world ranked player and defending Masters champion has two wins this season — including The Players Championship a month ago. He has top 10 finishes in the other three majors over the last three years and it's no surprise bettors are leaning his way.
Tides Changed From Most Picked of Years Past
This exciting, modern era of golf has introduced a role that has made watching and betting tournaments more compelling: The villain. There's several names we could mention that bettors love to hate, but our data points to one that has emerged conspicuously.
Brooks Koepka tore up the PGA Tour in 2017-2019. He was a two-time PGA and U.S. Open Championship winner in that span and has 20 total professional wins overall. We found that 0.8% of 2023 Masters picks were on Koepka. In 2022, he amassed 3,577 total tracked picks for the Masters, which was 7.8% of all selections and is the most any player has accrued for the tournament in the Action app dating back to 2018.
Due to last year's popularity, Koepka is the most popular Masters player to bet over the last five years. He did just win last week's LIV Golf Invitational Tucson, but a common notion amongst bettors is that LIV golfers won't be as prepared since there have been only three total events in 2023.
As the second-most bet player since 2018, Justin Thomas was a top-three most picked player in four of the past five Masters. He's second to Koepka with the most picks we've seen for a single Masters with 3,001 last year.
While Dustin Johnson retains the 10th most overall bet player, he only has 1% of pick share to show for in this year's tournament. Jon Rahm has brought the most consistency as the fourth most overall and this year's third highest tracked (only player from this year's top 10 most picked from the overall top 10). Rahm has three wins on the PGA Tour this season and is perched at the world No. 3 rank.
Then there's the elephant in the room — or should I say the tiger? I need not list Woods' career accolades here, but at aged 47, he is responsible for 4.9% of all tracked picks since 2018. When Woods won the Masters in 2019, he had 5.3% share, which was the most of any player that year.
Everyone wants to see Woods win no matter what the circumstance and based on the way people bet him, they believe it, too. To say he's proved that eminence is an understatement.
The Odds Vary for Masters Champions
Of the past five champions, Woods, who won his fifth Masters at 43, had +1400 odds to start the tournament. Judging off of how this year's field is priced, that classified him as a front-runner. Woods has +7000 odds this year.
Hideki Matsuyama had the longest odds of the pack at +3500 in 2021 and had held a highest world ranking for No. 2 several years previous to that. Matsuyama tracked 0.5% of picks for the 2021 Masters, which was towards the bottom of the field that year.
On the contrary, Dustin Johnson had the best odds-to-picks ratio of these winners for his green jacket in 2020. Johnson raked in the sixth highest amount of tracked picks that year accounting for 5%. He would break the all-time tournament record at 20 strokes under par.
Patrick Reed was not favorable in 2018 with the 24th most tracked picks and a 1.7% share of all Masters betting. Reed, another LIV Golf player, has less than 1% of total picks for this week and is priced at +7500 odds.
Casual Bettors Love the Masters
Whether some watch, bet or even relatively like golf, the Masters draws interest from all corners of the spectrum. 11% of bettors that had never placed a golf bet before placed their first ever picks on the Masters from 2018-2022. The year that saw the highest quantity in new bettors during the Masters with a 16% share was 2019: Woods' dramatic redemption victory.
2020 saw the greatest amount of first-time picks on other golf events vs. the Masters with only 5% tracked when it was postponed to November. The PGA Tour was the first mainstream sport to resume from the pandemic in June 2020 and the only taking place for some time. It gave bettors something to focus on amidst the nothingness and impacted Masters traction.
Of all casual golf bettors, our data says that a quarter of them placed more bets on the Masters than all other tourneys combined throughout the year since 2018. Can you guess the year that had the highest Masters betting ratio vs. all other tournaments together amongst golf bettors? 2019 again. That Masters garnered 30% of the pie.
Thursdays and Competition Bets Prove Hottest
Thursday gets the hottest action of all four days primarily due to fresh odds before the first tee time and Masters buildup is at its peak. Since 2018, 46% of total bets have come on Thursday, but the most active year of Thursday picks entered was the 2020 Masters. Perhaps this was from Masters withdrawal.
Matsuyama's 2021 victory brought the most action for a Sunday with 22% of the total that Masters. This was a 5% bump from the average Sunday share. Johnson's 2020 win had the least at 10%.
To no surprise, wagering on a golfer to win the tournament outright is the most frequent market that's bet upon. We labeled these as "competition bets," which added to 68% of bets from 2018-22. Player props, which can be defined as bets such as a player to submit the lowest score for a specific round or the best player finish from a specific nationality made up 10.4%.
When the Action app began offering what we call "custom bets," which is anything that the bettor creates on their own and isn't featured on the main bets page or offered by Action, it has grown progressively more used for the Masters up to 15.1%. These can contain specific props or be parlays. For instance, a custom bet could be something like Rahm, Zalatoris, Scheffler, McIlroy and Day to all make the cut.
*All pick data is current as of March 30th, 2023
Placing Masters Bets With Action Network
If you're looking to place action on the Masters before Thursday's first tee, Action Network’s golf homepage provides comprehensive expert insight and analysis to consider. There's also plenty of opportunity with promotion offers you can browse through in our sportsbook review hub to determine on which book is right for your Masters betting.
