Each year for the Masters, I create a filtering process to help determine the players who are most likely to win the green jacket based on criteria that have strongly predictive outcomes at Augusta. I usually get the list down to roughly 20-25 players.

Last year, Hideki Matsuyama was one of my 21 players who could win the Masters. Matsuyama was at 45/1 odds. The top-5 in last year’s event consisted of three players that were shortlisted (Rahm, Leishman and Spieth). The other 2 players that finished in the top-5 were filtered out as Will Zalatoris was a first time invitee and Xander Schauffele was hitting the ball too low at the time of the event. In total 19 of the 23 players I shortlisted made the cut with 14 of the shortlisted players finishing in the top-25 and 6 “shortlisters” in the top-10.

The projected “critical holes” for the tournament are #8, #11, #13, and #15. The critical holes in any tournament are the ones where the top finishers typically gain the most strokes on the field, as well as where the greatest deviation in scores exist. One of the interesting aspects about critical holes is that they often change over time due to changes in the course conditions, course design or a change in player strategy, which can create a smaller deviation in scores.

The 15th hole, Firethorn, should be considered the most pivotal hole on the course as over the last five Masters the top finishers in the event have gained 0.414 strokes per round on the hole.

Moving on to the tournament, I filtered out the amateurs and all first-time professional attendees. The Masters has only been won once by a first-time attendee: Fuzzy Zoeller in 1979 and Gene Sarazen in the inaugural event

Sam Burns
Cameron Davis
Talor Gooch
Austin Greaser (a)
Stewart Hagestad (a)
Lucas Herbert
Garrick Higgo
Harry Higgs
Tom Hoge
Aaaron Jarvis (a)
Min Woo Lee
Guido Migliozzi
Keiti Nakajima (a)
James Piot (a)
Seamus Power
Laird Shepherd (a)
JJ Spaun
Sepp Straka
Harold Varner III

Out of the group of first-time invitees and amateurs I like Sam Burns, Tom Hoge, and Sepp Straka’s chances to get into contention.

I filter out old Masters champions that I do not believe can get into contention anymore.

Fred Couples
Bernhard Langer
Sandy Lyle
Larry Mize
Jose Maria Olazabal
Vijay Singh
Mike Weir

Next up, I filtered out those players that missed the cut at the Valero Texas Open last week. Recency has a strong predictive value for player performance and missing the cut in the event in the prior week greatly reduces the likelihood of winning the following week compared to players that miss the cut, take a week off, and then play the following week.

Cameron Champ
Bryson DeChambeau
Takumi Kanaya
K.H. Lee
Lee Westwood

And let’s filter out those players that have never made the cut at the Masters as outside of their inaugural event and Fuzzy Zoeller’s victory there has never been a winner who had not made the cut at the Masters prior to winning.

Max Homa
Hudson Swafford
Erik Van Rooyen
Matthew Wolff

The weather and the Zach Johnson debate

Every year I do my Masters picks, it’s always pointed out that I do not pick former Masters Champion Zach Johnson due to his lack of length off the tee. Augusta National greatly favors long-ball hitters. They can play the par 5s more like par 4s, and typically the longer hitters can also hit the ball higher so they can get their long approach shots to hold the green more easily.

When Johnson won the Masters in 2007, the event featured record-low temperatures in the mid-40s and wind gusts of 33 mph. This made it very hard for any player to reach the par 5s in two shots and allowed Johnson to get into a wedge contest on the par 5s, his strength.

The weather this week may give the shorter hitters a better chance. Former champion, Mike Weir, has said that he felt that the wet conditions helped him win the Green Jacket in 2003 because it allowed him to hold long approach shots onto the greens. And if the wind picks up, it may neutralize the advantage the long hitters have on the par-5’s.

This week’s weather is calling for rain on Tuesday and Wednesday, then the winds picking up on Thursday to 15 mph and 20+ mph on Friday. It will be cool (by Masters standards) on Saturday with a high of 60-degrees and winds forecasted at 17 mph.

When the winds pick up the short game around the green becomes more important because players are likely to hit fewer greens in regulation. But historically there has not been many strokes gained around the greens of Augusta due to the difficulty of the green surrounds. If the weather does play out as projected, it may favor players who are exceptional around the greens slightly, but will more likely eliminate poor performers around the greens from winning unless they have a legendary ballstriking performance.

Having said that, I still believe that it won’t be enough for short hitters to get into contention, so I filtered out these players

Abraham Ancer
Christiaan Bezudienhout
Matt Fitzpatrick
Brian Harman
Zach Johnson
Kevin Kisner
Kevin Na
Patrick Reed

Trajectory also has a strong predictive value in terms of winners. Simply put, there are not many low ball hitters (at the time of their victory) that won the Green Jacket and the better players of their era that were low ball hitters typically struggled at the Masters compared to other majors.

Last year I filtered out 14 players for hitting the ball too low and outside of Xander Schauffele (t-3rd finish) none of the players finished in the top-25. Furthermore, Schauffele was just narrowly filtered out for hitting the ball too low as I use a formula based on Apex Height, Launch Angle, Carry Distance and Spin Rate to filter out players for hitting the ball too low. I tweaked the formula a little after last year’s Masters and found that Schauffele would have made it thru the filter with the new formula.

Based on the new formula, the following players were filtered out for hitting it too low

Daniel Berger
Paul Casey
Corey Conners
Lucas Glover
Russell Henley
Si Woo Kim
Adam Scott
Jordan Spieth
Danny Willett

Spieth’s newfound low trajectory was surprising to me, but not as much as Adam Scott who is well known for traditionally being a high ball player. Out of the group I do like Russell Henley’s chances as well as he’s a great iron player and he currently ranks 27th in Strokes Gained – Around the Green and that may be helpful if the winds greatly impact play this week.

When people think about Augusta National they think of the greens and the crazy speeds and putts the competitors can have. However they mistakenly think that the winner is always decided by the putter. 12 of the last 13 winners have hit at least 49 greens in regulation and shots from 175-225 yards are where most of the strokes are gained and lost at the Masters.

Therefore the following players were filtered out for their performance this season from 175-225 yards

Patrick Cantlay
Stewart Cink
Sergio Garcia
Padraig Harrington
Billy Horschel
Mackenzie Hughes
Marc Leishman
Rory McIlroy
Francesco Molinari
Louis Oosthuizen
Thomas Pieters
Justin Rose
Charl Schwartzel
Gary Woodland
Cameron Young

I made a specific point to filter out Rory McIlroy here instead of filtering him out for missing the cut at the Valero Texas Open as McIlroy has uncharacteristically struggled this season from 175-225 yards. He currently ranks 172nd out of 210 players from 175-225 yards.

Oosthuizen, Leishman, and Rose were narrowly filtered out for their performance from 175-225 yards.

I also filtered out two former Masters champions

Bubba Watson
Tiger Woods

Watson has barely played enough to derive any meaningful analysis from and Tiger hasn’t played in nearly 18 months coming off a horrific car wreck and we still don’t know if he is going to play. Anything could happen, but I think the likelihood is very low that either will win the Green Jacket.

That leaves us with 22 players that can win the Masters

Tony Finau (66/1)
Tommy Fleetwood (80/1)
Tyrrell Hatton (66/1)
Viktor Hovland (20/1)
Sungjae Im (66/1)
Dustin Johnson (16/1)
Brooks Koepka (18/1)
Jason Kokrak (100/1)
Luke List (150/1)
Shane Lowry (50/1)
Robert MacIntyre (125/1)
Hideki Matsuyama (40/1)
Collin Morikawa (18/1)
Joaquin Niemann (50/1)
Ryan Palmer (150/1)
Jon Rahm (12/1)
Xander Schauffele (25/1)
Scottie Scheffler (14/1)
Webb Simpson (150/1)
Cameron Smith (14/1)
Justin Thomas (12/1)
Will Zalatoris (33/1)

My top-10 picks are

Brooks Koepka, (18/1)
Shane Lowry (50/1)
Robert MacIntyre (125/1)
Collin Morikawa (18/1)
Joaquin Niemann (50/1)
Jon Rahm (12/1)
Scottie Scheffler (14/1)
Cameron Smith (14/1)
Justin Thomas (12/1)
Will Zalatoris (33/1)