Opinion: Who will win at The Masters?

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The first week of April always tends to shine the media spotlight on an individual. Jack Nicklaus, Nick Faldo, even Bubba has had the “can he *really* do it again?” treatment. Typically, we’ve seen that most of all with Tiger Woods – whether he will add to his majors tally, whether he can rediscover his form, and (most recently) whether he will be playing at all. The closest we’ve had this year is Rory who announced his intention to not participate in the par-3 competition in order to take the main event more seriously.

But in truth, the media aren’t really sure who to focus on this year. The hype of this year’s Masters Tournament is just how close it’s shaping up to be. The “big three” have started the year convincingly… but so have a number of other household names. In fact, we’ve already seen six major-winners find victory in 2016 on the PGA Tour alone – four of those being former Masters winners.

So with so many big names in contention, how can we possibly predict who’ll be donning a green jacket on Sunday? Well, after a quick look at the numbers, I’m going to stick my neck out and have a go. Looking over previous years shows us a few (albeit quite obvious) things about former winners. There is a relationship between Masters performance and…

-          Official World Golf Ranking (this century, only two winners have been outside the top-30)

-          Average finishes that calendar year

-          Previous Masters performance (it’s the same course every year, after all!)

-          Strokes-gained: Total

-          PUTTING

-          Form

Nothing too surprising – but let’s see where this takes us. Let’s start with the top 30 golfers in the OWGR (replacing the injured Jim Furyk with Marc Leishman). If we tally up all of their finishes, we find that 17 of these golfers have averaged T25 finishes or better in 2016. Henrik Stenson actually top that list with an insane average of T9.

Of these 17 golfers, only 13 had finished T10 or better over their previous five appearances.  According to the official PGA Tour website, 8 of these are in the top-10 for “Strokes Gained: Average”. Undeniably, the most important part of a golfer’s game, as far as Augusta National is concerned, is putting. Of the 8 remaining golfers, only 5 are in the top-50 for “Strokes Gained: Putting”. This leaves us in the company of… Jordan Spieth, Rickie Fowler, Adam Scott, Dustin Johnson and Phil Mickelson.

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So who has the best form coming into this week? Let’s have a look…

Jordan Spieth (T13, T9, T18) --- Av. Finish = 13.3

Rickie Fowler (T10, T38, T8) --- Av. Finish = 18.7

Adam Scott (T28, T12, 1) --- Av. Finish = 13.7

Dustin Johnson (3, T5, T14) --- Av. Finish = 7.3

Phil Mickelson (T13, T18, 5) --- Av. Finish = 12

That’s right, Dustin Johnson comes out on top! I know that this just a bit of fun, but it’s a brave man who bets against DJ this week. There are many talented golfers who are hungry for a win this weekend, but (maybe apart from Rory), no one is hungrier than Dustin. He’s tidied up his putting, it’s a course that suits his game and, while other pros may be playing well, he’s on the crest of his wave.

Yes, Dustin for the green jacket is my prediction. Watch him miss the cut.