2025 Masters - ClevAnalytics

2025 MASTERS TOURNAMENT

Course Details

Augusta National Golf Club, Augusta, Georgia

Par 72

Length: 7,545 yards

Greens: Bentgrass

Where historical Masters champions have come from and where last year’s champion, Scottie Scheffler, fit:

Every winner since 2010 has entered the Masters ranked in the top 30 of the Official World Golf Rankings (OWGR). Top 25 in 13 straight Masters (Scheffler #1). Since 2017, among the non-LIV players, only Dylan Fritelli (100th in 2020) and Lee Westwood (67th in 2016) finished inside the top 5 and entered the Masters outside of the top 45 in the OWGR.

16 straight Masters winners had a top 20 finish in one of their five prior pre Masters events. (Scheffler won two of this three events prior to the 24 Masters)

Every winner besides Danny Willet in 2016 has come into the event ranked in the top 100 in driving distance, which is essentially tour average. This is important because Augusta plays longer than its stated yardage distance. (Last year, Scheffler came into the event just 87^th in driving distance but still inside the top 100.)

Because of the way Augusta is shaped and the location of the greens, the ability to hit high shots and land them safely on the green, while generating enough distance is of utmost importance. Each winner since 2010 has ranked inside the top 80 in the PGA’s distance to apex stat. (Scheffler 77th)

No debutant has won the Masters since 1979. Fuzzy Zoeller in 1979 is still the only debutant to win the Masters and experience is typically key. Spieth in 2014, Zalatoris in 2021 and last year Ludvig Aberg all finished 2nd and are the only debutants to even finish inside the top 15 among since 2015. On average, first time winners have played the event ~six times.

Every winner since 2010 had finished in the top 40 at a prior Masters at least once. (Scheffler finished top 40 in all four times he has played Augusta previously).

Every winner since 2010 came into the Masters ranked in the top 100 in strokes gained on approach and only three players (Willett, Sergio and Schwartzel) ranked outside of the top 44. Six straight winners have entered top 30 in SG APP (Scheffler #1).

Putting is very difficult at Augusta and is difficult for most every player. That essentially neutralizes any advantage that a great putter would have over others that struggle. To put this in perspective, three recent winners- Scheffler last year, Hideki Matsuyama in 2021 and Sergio Garcia in 2017, are notorious for struggling in putting. Scottie came into the 2024 Masters ranked just 97^th in SG putting, Matsy ranked 166th in strokes gained putting heading into the Masters prior to his win in 2021, and in fact, finished the weekend 23rd among the field in strokes gained putting and still won. Sergio was 193rd in putting heading into his winning Masters season of 2017. Will Zalatoris, Corey Conners and Cam Champ all finished top 10 here in 2021 and came into the event outside of the top 100 in SG putting . In 2022, Scheffler won while ranking 13th in SG putting, 22^nd last year and in 2023, Rahm was just 22nd in SG putting en route to his victory. It’s hard to say just totally ignore putting stats but it’s hard to put much emphasis in trying to predict who will conquer those Augusta greens.

Being able to manage around the tricky greens of Augusta are always a key factor. 13 straight champions have a positive strokes gained around the green during the year of their Masters victory. (Scheffler +0.547) 12 straight winners and 13 of the last 15 ranked top 55 in strokes gained around the green in the season of their victory (Scheffler 5th).

The key almost every year is playing well from Tee to Green. Recent winners like Jon Rahm, Scottie Scheffler, Hideki Matsuyama, Dustin Johnson and Jordan Spieth are excellent from tee to green. In fact, 13 straight and 14 of the last 15 winners, have come into Masters week ranked inside the top 25 on tour in SG tee to green. *Note: Two winners (Willet in 2016 and Scott in 2013) only participated in two (Willet) and three (Scott) PGA events that season prior to the Masters and were not on the official stat rankings. But in their limited events, both ranked #1 in the field in T2G heading into the Masters. (Scheffler #1). Each of last year’s top 5 finishers finished inside the top 12 for the week in strokes gained Tee to Green.

Top 10 Recent History:

There have been 89 players who have finished in the top 10 (includes ties for 10th place), since 2017. 83 golfers who have been PGA members as six (Mickelson, Koepka, Reed in 23, Cam Smtih, Hatton and Dechambeau in 24) finished in the top 10 from LIV.

All but five of the 83 PGA golfers who finished top 10 since 2017, were ranked inside the top 45 of the World Golf Rankings (OWGR). Dylan Fritelli (100th) in 2020, is the only PGA golfer since 2017, who has finished inside the top 5 (tied for 5th) when ranked outside of the top 45 in the OWGR. Last year, outside of the three LIV players, the remaining eight players from the PGA inside the top 10, came into the Masters inside the top 45 (all inside top 31). The LIV players make this a bit tricky as their OWGRs plummeted during the season prior to the Masters in reality were not indicative of their true ratings. All six who finished top 10 the last two seasons while at LIV are considered top 45 level players. For example, Bryson came into the Masters last year 210th and Cam Smith 68th but we know they are elite players.

Even though none have won, seven players in the last eight Masters have finished in the top 10 in their Augusta debuts. Besides CT Pan in 2020, the other six were ranked inside the OWGR top 55 at the time. and all but Pan ranked top 70 in SG Tee to Green. (This year Pendrith, Rai and Davis Thompson all fit). Last year Ludvig Aberg finished 2^nd and came into the even ranked 9^th in the world rankings.

Only Frittelli in 2020 and Cameron Young in 2023 have made a top 10 without having made the cut at a prior Masters tournament (excludes those making their debuts) since 2017.

55 of the 89 top 10 spots (61.8%) in the last eight Masters are represented by the same players. Last year six of the 11 players inside the top 10 had a prior top 10 at the Masters. That is actually a low figure as compared to historical percentages. There is typically a lot of redundancy among the top 10 and prior form at Augusta is extremely corelated to success.

Since 2017, 74 of 81 players (91%) with available stats, finished in the top 10 and also came into the Masters ranked in the top 95 in strokes gained Tee to Green. 53% of the top 10 came in ranked top 25 in T2G including five of the eight last year.

Using this data, my model identified 33 PGA golfers in the field that had the highest likelihood of finishing inside the top 10 at last year’s Masters tournament. *Note: Because of a lack of stats from the LIV golfers, I just decided to exclude them entirely. 25 of those 33 PGA golfers made the cut, and among just the 8 of the PGA golfers who finished inside the top 10 (LIV players are excluded), seven (88%) came from this group. Now you might think that these are likely the chalkiest golfers in the field but it also included three different players (Colin Morikawa, Cam Young and Max Homa) who came into the Masters between 55-1 and 60-1 to win. Two years ago, Russell Henley was represented, who came in to the event 200/1 and finished 7th along with Gary Woodland at 250/1 who finished one stroke away from the top 10.

8 of the 11 PGA golfers who finished inside the top 15 last year at the Masters also came from this group. Two of the ten best odds to win the Masters last year- Viktor Hovland (30-1) and Patrick Cantlay (35-1) did not meet my top 10 classification requirements. Hovland missed the cut and Cantlay finished just 22^nd. In the last three years that this top 10 list has been generated, prior to the Masters, this decision tree analysis has correctly predicted 26 of the 29 top 10 finishers among the PGA participants, including four players listed 90/1 or worse in pre-tournament odds to win the event. And among the 11 top 25 ranked players excluded from this list the last three years, none made the top 10 and only three even made the top 25.