The Masters favourites get the headlines and the magazine covers, but the tournament itself is rarely won by one of the top three names on the betting board. Roughly half of the green jackets handed out this century have gone to a player who started Masters week ranked outside the top ten in the world, and a sneaky number have gone to players who weren’t even on most preview lists. Here are five names worth watching this year who don’t sit at the very top of the conversation.
1. Ludvig Aberg
He has only played the Masters twice. He has a runner-up finish and a top-ten to show for it. The case for Aberg is essentially the case that he will eventually win a green jacket, and the only question is when.
His ball-striking suits Augusta perfectly. The high draw he hits with his irons gets the ball into the right parts of the green and stops quickly enough to handle the firmer pins. His length is a real advantage on the par-5s. And his temperament — calm verging on chilly, even when leading on a Sunday — is exactly the kind of disposition that wins majors. He’s coming off a disappointing Sunday at Sawgrass but his Valspar week showed signs of progress. Watch him.
2. Sungjae Im
Im finished second at the 2020 Masters and has quietly been one of the most consistent players in the field every year since. He doesn’t get the press attention of the bigger names, but his statistics for greens in regulation, scrambling, and overall consistency are among the best in golf year after year.
What Im has historically lacked is the closing burst that wins majors — the willingness to fire at flags on Sunday afternoon when the tournament is on the line. He led the Valspar Championship after 54 holes a fortnight ago and faded with a closing 73, which is the same pattern. If he can find one extra Sunday gear at Augusta, he’s a sneaky pick.
3. Hideki Matsuyama
The 2021 champion arrives at Augusta with the kind of form that Masters watchers always love to see in him. Two top-tens already this season, the swing looking compact and rhythmic, and the putter behaving better than it has in years. Matsuyama has not been a regular contender at the Masters since his win, but every Masters week the question is the same: is this the year his best stuff shows up again?
The answer might be yes. His iron play has been a class above the field at his last three starts, and Augusta is the kind of venue that rewards the precise, controlled high-fade game he plays at his best. Don’t be surprised to see him in red numbers all four days.
4. Cameron Young
The Players Championship winner arrives at Augusta with the most underrated attribute a major contender can have: the freedom of having already won the year’s biggest non-major. Young has nothing to prove this week. His length is a serious asset, his iron play has stepped up significantly over the past two years, and his putting on Bermuda greens has improved enough to suggest he’s a different player than the one who finished runner-up at the Open Championship in 2022.
The main concern is course experience. Young has yet to put together four really clean rounds at Augusta, and the venue’s quirks tend to take a few visits to fully understand. But the talent is now obvious, and the moment is right.
5. Robert MacIntyre
The Scottish Ryder Cup hero has been quietly building toward something all spring. Top-ten finishes at the Genesis Invitational and the Arnold Palmer Invitational, plus a strong week at TPC Sawgrass, suggest a player whose game is rising. His low, controlled ball flight is sometimes described as wrong for Augusta, but a closer look at his recent stats shows him hitting the ball noticeably higher with his mid-irons than he used to.
MacIntyre’s short game is also one of the most underrated in the field, and he plays with a swagger that translates well to a stage like the Masters. He’s not the most fashionable pick this week, which is itself often a reason to take a closer look.
The honest math
The top five in the betting market account for somewhere around forty percent of the win probability between them. That means six out of every ten Masters won’t be won by Scheffler, McIlroy, Rahm, DeChambeau, or Aberg. Somebody outside that group is going to be on the leaderboard come Sunday afternoon.
These are five names with the game, the form, and the temperament to be that someone. By Monday morning we’ll know which one — if any — was the right call.