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The US Masters 2024

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The golf major season gets underway annually with the start of The Masters. It is the first of four majors that are played throughout the season, but it is among the most famous given that it is staged at the prestigious Augusta National Golf Club. You can find out more about the opening major of the season and betting markets available right here.

Best Sportsbooks for Betting on the US Masters

Our team conducted thorough research and compiled a list that includes all sportsbooks where you can find the US Masters in the golf section. Moreover, each platform on the list is reliable and secure, meaning all your data and personal info are safe. Therefore, feel free to take a look at some of the highest-rated platforms.

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The Masters Betting Markets

Being one of the four majors in golf, the US Masters is covered by the majority of sportsbooks. In fact, due to very strict invitation criteria, betting platforms can propose odds for the upcoming tournament as soon as the previous one ends. Below, you can find out more about the popular markets available.


Outright Winner

This type of bet is the most common one, as many bettors like to wager on the outright winner. Simply put, all you have to do is select one player you think will win the tournament and make a bet. If things work out the way you predicted, you can pick up the prize money. Naturally, the odds vary depending on the player you choose.


Place Betting

Being able to bet on the Top 10 or top 20 places in golf is also rather popular. Your job is to try and predict whether a player is going to finish in the top 10 or 20 at the end of the tournament (or at the end of a single day).


Each Way Betting

Each way bets are actually dual bets where you can try to predict both the winner and the final place on the leader board. Basically, if you fail to get the winner right, you can still receive winnings for getting the place right. The each-way bet usually covers the top four or five positions, although this may vary depending on the sportsbook you choose. Therefore, if the player you placed a bet on doesn’t win the tournament but manages to finish third, you would still receive returns.


Match Betting

During all rounds, all competitors are divided into groups of three (two on the final day), and you can make bets on each group. This type of wager is usually called “3-ball betting.”

However, players don’t have to be in the same group in order to bet on them. Many sportsbooks offer a special type of match betting called head-to-head betting. Essentially, betting platforms compare two random participants, and you get to bet on one.


Prop Betting

A Prop bet is another type of wager where you get to predict whether the proposition made by the sportsbook would be true. For example, a prop bet can look something like this “There will be a hole in one in the first round.” If you feel this might actually happen, you can place your money on it. There are various prop bets in golf, so make sure to check out which ones are offered on the sportsbook of your choice. Here are some exciting prop bets for the US Masters.

  • Age of the Winner
  • Left-Handed Winner?
  • An Amateur To Win?

The Masters Tips

The US Masters is different from other championships due to being invite-only. Therefore, you get to watch some of the best players in the world. Therefore, finding the winner in a high-quality field can be very lucrative. Below, you can learn more about the tips to follow before betting on The Masters.


Don’t Pay Too Much Attention to Other Editions

Golf requires the weather to be good, and that’s why all the four major tournaments are squeezed in four months. The US Masters starts in April at Augusta, and is the first major of the season. Therefore, previous performances from the majors in the previous year count for very little. Instead, extra weight should be put on the PGA Tour events in the lead up to The Masters.


The Course Doesn’t Change — Make That Your Advantage

Since golfers always play on the same course at the US Masters, you should study participants’ previous performances on the course. Previous experience around Augusta could be a huge advantage, and as a bettor, you should examine this.


Pay Attention to the Weather

The weather is a crucial factor for every golf tournament, and the US Masters is no exception. Wind can significantly affect performances, and that could be a good way to start when making over/under bets. Moreover, wind can cause frustration among some players, so make sure to take into account the ones who might feel a bit “under the weather” (pun intended) when the tournament starts.


What Is The Masters?

The Masters is the first or four majors on the PGA Tour calendar. The event is played at Augusta National Golf Club every April. It is famous, as it is played on the same course every year, and it is one of the most prestigious courses in the world of golf.

Moreover, the US Masters has no qualifying tournaments, since it is an invitational event that gathers the elite of the golf world. That’s yet another variable that affects the overall outcome of the tournament and makes it pretty attractive for betting.

The event pulls in the best golf players from around the world, offering them a fair shot at:

  • Multi-million-dollar prizes
  • Trophies
  • Reputation gains

… and, of course, one of the highest distinctions in the world of golf — “The Masters Green Jacket”.

With four days packed with golf action and three days of practice rounds beforehand, there’s a lot of action for fans to enjoy.


The Masters History

The history of The Masters started when the legendary golf player Bobby Jones decided to build his own golf course after retiring from professional sport. Jones and his friend Clifford Roberts searched for an ideal place until they finally found a great piece of land located in the town of Augusta, GA.

Alister MacKenzie, one of the most popular golf course designers, was hired by Jones to create the course back in 1931. Unfortunately, MacKenzie passed away before his creation was officially opened in 1933.

The first tournament took place in March 1934, and it was simply called Augusta National Invitational Tournament. The final prize was $1,500, and Horton Smith was the first player ever to win the competition. There were a total of 18 holes — this hasn’t changed to-date except that they used to play 10 through 18 as the first nine. A year after that, the one through nine was the first nine, and it hasn’t changed ever since.

Back at the time, the only players who were able to enroll in the competition were close associates of Bobby Jones. He tried to expand the scope of the tournament by petitioning the USGA to make Augusta another US Open tournament, but that wasn’t possible back in the day, as the officials of the USGA believed summers in Georgia were too hot for a golf tournament.

The competition continued to grow slowly, taking place every year except from 1943 to 1945, as the course had to be transformed into a cattle and turkey farm in order to provide food for soldiers in WWII.


Rapid Growth of The Masters

The increasing popularity of the tournament was visible in the prize money offered in the past. The first prize was $1,500 and the prize pool was $5,000. On the other hand, the 2019 tournament offered a prize fund of $11,500,000, and the winner claimed the lion’s share — $2,070,00 (won by Tiger Woods). The most recent edition of the major offered a purse of $15,000,000.


Previous Masters Winners

Tiger Woods is the most successful US Masters player with five titles. In 2019, he officially became the first player to make that record, as he shared it with Arnold Palmer when he had four. Players who have three titles include Gary Player, Sam Snead, Nick Faldo, Phil Mickelson, and Jimmy Demaret.

NameYearTotal ScoreTo Par
Scottie Scheffler2022278-10
Hideki Matsuyama2021278-10
Dustin Johnson2020268-20
Tiger Woods2019275-13
Patrick Reed2018273-15
Sergio García2017279-9
Danny Willett2016283-5
Jordan Spieth2015270-18
Bubba Watson2014280-8

Format of the US Masters

The US Golf Masters Tournament is a highly-contested competition. Even though it represents the smallest of the four major events in 2023, the event has quite the pull and a dynamic rotation of players.

The tournament is held every year in the first full week of April, and the final round is mostly scheduled for the second Sunday of that month. It is the first of four major championships that exist in golf.

Just like in other major tournaments, the US Masters has a total of four rounds, and each of them has 18 holes. Every round is played on one day, starting on Thursday and ending on Sunday.

The number of people who take part in this tournament is always smaller compared to other majors, so the first two rounds are always played in groups, each consisting of three players. Moreover, the field is not split in half if the weather is good (starting on the first and tenth tee), which is the case with other majors. Let’s take a closer look at how pairings are made in the game.


Pairing the Masters Round 1-4

To have a better grasp of how the competition unfolds, we will have to look at the pairings. Masters pairings and tee times are by default determined by the Augusta National Club during the first two rounds, but then things change slightly and pairings depend solely on player scores — and in the case of ties — on how quickly a player has posted their score.

A tee time is the time you are supposed to hit off your first ball, also called a tee shot. To put in a purely specialist language, the tee time is the time you tee off. Tee times are required and they help tournaments maintain a steady flow of golfers.

The third and the four round of pairings will differ slightly. Simply put, the better a player’s score is, the later his tee time will be. This way, the player who ends up last at the end of Round 2 would have to tee off first in Round 3.

In the event of ties, the speed at which players post their final scores will determine the order and tee times for players in Round 3 and 4.

When crunching the odds for Masters’ individual rounds, it will be particularly helpful to take into consideration the pairings, as well as the tee time each player has been assigned.


The Traditional Pairing

Though most pairings are determined by the hosts or based on individual scores and quickness of play, there is one traditional type of pairing that remains the same across the different editions of the competitions — the US Amateur vs. the defending champion.

This gives you plenty of leeway to calculate your Masters’ odds for 2023, as the defending champion will play against the US Amateur champion unless the US Amateur champ hasn’t turned pro in the meanwhile, which will result in automatic forfeit of their spot in the tournament.


The 36-Hole Cut

After the first two days of play, there is a cut-off line. Round two of the US Masters is an important moment for the event, as it’s the first time the field of contestants is whittled down by a significant number of players, and only those that meet the criteria make the final cut. At this point, you will be able to focus a little better on the most likely odds to win the Masters series.

The current cut rule introduced in 2013 currently excludes players that are outside the Top 50+ ties and also aren’t within 10 strokes of the leader after the 36th hole.

If a player is within Top 50 and they are more than 10 strokes behind the leader, they would still make the cut, as they are already in the group of players with the best results.


How Can Players Qualify?

As previously mentioned, all other major championships are much bigger in field size, as only 90–100 players get a chance to take part in the US Masters. One of the reasons for that is because the competition retained its invite-only format, meaning there are no qualifying tournaments.

Invitations are mainly set automatically to the players who meet the published criteria. All players who are currently in the top 50 of the Official World Golf Ranking are usually invited to the US Masters.

Another way to enter the competition is to win it. Every winner is always eligible to enroll, regardless of their age. In fact, some of them are honorary starters!

So, how do US Masters’s officials decide on whom to invite? Apart from giving lifetime access to every champion of this tournament, winners of The Open Championship, The PGA Championship, and The US Open Championship all have five-year eligibility to enroll. For example, if a player wins The US Open in 2013, they can take part in the US Masters in 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2018.

The criteria are further extended to the Players Championship, Olympic Games, and various other tournaments.


Analysis of Augusta National Golf Club Course

Augusta National Golf Club is a private golf course that includes less than 300 members and, as such, it hasn’t been rated by the USGA. However, the Masters event has always run on the same 7,435 yards and a par of 72. The terrain is a mix of fairway (100 acres) and rough (40 acres), making a well-balanced overall experience.

To be able to pick the Masters’ odds that will guarantee you higher yield on your wagers, you will need to familiarize yourself with how well individual players perform on a given terrain.

Each year, the US Masters announces the specific track for individual competitions, which can also be a valuable gauge in deciding which players may have a slightly better time at the specific track.

Again, you will need to show a deeper understanding of individual playstyles, which means that you will have to allocate a fair amount of time watching golf and talking about it.

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