Who to Pick for the 2010 Masters Golf Cup

There was a time that betting favorites in PGA events consisted of two things:

Is Tiger playing?

1. If no to Question One, does anyone care?

Although much has been made of Tiger’s newly-discovered humility, one has to approach with caution when suggesting that beating a player who has won at a more prolific rate than any player in the history of the sport will be easy. Doable? Yes. Likely? We shall see…

Let’s take a look at the favorites, with lines given courtesy of sportsbook.com:

Woods, T. +400

Phil Mickelson +800

Steve Stricker +1500

Ernie Els +1800

Camilo Villegas +2000

Dustin Johnson +2000

Lee Westwood +2500

Zach Johnson (2007 champion) +6000

Miguel Angel Cabrera (defending champion) +10,000

Trevor Immelman (2008 champion) +10,000

Notice the last three champions at the bottom of the list. If winning the darned thing the previous three years is not worth any credibility, then you know how up-in-the-air golf majors can be.

Now, let’s take a real Golf Bettors look at them on one-by-one:

Mickelson – Phil turns 40 this summer, and has only one Top Ten finish in five starts thus far. History is not on Phil’s side, as you can count on your hands the number of Masters winners after 40, with fingers to spare. (The six: Snead, Crenshaw, Nicklaus, Player, O’Meara, Hogan)

Stricker – Steve is currently leading the FedEx points chase and has had some modicum of success at Augusta national, although he has not won it yet. An interesting one to keep an eye on.

Els – The Big Easy is having a resurgence of sorts, winning for the first time in two years at the WGC-CA Championships and being in the Top Five in the FedEx Cup standings. Ernie, however, is already 40, and so falls squarely into the demographic that Phil is battling against.

Villegas – Camilo’s Honda Classic win and solid putting so far this year put him in the serious contender category, but the 28-year old Colombian has yet to ring the bell in a major. His three Top Ten’s in four starts suggest this might be his time to shine…

Dustin Johnson – Winning at the Pebble Beach Pro/Am is a nice kick-off to the year, and Dustin now has a PGA Tour win each of the last three seasons (less than a dozen can say that)…great length and accuracy off the tee and a remarkable scoring average thus far have people quietly keeping this youngster in mind on Sunday.

Westwood – Lee’s T-9 at the Honda Classic and two other Top 30 finishes in 2010 suggest he is returning to form, but he has not won on American soil in over five years. If you follow Eurpoean PGA events, he is always in contention, but it doesn’t seem to translate here. This may be the year where that changes.

Recent Champions List (Cabrera, Immelman, Z. Johnson) – While it is hard to discount previous winners (and they all have a lifetime exemption here), it is hard to imagine that these guys will be able to rekindle the magic that allowed them to strike gold on Magnolia Lane in recent times. Good speculative bets, but only because they know the pressure of winning in Augusta.

Two guys to keep an eye out for on the outer edges of the field are Kenny Perry and Chad Campbell. These two were tied with Miguel Angel Cabrera after 72 holes lat April, and were definite factors all four days. If Kenny, who will be Champions Tour eligible in August, or Chad, he of 5 Top-3 finishes but zero wins over the last two years, can summon up the chip on their shoulder that they could rightly claim, both could have a similar effect on this year’s festivities. Another fan favorite is Bubba Watson, who hits it a country mile, has two Top 3 finishes this year and who is due to breakthrough for his first Tour win. Is the Masters the place? At +10,000, our friends at sportsbook.com don’t think so.

All of what has been written here, while true, pales in comparison to what the effect of Mr. Eldrick Woods will be on the field. Winning 71 times in 253 events over his 14 years as a professional player has put him in elite historical company, it also places him way ahead of the current crop of players. Many potential rivals (Duval, Sergio, Furyk) have come and gone, yet Tiger still rolls up victories at a stunning rate. Any one golfer’s hot streak is what Woods has been doing for fourteen years. Unless the galleries or the media tangle his head up before the games begin, it is hard to imagine looking at this field and picking anyone over him. Heck, only Tiger and Phil Mickelson are getting worse odds than the field (+1500).