With Scottie Scheffler yet to win in 2025 and Rory McIlroy never really coming that close to winning The Masters, a number of players will fancy their chances of having the world number one putting the green jacket upon them on Sunday night.
Obviously, Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy will be the favourites to win The Masters. Scheffler has won two of the last three events, while McIlroy has been the in-form player on the PGA Tour in 2025.
But there are other names who will hope to put themselves in the mix. The likes of Collin Morikawa and Justin Thomas have played about as well as they could have done without winning over the last 18 months.
Meanwhile, Ludvig Aberg will hope to build on his fantastic debut at Augusta National, in which he finished second to Scheffler in 2024.
The PGA Tour star flying under the radar heading into The Masters
The LIV Golf contingent of Bryson DeChambeau, Brooks Koepka and Jon Rahm will have their sights on glory, while Phil Mickelson having a great week certainly cannot be ruled out.
But with that, Smylie Kaufman has told The Smylie Show that it seems a lot of people may be sleeping on Xander Schauffele given that he has won two of the last three majors.
“He is [flying under the radar], he’s in a sweet-spot right now. He is completely under the radar for a two-time major winner in the last year. I think this week, the one thing that Xander said that really struck me was that he believes that he can win the golf tournament,” he said.
“I know he’s a top player in the world, and I know that’s something that he knows he can win a green jacket. But still, it’s been a hard year for him. He didn’t play until Bay Hill with the rib injury, and then all the way up until now, I thought the iron game was great in Tampa, and you need an iron game here this week.”
What Xander Schauffele felt cost him at the 2024 Masters
Schauffele has a superb record at The Masters. He finished tied for second in 2019 when Tiger Woods won, while he has three top 10s in his last four appearances.
Schauffele finished eighth 12 months ago, but ended up 10 shots back of Scheffler. So it is hardly surprising that he was not entirely happy as he explained what cost him the chance to really contend.
“Not great. If I look at this week, I hit some short game shots that I couldn’t in the past. Just trying to be half full right now. Other than that, I didn’t execute some shots that I really needed throughout the week,” he said.
“Played the par fives finally decent today but kind of in an ugly way. For the most part if I go back, I think the par fives are really what hurt me.”
One area Schauffele probably does need to improve is his starts at Augusta. He has only broken 70 on two occasions in the opening round, and it does seem that you really cannot afford to leave yourself too far adrift, even with three rounds to play.
Receive exclusive golf news and updates twice a week to your mailbox
