AUGUSTA, Ga. — Ten years ago, something truly remarkable took place at Augusta National.
No, not Jordan Spieth’s historic back-nine collapse, when he turned a five-stroke advantage into a three-shot loss, thanks to a quadruple-bogey on the devilish 12th hole.
It’s what that catastrophe elicited instead.
When the dust settled, and the late-afternoon sun was setting on the winner’s ceremony, it was Danny Willett sliding his arms into the sleeves of a green jacket, having been 50-to-1 in the outright betting market just four days earlier. That might not sound like such outlandish odds, but Willett was the biggest long-shot winner at the year’s first major championship since Charl Schwartzel five years earlier and remains one of the longer-priced winners since the turn of the century.
A decade later, this trend has persisted, as a few champions have entered the week with similar prices to Willett, but none have been longer, and most have been shorter — much shorter.
In fact, each of the last three winners — Rory McIlroy (+650) last year, Scottie Scheffler (+450) the previous year and Jon Rahm (+850) before that — have owned single-digit numbers, and six of the last seven were at 15-1 odds or shorter going into the week.
In layman’s terms, Augusta National has become the domain of the big boys.
The easiest rationale here is something along the lines of: Duh, of course, the best players win the biggest events. Tell me something I don’t know.
Challenge accepted. You probably don’t know that over the past seven years, the average Masters champion owned pre-tournament odds of just under 13-1, but the winners of The Open and the PGA Championship have averaged a notch under 50-1, while U.S. Open winners have been even longer, at an average of more than 50-1.
Perhaps this can be explained by the fact that the Masters has a smaller field than the other three, so it limits the number of contenders. Or maybe it’s the familiarity of the best players on a single course — that the lone major hosted at the same venue offers an edge to those who know it well.
It should all help fuel a question which is drastically crucial for those betting on this week’s festivities and vaguely intriguing for everyone else: Can a long shot win the Masters?
We can define the term “long shot” in many different ways, but for the sake of this argument, let’s call it something longer than Willett at 50-1.
It certainly doesn’t include the last two winners, as Scheffler and McIlroy are unsurprisingly first and second, respectively, in the outright market once again. And yet, they might hold the key to answering this question.
Scheffler has finished outside the top 20 in each of his last two starts and outside the top 10 in his last three, suggesting he enters this week somewhere behind his progress entering each of his two Masters-victory years. And, two weeks ago, prior to what was supposed to be his final tune-up for this tournament, he withdrew before the Texas Children’s Houston Open due to the birth of his family’s second child.
McIlroy, meanwhile, was forced to withdraw halfway through last month’s Arnold Palmer Invitational with a back injury, then returned one week later at The Players Championship, finishing in a share of 46th place, and hasn’t competed since. To throw even more of a damper on his chance, only three players in Masters history — Jack Nicklaus, Nick Faldo and Tiger Woods — have been able to go back-to-back.
If more questions than answers endure for the game’s two best players, it perhaps opens the door for those further down the board. Instead of narrowing that bottleneck to the winner’s circle, maybe it widens, allowing for a greater number of the 91 competitors to get into the mix.
Among the names at longer than 50-1 who could reverse this recent trend? Justin Thomas, a two-time major champion, who has recently returned from offseason back surgery. Patrick Cantlay, who held the lead on the back nine here for a hot minute in 2019. Adam Scott, who’s won here previously.
The options don’t end there, either. Akshay Bhatia has already won this season. Min Woo Lee, Sepp Straka and Jake Knapp are each wildly talented. Jason Day, Tyrrell Hatton and Shane Lowry would each love to exorcise some Augusta-based demons.
Or maybe the answer has been staring us right in the face for the past three months. Jacob Bridgeman has been the PGA Tour’s most consistent player so far, earning his first career victory and finishing inside the top 20 in all eight starts, while Chris Gotterup is the lone player with multiple wins already this season.
They’re each making their Masters debuts this week, and while every Masters fanatic knows that Fuzzy Zoeller in 1979 is the only first-timer to win in the modern era, there have at least been a half-dozen rookie runners-up over the past 15 years.
For what it’s worth, I’m sprinkling a couple of bucks on Min Woo Lee and Adam Scott as my two long-shot outright bets.
Maybe, though, that’s wishful thinking for any of them — not to mention any of us who are investing in a rare long-shot winner this week.
After all, these guys won’t just have to prevail over Scheffler and McIlroy; they’ll have to similarly defeat the likes of Rahm, Bryson DeChambeau, Xander Schauffele, Ludvig Åberg, Cameron Young and Tommy Fleetwood, plus about a dozen more hanging around in that sub-50-to-1 range.
That’s a lot to overcome, but it’s been done before, if not recently.
Still in a daze after that whirlwind back-nine a decade ago, Willett sat in Butler Cabin and explained, “It was just a very surreal day, when you look back at the ebbs and flows.”
It just might take another surreal Sunday to witness the next long-awaited long-shot champion at this week’s Masters.
