My Masters Picks

Tiger Who?[photopress:tigermasters.jpg,full,alignright]

Well it is obvious that if you have to pick one player to win at Augusta this week, it would be Tiger Woods. He’s playing brilliantly and his putting is among the best in history. But it is also too easy.

The other day a blogger asked me who I liked at Augusta.

I thought about it for a while — and decided Trevor Immelman. He’s having a fine year, and hits the ball a long way. Of course I made this pick without looking up his putting stats — he’s 165th his year, which pretty much means he won’t win at Augusta without significantly stepping it up.

So who else? Adam Scott also doesn’t putt well enough. I also like U.S. Open winner Geoff Ogilvy, but like Scott, he isn’t getting the ball in the cup fast enough. Looking at the FedEx Cup standings, others among the leaders include John Rollins and Mark Calcavecchia, but I don’t think anyone expects them to be competitive.

[photopress:VIJAY_1.jpg,full,alignleft]Who does that leave? You’ve got to consider Vijay, who is 15th in putting and has won at Augusta. He has all the tools — and will definitely be a force, as will Phil Mickelson. Henrik Stenson hits it a ton and proved he could putt at the Match Play.

But I actually think that if it isn’t someone like Woods who runs [photopress:lukedonald_1.jpg,full,alignright]away with it, it could be a mid-length player like Luke Donald or even Stephen Ames. Wouldn’t shock me if that’s what happened — sort of like a repeat of Tim Clark’s performance last year.

Here’s a question for G4G readers — if you had the choice of making a bet on either Woods, or the rest of the field, which would you take?

Love to hear your answers and reasoning.