The first major of 2024 takes place this week as a field of 89 players head to Augusta for the 2024 edition of the Masters.

Joe Champion has picked out his best bets ahead of the event and has come up with four tips.

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The Masters 2024 Predictions & Betting Tips

The Majors have long been the four cornerstones of the golfing calendar but the importance of the Masters, the US PGA Championship, the US Open and the Open is now greater than ever before.

Where once we had the world rankings and season-long competitions to tell us who was the best, now there are just four tournaments which are able to bring together all the elite of the men’s game in one place.

And what a place for the first instalment of four acts of genuinely top-level competition.

Home to the Masters since 1934, Augusta National Golf Club in Augusta, Georgia, is one of the most recognisable venues in sport and a fitting backdrop to arguably the most prestigious tournament in golf.

Following tweaks to the 11th, 15th and 18th holes in 2022 and the 13th prior to last year’s event, Augusta has been left largely unchanged for the 2024 tournament with the exception of a slight lengthening of the par-five second hole, bringing the total length up to 7,555 yards.

The Masters best bet – Scottie Scheffler 4/1

Tournament organisers once attempted to ‘Tiger-proof’ this famous old layout but, for this year’s Masters, there may well have been discussions about how to ‘Scottie-proof’ it instead.

While the world rankings might be flawed with LIV events not included, it’s difficult to argue that Scottie Scheffler is anything other than the best player in the world and he can show it by winning a second Masters crown.

In 2022, he won the Phoenix Open, the Arnold Palmer Invitational and the now-defunct WGC-Matchplay before claiming his first Major title at the hallowed Cathedral of the Pines.

Last season, he won in Phoenix again, then he won his first Players Championship, then he putted poorly when finishing tenth as a defending Masters champion, a respectable effort given the noise and pressure that comes with being the most recent Green Jacket winner.

The remainder of last year saw Scheffler go winless in full-field events as a stone-cold putter undermined months of masterful, Woods-esque ball-striking before the flat-stick warmed up at just the right time.

Scheffler’s decision to switch to a mallet-head putter this year following the Genesis Invitational has paid handsome dividends as he claimed the Arnold Palmer and the Players again before finishing runner-up in the Houston Open on his last start.

A missed five-footer on the 18th at Memorial Park denied the Texas-based star a place in a Houston playoff but there’s no denying that he’s the one to beat and, given the struggles of many of his rivals, by some distance.

Plenty will be keen to take on Scheffler and some might fancy the LIV big guns, including reigning champion Jon Rahm, to ruffle his feathers.

However, Scheffler is made for Augusta. His tee-to-green game is, by some distance, the best on the PGA Tour – almost a shot better than all his competitors according to strokes-gained data – and his scrambling, which is such a valuable asset at Augusta, is in the top five.

If it wasn’t for the putter, Scheffler would’ve won many more titles over the last 12 months but he’ll have to put up with just 17 top-ten finishes and three victories from 21 events since the last Masters.

Augusta form of 19-18-1-10 is rock-solid and it’s hard to see him failing to contend. Punters simply have to keep him on side even if he’s set to go off as the shortest-priced favourite in more than a decade.

Of his main rivals, Rahm’s LIV form is hard to weigh up, even though he was fourth in Miami last week. He’s going under the radar but the Masters is tough to win and defending champions have not fared well recently.

Rory McIlroy never goes under the radar in pursuit of the career Grand Slam but it’s almost ten years since his last Major win and the pressure will pile up as he drives down Magnolia Lane.

Third in Texas last week was an improvement on indifferent form but the psychological hurdles presented by Augusta could again prove his undoing.

The Masters each-way bet 1 – Xander Schauffele 14/1

Majors machine Brooks Koepka is a huge threat as he goes in search of a first Green Jacket but, for an alternative to Scheffler, take a chance of Xander Schauffele finally realising his potential in this sphere.

Only Scheffler has been better from tee-to-green than Schauffele this year and that has been reflected in a run of 2024 form figures which read 10-3-9-54-4-25-2-5, while his Masters form figures of 50-2-17-3-MC-10 are equally encouraging.

A lack of ruthlessness has held Schauffele back but six of the last nine Masters winners were claiming their first Major title in the event and there’s every chance he adds his name to that list on Sunday.

Jordan Spieth’s Augusta record entitles him to respect while Ludvig Aberg and Wyndham Clark both have designs on becoming the first debutant to win since Fuzzy Zoeller in 1979, although that lack of experience could prove their undoing.

The Masters each-way bet 2 – Cameron Smith 40/1

Joaquin Niemann, handed a special invitation due to his brilliant worldwide form, has a chance but the top LIV golfer could be Cameron Smith, who has a great Masters record.

The 2022 Open champion found some form when a runner-up at LIV Hong Kong before having to withdraw before the second round at Miami with food poisoning.

However, if fit, his sparkling short-game gives Smith a chance, just as it did when Patrick Reed won in 2018.

The Australian has form figures of 5-51-2-10-3-34 from the last six Masters and should not be underestimated.

The Masters each-way bet 3 – Cameron Young 45/1

This tournament generally boils down to a battle between the best and Cameron Young is close to, if not already in that category.

The New Yorker is the strongest maiden on the PGA Tour circuit and he wouldn’t be the first in recent memory to shed that tag on the grandest stage of all.

This top-class ball-striker was a runner-up at the Valspar in his last start, seventh at the 2023 Masters on his second Augusta appearance, and he’s finished in the top eight in four of the last seven Major championships.

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