TELFER’S THOUGHTS 7.4.26

The golf calendar’s most awaited week has arrived. The Masters.

As Ryan Fox, no longer a Masters rookie, observed a few days ago, “It doesn’t matter how many times you’ve played Augusta, every time you enter through the gates and take the drive up Magnolia Lane to the clubhouse, it’s a goose bump experience”.

Ryan, unfortunately, could hardly have been more ill-prepared, after being laid low a month ago with kidney stones. Since then he’s only played two rounds of competitive golf. He is now thankfully an experienced world-class golfer and won’t be making excuses for this severely limited game time he’s had since the beginning of March. He’ll be relying on his bulldog spirit and fierce determination to get him through what will be a tough week for him. Just making the cut will be an achievement in itself. Due to the limited size of the field, usually around 90 to 95, the cut is made at 50. In other words, only the top 50 progress to play the final two rounds and that will be Foxy’s first aim. Again, in another piece of bad luck for Foxy, the 10-shot rule was removed a decade or so back. Under this rule, all players who were within 10 shots of the lead, regardless of their position, qualified for the last two rounds.

So who is likely to win? Scottie Scheffler, the world’s Number One despite an indifferent year to date by his standards, or Rory McIlroy, the defending champion with 44 wins worldwide to his name?

An elite American golf betting handicapper, Brady Kannon, who’s called eight Major winners since 2013 and whose most recent success came just a couple of weeks ago when he correctly predicted Matt Fitzpatrick paying 15-1 to win the Valspar Championship, is only revealing his choices to those who sign up to his betting website. However among popular betting sites, favouritism is fairly evenly shared between Scheffler, McIlroy and two LIV golfers, John Rahm and Bryson DeChambeau. DeChambeau has acquired the knack, over the last couple of years, of peaking in the Majors. So he’s my bet. I’ll be surprised if he’s not in the hunt when it comes to the back nine on the last day. Augusta’s back nine is very gettable. There are 2 par 5’s reachable in 2 and 2 magnificent par 3’s which can be birdied as well. If you can get on a tear at the start of the last nine you can shoot up to near the top of the leaderboard very quickly. It’s part of the enduring and addictive charm of The Masters.

Missing from the field this year are Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson who have won 8 Green jackets between them.

If you’re picking a non-American winner that might be a savvy bet. There are 46 foreign golfers in the field this year out of a field of 94.

Meanwhile in Las Vegas, Lydio Ko missed out on yet another top 10 finish by 1 stroke when she tied for 11th place at the Aramco Championship, but overall she continued her good consistent form in 2026. It was however a bit of a rough ride for Lydia who opened with rounds of 75 and 76, seeing her just make the cut and in a tie for 59th place after 2 rounds. Then the next day Lydia, as she is prone to do, went out and shot a 68 to record the lowest round of the day and jump 44 places up the leaderboard.