Augusta National takes centre stage again for the 2026 Masters tournament and history suggests one of these 11 golfers will be taking home the green jacket.
It will be hard to top last year’s tournament in Georgia when Rory McIlroy was crowned champion, completing his long-awaited career grand slam in the one major that had eluded him his entire career.
A final pairing with Bryson DeChambeau was flipped on its head with the American falling out of contention and Justin Rose emerging from the shadows to force a dramatic play-off.
McIlroy kept his cool to fend off his fellow Brit sparking emotional scenes on the 18th green as the Northern Irishman realised his life-long ambition.
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McIlroy’s victory was also significant as it ensured a statistical trend that has emerged on golf’s most famous course continued heading into the 2026 tournament.
Augusta is a ball-striker's dream and looking into strokes-gained data as well as ball-striking means you can semi-accurately predict who will end the tournament on top. 11 of the last 13 winners of the green jacket produced 1.7 or more strokes-gained tee to green in the three months prior to the Masters. The only exceptions to that rule were Patrick Reed and Hideki Matsuyama.
Using that criteria, there are only 11 golfers who can emerge victorious.
Across both the PGA Tour and LIV Golf, only 11 men have gained 1.7 strokes tee-to-green in the last three months.
Despite being plagued by back problems in the lead up to his title defence, McIlroy remains in the mix and cannot be ruled out. Fellow Masters winners Jon Rahm and Scottie Scheffler also fit the criteria. Rahm has been in top form on the LIV Tour while world no.1 Scheffler hasn’t hit the heights of 2025 since the turn of the year but can never be ruled out.
Ludvig Åberg is always a contender at Augusta given his ball-striking prowess but has failed to keep his cool during the final rounds of the majors, as showcased with his recent meltdown after holding a commanding lead during The Players’ Championship. Matt Fitzpatrick has been fancied by many after his recent win at the Valspar Championship and eventually Players winner Cameron Young also fits the criteria. A potential surprise contender to watch is Chris Gotterup who will be making his Masters debut and has also won on the PGA Tour since the start of 2025. The other names who fit the criteria are Sepp Straka, Min Woo Lee, Si Woo Kim and Collin Morikawa.
Of course, it takes more than elite ball-striking to claim a victory at Augusta but history shows a few names could be ready to take that next step. Åberg finished runner-up in 2024 with Morikawa finished T3 in the same year. Young ended T7 back in 2023 with Fitzpatrick failing to better a T7 finish in 2016.
Nevertheless, history suggests one of the aforementioned names might be sitting down at the champion’s dinner next year.
Topics: Golf, Rory Mcilroy
Marcus Banks