Ginger Joe names five of the highest profile players to avoid for the Masters this week after landing his fifth win of 2025 on Brian Harman.
The Masters at Augusta is only a few days away now and it’s time to release my Top 5 high profiled players to avoid list! These are players that to my calculations can get as close as they want to winning the event, but don’t have what it takes to cross the line as the winner to claim that famous green jacket.
There are many attributes that I want in my selections with regards to finding winners and the first of which is I definitely want a player that can hit a soft fade with their approach shots to the greens. Players that hit big draws with their approaches to Augusta often use too much spin so it’s hard to keep the ball near the hole or on the flat spots which make the putts easier.
History backs this up too if you look at the winners list. Experience round Augusta is absolutely vital too. It isn’t like your week to week golf course with wide fairways that you can just unleash on and because the fairways here are so undulating and fast, you actually need to play the right shot shapes off the tee to keep the ball in the fairway.
There are a lot more intricate details around Augusta to any normal golf course and it takes a serious performance over the four rounds and a strong mental game too. The final thing to mention here is that you need players that play well under pressure and the fact they need to do that at such a unique course makes that more difficult than usual.
The five players I have come up with for my list don’t tick all of the boxes and avoiding these in my opinion, will save you money for win purposes. These lists have done me well in the past and hopefully they will do us well this week too.
My betting selections for the event will be available exclusively to Oddschecker+ Premium subscribers via the golf betting tips page.
Rory McIlroy
My first high profiled player to avoid for this year’s Masters is world number 2 Rory McIlroy at a best price of 7/1. There is no questioning the talent or the ability of Rory McIlroy but there are a lot of aspects that contribute to him not being able to win that green jacket.
The first thing to mention is the expectation on his shoulders and this has become evidently stressful for Rory when attending Augusta and to my eye, he has a clear mental block around Augusta. I do think his raw ability could have him in the Top 5 or 10; however, I don’t think he will cross the line as the winner here.
Another reason I can’t have him for Augusta too is the fact that he hits a big draw with his irons and that is not ideal for Augusta National. Of course there are holes where you have no choice other than to hit a draw into the green, but for the most part and history will tell you this, that you need to hit a soft fade.
The reason for this is that the greens around this golf course are so receptive, so fast and so undulating, that you need a softer spin shot on the approach to find the flatter spots. Hitting a draw round here applies so much more spring on the golf ball, and that makes it hard to find the right spots on the green.
Rory does play by hitting the ball both ways but at Augusta he has persisted to hit a draw and I am not a fan of that whatsoever. There is a prime example from last year’s Masters on the Friday when he played with Scottie Scheffler. They were both side by side on the hill on the 11th and Rory hit a big draw on his approach, applied too much spin and ended up in the water, whereas Scottie Scheffler flighted down a 7 iron and kept himself away from trouble.
That is the difference here. I think Rory McIlroy has a lot to overcome in his mental game and his course gameplan too before winning here. He is coming into this in good enough form to play well, but he still has a lot of elements to get over for win purposes.
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Justin Thomas
Justin Thomas (25/1) looks like a rejuvenated character this season and has all the attributes to win more Major championships in his career, but there is an issue in his game currently that puts me off his winning chances. He has played that well this season he has managed to get himself back inside the Top 10 in the world rankings and has four Top 10’s which include second place finishes in the American Express and the Valspar Championship just a few weeks ago.
The issue I have though is that in the Valspar he was three shots clear with three holes to play and couldn’t see it out and that is a concern for me. The same may apply here at Augusta, he could play well enough to finish inside the Top 10 that is more than possible.
However, if we get to a point where he needs to hit a shot under pressure to hit a green and make a putt, he is the last person I would want to put the trust in. I notice too that the more confidence he gets in his round can almost be a negative for Justin as he focuses so much on having his golf swing look good, rather than focussing on the task at hand.
The fact he doesn’t quite see his tournaments out lately is a worry for me despite being a 15 time winner on Tour. This is a completely different golf course where you need to be switched on from start to finish and wouldn’t be for me this year.
Tommy Fleetwood
World number 11 Tommy Fleetwood (best price 40/1) is next and he is a very frustrating player to follow with regards to betting purposes. He is yet to win on the PGA Tour which seems extremely unusual considering how much talent he has and I don’t see that changing when he gets to Augusta.
He is a really good ball striker and often shoots low scores on Tour but his ability to maintain that over four rounds has become an evident issue and it makes him really hard to trust here.
He did finish tied 3rd here last year and although the result sounds good, he was never in contention to win the tournament and gained that position by finishing the weekend well. He was still tree shots behind second and seven behind the winner Scottie Scheffler.
The problem with Augusta too is that if you don’t start well in round 1, it is ever so hard to get those shots back as chasing around Augusta is more difficult here than it is at any other golf course. Last year Tommy started with an opening round of 72 and he was never going to win from there.
He needs to start fast this season and again, despite finishing 3rd last year, he is going to need to improve a lot on that performance to repeat that effort, let alone win the tournament.
Will Zalatoris
I would put Will Zalatoris (55/1) in a similar category to Justin Thomas in the sense that he has all the attributes to win a Major in time, but he isn’t yet ready to win a Masters. He hits the ball consistently well but I don’t feel like he has the right control on his approach shots to take advantage here at Augusta.
He has had a solid season this year making all seven of his cuts without really competing and his game will definitely start to click soon. That being said, he is a fair way behind a few other high profiled golfs this season and needs more to compete here.
One thing that does bode well for him is his chipping around the greens. He gets so much spin on them which enables him to get up and down plenty on fast tricky surfaces but he won’t want to be doing that too often around this golf course. He needs to be capitalising on the opportunities he does get.
His Major resume is pretty impressive, he has finished second in three of the Majors including here in 2021 but his game was thriving at the time and we haven’t seen him hit that level since. I actually think Will Zalatoris is a Major champion in waiting for the future, but not just yet. I see him struggling to win with his current game.
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Akhshay Batia
The left handed player Akhshay Bhatia (60/1) has been quite well tipped across the board for this year’s Masters but I don’t think he has the right game for this course at all. He hits a fairly wide dispersion fade and it is too much for this golf course as he seems to do the same with his irons too. I have mentioned previously that you need a controlled shot heading into this greens ideally and I don’t know if he has that in the locker this year.
I also notice that the deeper we get into tournaments when Bhatia is in contention, that fade turns even more dramatic when he tries to keep the ball in play and that isn’t really a gameplan that works around Augusta. For normal courses where you don’t need to be very well placed off the tee it is ok, but you must find the right spots from tee to green around Augusta and that worries me for Akhshay.
His short game is pretty good and he can probably play well enough to finish in the Top 15, but for win purposes, he wouldn’t be for me at all. He finished tied 34th here last season when playing well and needs a much improved performance to contend this year. I could see him going well in a US PGA Championship or a US Open, but a Masters doesn’t look likely to me.
Masters Betting Odds
Scottie Scheffler is the favourite to win the 2025 Masters (best price 5/1) having slipped on the green jacket in two of the last three years.
Rory McIlroy is the only other player with a single figure price to win on any bookmaker across the oddschecker grid. He is a best price 7/1 on bet365 but a shortest 11/2.
Interestingly, the fifth favourite Ludvig Aberg is the most backed selection through oddschecker in the last seven days having taken just short of 5% of the bets (McIlroy 4.3% and Scheffler 3.7%). Akhshay Bhatia and Corey Conners complete the top five.
Has Ginger Joe got it wrong with McIlroy and Bhatia?
