World number one Scottie Scheffler again arrives at Augusta widely considered as the man to beat.<\/p>\n
The 29-year-old American is already a two-time champion – in 2022 and 2024 \u2013 and goes into his seventh appearance still having never finished outside the top 20.<\/p>\n
Rory McIlroy can never be discounted, of course, as he attempts to become only the fourth man to win back-to-back Masters.<\/p>\n
The build-up for the 36-year-old from Northern Ireland has not been as smooth as it was 12 months ago, but he remains among the frontrunners despite a lack of competitive action.<\/p>\n
The optimism of three top-10 finishes at the start of the season was replaced by concerns about a back injury, which forced him to withdraw from the Arnold Palmer Invitational and hampered him at the Players Championship, but he appears over that niggle.<\/p>\n
Another American, Bryson DeChambeau, reignites his challenge for a first Green Jacket, hoping to have learned lessons from faltering last year when he went out alongside McIlroy in Sunday’s final pairing.<\/p>\n
DeChambeau might still play on a LIV Tour which has its detractors, but his place among the favourites – given his ability and form shown in two recent victories on the breakaway circuit \u2013 cannot be questioned given he is also a two-time US Open champion.<\/p>\n
Spain’s Jon Rahm is another LIV player expected to feature high on the leaderboard. Rahm, who won in 2023, is a perennial challenger at the majors and searches for a third major title buoyed by leading the LIV standings this year.<\/p>\n
England’s Matt Fitzpatrick, the 2022 US Open winner, comes into the tournament full of confidence after his recent runners-up finish at the Players Championship, while he has two Ryder Cup team-mates also hitting form heading into this week. <\/p>\n
Scotland’s Robert MacIntyre, who was fourth at the Players and joint second in Texas last week has also hit form heading into Augusta, while Sweden’s Ludvig Aberg \u2013 who was runner-up on his debut in 2024 and seventh last year – clearly enjoys the test.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"World number one Scottie Scheffler again arrives at Augusta widely considered as the man to beat. The 29-year-old…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":519362,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[5904,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-519361","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golf","8":"tag-golf","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519361","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=519361"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519361\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/519362"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=519361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=519361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=519361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}