As the world’s best golfers gather at Augusta National this week, two formidable LIV Golf players emerge as the strongest contenders for the green jacket.<\/p>\n
Jon Rahm<\/a> and Bryson DeChambeau<\/a> possess the elite ball-striking, mental toughness, and major-winning experience that Augusta National rewards.<\/p>\n RELATED: First Look<\/a> | Power Rankings for the Masters<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n Here are 10 key reasons why one of them is poised to claim victory.\u00a0<\/p>\n JON RAHM During the past three months, no golfer in the world has played better than the Legion XIII<\/a> captain. According to DataGolf<\/a>, Rahm has gained an average of 2.69 strokes on the field per tournament. That puts him above pre-tournament favorite Scottie Scheffler\u2019s +2.67. While he narrowly missed defeating DeChambeau in the LIV Golf South Africa<\/a> playoff, history suggests that\u2019s not a bad thing: winning the week immediately before the Masters is rare. Only a handful of champions have done so on the PGA Tour, and most recent winners (including himself in 2023) performed well without claiming victory in their final tune-up. Rahm reeled off wins earlier in the season before earning his green jacket in 2023, as did recent champions like Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy.<\/p>\n 2. Greens in Regulation<\/p>\n Rahm has led LIV Golf in Greens in Regulation this season at an impressive 82%. Eight of the past 10 Masters champions entered the week ranked 12th or better in GIR within their respective tours. With scrambling historically difficult at Augusta National, Rahm\u2019s elite ball-striking should leave him scrambling far less than the rest of the field.\u00a0<\/p>\n 3. Ball-striking<\/p>\n Rahm ranks 1st on LIV Golf in Strokes Gained: Approach, a highly predictive stat for success at Augusta National. He also ranks 3rd in the league in Strokes Gained: Off the Tee, giving him a powerful combination of distance and accuracy off the tee. This elite ball-striking profile mirrors the strengths of recent Masters champions, and positions Rahm to dominate Augusta’s demanding second shots all week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As the world’s best golfers gather at Augusta National this week, two formidable LIV Golf players emerge as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":569448,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[71],"tags":[427,99],"class_list":["post-569447","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/569447","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=569447"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/569447\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/569448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=569447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=569447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=569447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n1. Elite form<\/p>\n