It’s officially Masters week. All the hype is swirling over whether Tiger Woods is going to play — and I personally think he will — but even if he does tee it up, it’s hard to believe that he’s at a point physically where he can actually compete for a win. I certainly won’t count him out from winning again in the future, perhaps this season or next even, but I don’t see any realistic scenario of him being at, or even near, the top of the leaderboard this week at Augusta.
My pick for Masters champion is Jon Rahm. He’s had a sneakily quiet season thus far with four top-10 finishes, and so I think he’s poised to bust out with something big. And what better time to do so than the first major of the year at Augusta?
He’s currently leading the PGA Tour in strokes gained off-the-tee and greens-in-regulation percentage, and top-10 in total strokes gained and driving distance. The big question marks for him are his short game: 138th in strokes gained putting, 168th in strokes gained around-the-green, and 178th in sand save percentage.
Prior to the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play, he said it’s not an issue: “When you’re No. 1 off the tee and top 10 in strokes gained approach, my putting stats are not going to be top 20. It’s absolutely impossible unless I’m winning every single week by eight. Kind of how it goes. Is it as good as it could be? No, but I think it shows in the stats worse than it actually feels just because I’m hitting so many greens and hitting it so good. Again, I feel like I’ve said it a few times. It’s not as bad as it looks. It feels a lot better than it looks. Maybe I haven’t gotten the results yet, but I’m not worried about it.”
A big reason why I believe Rahm will do well at the Masters is the fact that he lost the No. 1 world ranking last week to Scottie Scheffler. Just like his win at last year’s U.S. Open two weeks after being pulled from Memorial while leading the tournament, I think dropping down to No. 2 will create a fire inside of him going into Augusta.
My prediction is that Jon Rahm will hoist the green jacket this year with a score of 12-under par.
The 2022 Masters begins Thursday, April 7, on ESPN.
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