Evening Telegraph (First Edition)
Red-hot Scottie the man to beat in Masters race
JON Rahm will defend his title when the 88th Masters takes place at Augusta National, starting on Thursday.
Rahm is bidding to become just the fourth player to win back-to-back green jackets after Jack Nicklaus, Nick Faldo and Tiger Woods.
Here are some of the main contenders for the year’s first major championship.
Scottie Scheffler
The 2022 champion has been in brilliant form so far this year, winning the Arnold Palmer Invitational by five shots and becoming the first player to win back-to-back Players Championship titles at Sawgrass.
Switching putters on the advice of Rory McIlroy has proved vital, although missed short putts did cost Scheffler a third straight win in the Houston Open.
He is rightly rated favourite for a second green jacket at the kind of odds previously only offered for peak-era Tiger Woods.
Jon Rahm
Started last year with a fourputt double bogey but still shot an opening 65 before winning his second major title by four shots over LIV Golf duo Brooks Koepka and Phil Mickelson.
He returns to Augusta as a fellow member of the Saudibacked breakaway, a shock move that ensures his competitive sharpness will be under scrutiny.
Rahm will be hoping, as Koepka and Mickelson proved last year, that course experience is more important than form.
McIlroy’s 10th attempt to win the Masters and complete a career grand slam comes on the back of some underwhelming form since winning in Dubai in January, although the world No 2 remains second favourite.
His recent record at Augusta includes a thrilling final round of 64 in 2022 and two missed cuts, and the four-time major winner is reportedly set to skip the pretournament par-three contest to fully focus on his bid for glory.
Xander Schauffele
Schauffele insisted the best was yet to come in his career after narrowly missing out on the Players Championship title, the Olympic champion taking a one-shot lead into the final round only to be overhauled by a charging Scheffler.
Failing to get over the line perpetuated the belief in some circles that Schauffele has underachieved, although he has seven PGA Tour titles to go with his gold medal from Tokyo, along with 11 top-10 major finishes, including three in his last five starts at Augusta.
Ludvig Aberg
Most golf fans are well aware of the statistic that makes Aberg appear an unlikely contender, namely that Fuzzy Zoeller was the last player to win the Masters on their debut back in 1979.
In addition, the Masters will be Aberg’s first appearance in any major. But the 24-year-old Swede has defied the odds since turning professional in June 2023, winning on the DP World Tour and PGA Tour and justifying his wild card by helping Europe regain the Ryder Cup.