US Masters Winning Trends

Looking down the roll of honour for the Masters, the names are familiar. Yes, Zach Johnson, Trevor Immelman and Angel Cabrera were all outsiders in the betting, but they were recognisable golfers. They certainly are not in the same bracket as Rich Beem, Shaun Micheel, Todd Hamilton and Ben Curtis, all major winners, who arrived from obscurity and swiftly returned there.

The main reason is that the Masters is invite only. The top 50 in the world are guaranteed spots along with the top performers in the previous season’s majors. The tournament is designed in such a way that the public cannot fail to know the players.

Nevertheless, there are some well-trodden trends that people use to narrow down the field. Let us look at their validity over that last 10 years:

1. Player must have experience of playing Augusta.
No golfer playing the Masters for the first time has won the tournament since Fuzzy Zoeller in 1979. With the greens fast and undulating, you need to understand where to land the ball. There seems logic to this theory. If true then we can rule out the 22 debutants.

2. The course favours big hitters.
Six of the last 10 winners ranked in the top-20 in their respective tour for driving distance. Weir and Immelman were not long hitters, ranking outside of the top 50. Even modest drivers can prosper, Zach Johnson ranked 169th in driving distance the year he won.

3. Must have winning form in the last 12 months.
Seven of the last 10 Masters winners had won in the previous twelve months. This statistic is skewed because we were in an era when Mickelson and Woods dominated US golf. Nevertheless, Immelman and Johnson managed runners up spots in the year before their Masters victory. Only Cabrera won without a recent top two finish.

Of the three common trends it seems course experience is the most important. If we dig deeper, the last ten champions had played Augusta at least twice before their victorious year. Zach Johnson was the least experienced having played only twice; making one cut. It looks like the minimum requirement is six rounds of golf at Augusta before you can win. That is good news for Martin Kaymer and Rory McIlroy who play their seventh competitive rounds on Thursday