My annual Masters column, which highlights contenders capable of winning the tournament, has proven successful since its launch in 2013. With a smaller field than other majors and the distinction of being the only one played on the same course each year, Augusta National lends itself to clearly defined performance metrics that strongly predict success. As a result, my filtering approach—refining the field down to roughly 20–24 players—continues to hold up.

For the past 25 years, Augusta National has favored long hitters more and more than it has ever favored long hitters. The best way for short hitters like Zach Johnson to win the Masters was to get weather conditions to benefit them, meaning fewer par-5s reached in two shots and fewer greens in regulation being hit by the field. The weather forecast doesn’t appear to help the short hitters this year, as it calls for very little chance of rain, winds under 10 mph, and temperatures ranging from mid-70s to low 80s.

But the data shows a larger factor at work. PGA Tour golfers are producing much faster club and ball speeds, resulting in longer drives and higher ball flight. 10 years ago, the average club speed on the PGA Tour was 112.9 mph. Now it’s at 117.0 mph. In fact, at the Houston Open, the average club speed among 124 players was 118.1 mph. And ball speeds have jacked up as well, with the tour average at 167.7 mph 10 years ago and 174.9 mph currently. As I commented to one of our tour clients recently, 190 (mph ball speed) is the new 180 (mph ball speed.

It’s not just the young players coming into the tour; it’s the veterans who are seeing substantial increases in club and ball speed. Players like Collin Morikawa, who were regularly at 111-112 mph club speed, are now in the 115 to 117 mph range. Mackenzie Hughes recently took a jump from 114-115 mph to 120 to 121 mph. And even Gary Woodland, always a big speed player, has gone from around 122-123 mph to 128-130 mph. There’s a clear mandate from players on tour: get faster and longer off the tee because distance is too big a factor in terms of success.

With that being said, I hypothesize that this will even the playing field a little for the Masters. While distance is greatly important at Augusta, the returns likely plateau at a certain point. But the players that have typically not been long enough to compete at Augusta are now long enough to reach those critical par-5’s in two shots and hit those long iron shots high enough with enough spin to hold those greens, whereas in the past they may see their ball roll off the green and have a difficult chip to save par. And this will put a greater emphasis on approach shot play from a distance, I call ‘The Red Zone’, shots from 175-225 yards.

Speaking of critical shots, the increase in distance off the tee appears to be showing up on what are the ‘Critical Holes’ of the tournament. The Critical Holes are the trends of where the top finishers are gaining the most strokes versus the field. Typically holes #13 and #15 (along with hole #7 and #12) have been critical holes for the event but the most recent trends have holes #5 and #18 as the only critical holes projected for the tournament.

I will start with the LIV players. Since LIV does not track data on Trackman or ShotLink, there’s a bit of a guessing game for me:

Sergio Garcia
Dustin Johnson
Tom McKibbin
Carlos Ortiz
Charl Schwartzel
Cameron Smith
Bubba Watson

Despite being past champions, I ruled out Sergio and Bubba due to age. While Mickelson and Kenny Perry got into contention at 53 years old, and years before Kenny Perry almost won at 48 years old, the oldest Masters winner is still Jack Nicklaus at 46 years old, and players in their 40s don’t fare well at winning The Masters. Remember, this filtering is about probability, not certainty.

DJ hasn’t played well in the past few years, and Schwartzel’s iron play struggles have played a large role in his inability to win another green jacket. Cameron Smith hasn’t played well recently either, and unless he’s gained major distance off the tee, I wouldn’t feel comfortable letting him get past the filter.

Next up, I filter out amateurs and first-time invitees. The Masters has only been won three times by a first-time attendee: Fuzzy Zoeller was the last to win in 1979. Prior to Zoeller, though, it was Horton Smith in the inaugural event in 1934, followed by Gene Sarazen in 1935:

Michael Brennan
Jacob Bridgeman
Ethan Fang (A)
Ryan Gerard
Chris Gotterup
Ben Griffin
Harry Hall
Jackson Herrington (A)
Brandon Holtz (A)
Mason Howell (A)
Casey Jarvis
Naoyuki Kataoka
Fifa Laopakdee (A)
John Keefer
Rasmus Neergaard-Petersen
Andrew Novak
Marco Penge
Mateo Pulcini (A)
Kristoffer Reitan
Samuel Stevens
Sami Valimaki

Out of these players, the data likes Brennan, Griffin, and Valimaki as good fits for this year’s Masters. I also filter out players who have yet to make the cut at the Masters:

Aldrich Potgieter

I also rule out any player who has not won a singles tournament on the PGA Tour, DP World Tour, or LIV Tour.

Max Greyserman

Next up, I will take out the past champions who are at an age that I don’t expect them to seriously contend.

Angel Cabrera
Fred Couples
Zach Johnson
Jose Maria Olazábal
Vijay Singh
Mike Weir

In terms of predicting future performance, recent performance is a big factor, so I filter out these players who missed the cut at the Valero Open:

Russell Henley
Max Homa
Haotong Li
Sepp Straka
Cameron Young

Out of this group of players, Young hits all of the marks to get past the filter if he had not missed the cut in San Antonio.

Every year, I filter out the most critical area of the game for the Masters, shots from 175-225 yards. As I mentioned earlier, I believe that with the increase in distance off the tee that the tour has seen in recent years, the approach shot play will become even more critical. Here are those players who have not played well enough from 175-225 yards this season.

Patrick Cantlay
Nico Echavarria
Tommy Fleetwood
Sungjae Im
Michael Kim
Robert MacIntyre
Maverick McNealy
Aaron Rai
Davis Riley
Scottie Scheffler
Jordan Spieth
Justin Thomas

Obviously, the biggest surprise player to be filtered out is Scheffler. But he currently ranks 153rd out of 169 players on tour on shots from 175-225 yards and ranks 82nd in Strokes Gained for all approach shots. This is very unlike Scheffler, whose career path is leading him to be one of the finest approach shot golfers of all time. And given his past success at Augusta, it leaves this year’s field quite vulnerable.

Fleetwood came to the tour as one of the best iron players but around 2020 is when his iron player started to have issues and outside of last season his play from 175-225 yards has not been good. He currently ranks 133rd out of 169 players from 175 to 225 yards. SungJae Im and Justin Thomas are coming off injuries and have historically been very good players from 175 to 225 yards, but have not performed well from that distance in the few events they have played thus far.

Next up, I will filter out the players who are not long enough off the tee to likely compete.

Brian Campbell
Brian Harman

Campbell has also struggled from 175 to 225 yards as well (142nd), but his lack of distance greatly lowers his odds of winning a Green Jacket. Harman ranks 70th from 175 to 225 yards and meets almost all of the other filtering criteria except for distance and the last piece to the puzzle, shot height.

I have found that shot height to be a very important criterion to success at the Masters, but I needed to tweak how that was determined because using the apex height data on the PGA Tour website has not always given an accurate description. So I also utilize data such as carry distance, hang time, and Trackman data on the tour’s tracker website to determine how high the player actually hits their shots. Not only is there some importance placed on how high a player can hit their driver off the tee, but there’s more importance placed on how high they can hit their irons.

For example, Gary Woodland ranks only 116th in apex height with the driver. But when I factor in the rest of his data and particularly his iron shots on par-3’s, he has the ability to greatly increase his apex height with his driver and get long approach shots to stop on greens.

Here are the players I filtered out for shot height concerns:

Daniel Berger
Corey Conners
Matt Fitzpatrick
Ryan Fox
Si Woo Kim
Hideki Matsuyama
Matt McCarty
Collin Morikawa
Alex Noren
JJ Spaun
Nick Taylor
Danny Willett

There are many players in this group that were difficult to leave, such as Conners, Fitzpatrick, Kim, Matsuyama, Morikawa, and Spaun. Morikawa ranks first in Strokes Gained – Approach and has the distance, but still flights his irons a bit low according to the data. My data modeling had him as almost a toss-up, but the back injury at Sawgrass convinced me to filter him out for this year’s event.

The data loves Fitzpatrick’s game overall and sees him as a contender in majors for the near future as well as a player that can win multiple tournaments each year. But his low ball flight doesn’t bode well at Augusta, and he’s only made two top-10 finishes in eleven appearances at the Masters (best finish t-7th). Si Woo Kim currently ranks first in shots from 175 to 225 yards, but he also prefers to flight his long approach shots lower.

It’s not that these players cannot possibly contend this week, but the odds work against them if they get into contention with a power player like Rory or Bryson who can hit moon shots with ease.

And that leaves us with the 24 players who can win the 2026 Masters:

Ludvig Åberg (14/1)
Akshay Bhatia (50/1)
Keegan Bradley (225/1)
Sam Burns (100/1)
Wyndham Clark (200/1)
Jason Day (75/1)
Bryson DeChambeau (10/1)
Harris English (100/1)
Tyrrell Hatton (90/1)
Nicolai Hojgaard (80/1)
Rasmus Hojgaard (200/1)
Viktor Hovland (60/1)
Kurt Kitayama (175/1)
Jake Knapp (75/1)
Brooks Koepka (45/1)
Min Woo Lee (40/1)
Shane Lowry (70/1)
Rory McIlroy (12/1)
Jon Rahm (12/1)
Patrick Reed (35/1)
Justin Rose (30/1)
Xander Schauffele (16/1)
Adam Scott (70/1)
Gary Woodland (100/1)

And here are my personal top-10 picks:

Bryson DeChambeau (10/1)
Jon Rahm (12/1)
Rory McIlroy (12/1)
Ludvig Aberg (14/1)
Xander Schauffele (16/1)
Justin Rose (30/1)
Brooks Koepka (35/1)
Min-Woo Lee (40/1)
Adam Scott (70/1)
Shane Lowry (70/1)