Paulie’s Picks: Favorite Odds and Value Plays for the 2025 Masters

Hello friends! It’s Masters week, the hands-down best week of golf all year. While we watch this event, many of us like to participate in office pools, daily fantasy, or toss a few bets in. Now, I know all of you are familiar with Augusta National, but what does it actually take to contend? How can we predict who has the best chance for success? I’m here to help you understand what to look for in players this week.

This may sound obvious, but the number one predictor of performance is elite iron play. This is more important at Augusta National than almost any other golf course due to its fast and undulating greens. Players in control of their irons can play the slopes or leave their ball in a spot with either an uphill putt or one with minimal break, which is key to scoring. Those who are not hitting their irons well end up missing on the wrong side of the pin, leaving very difficult putts to save par. Even worse, players who miss the green are often faced with extremely difficult up-and-down attempts, which can put you in a first-class seat on the bogey train quickly.

It’s great to bomb the ball off the tee and attack the par 5s, but Augusta National is one of the courses where patience and course knowledge are more important. Knowing if and when to fire at pins and where to leave your approach shots is paramount. Year after year we see wily veterans perform well because they know where to miss for each pin location. Augusta National rewards good shots and punishes bad ones, and by the end of the week, a deserving champion dons the green jacket.

PAULIE’S PICKS: 2025 Masters Longshots

But what about chipping and putting, Paulie? Putting prowess is a bit muted here because the greens are so fast and undulating that many times players are just trying to lag a putt from 20 feet. You need to hole your fair share of makeable putts to contend, but the fact is you simply can’t fake your way around Augusta National.

Let’s take a look at some of the favorites this week for pools, daily fantasy, and betting:

I know it’s gonna be hard for many of you to do this, but the best option this week is to fade both Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy. The value lies in other players, whether it’s betting odds or office pools.

Major Victories

• Rory McIlroy: 4 (no wins at Masters, last major victory was in 2014)
• Scottie Scheffler: 2 (both wins at Masters, 19 total major appearances as a pro)
• Collin Morikawa: 2 (no wins at Masters, 20 total Major appearances as a pro)
• Xander Schauffele: 2 (no wins at Masters, but both major victories were in 2024)

Based on past Masters and major performances, you may be confused as to why the betting prices for the above players this week are:

• McIlroy: 6.5/1
• Scheffler: 4/1
• Morikawa: 18/1
• Schauffele: 21/1

We have the rare combination of Scheffler being the best player since peak 2000 Tiger Woods and McIlroy winning twice so far in 2025. That has driven their price down to current market levels. Because of that, we have seen other prices rise, especially for Morikawa and Schauffele, who haven’t won in 2025. The odds gap between these players is simply too high.

Xander Schauffele 21/1 to Win

I am fully aware that Xander missed time earlier this year due to an intercostal tear near his ribs, but he’s back to full health and has been ramping up his game in recent weeks. If he wasn’t injured, we would have seen odds of 9/1 for Schauffele to win. Now we are getting more than double those odds. Let’s not forget that Schauffele won two majors last year. In the last six Masters, he has finished inside the top 10 four times. In terms of the all-important approach play, Xander is firing on all cylinders. In his last start at the Valspar, he gained 11.2 strokes on approach. When was the last time he gained that much in a tournament? How about never!

Collin Morikawa 18/1 to Win

This is a great value play for betting and a great contrarian play for daily fantasy and office pools. Morikawa is priced three times that of McIlroy and more than four times that of Scheffler. That seems too high. Morikawa has played in 20 majors and has two wins and seven top-five finishes. He struggled a bit in 2023 and 2024 but has rekindled his iron prowess in 2025. So far this year, he has played five events and has finished top 17 in all of them, including runner-up finishes at the Sentry and Arnold Palmer Invitational. During that span, he has gained 23.8 strokes on approach (1.19 per round), which leads the PGA Tour. That’s trending very close to his long term metrics from 2020 and 2021 when we saw him capture two majors. Remember: approach play reigns supreme at Augusta National. His record here is stellar as he has finished in the top ten each of the last three years, even when he wasn’t in the best form.

Office Pool Advice

The way to win office pools is by being contrarian. Many pools have you choose one player from various tiers, and that first tier is often the top four or five guys in the field. If you are faced with that in your pool, I suggest you take Morikawa or Schauffele this week as they won’t be owned by as many pool entrants as Scheffler or McIlroy. If you have a pool with 100-plus entries, you may have 50 who took Scheffler, 35 McIlroy, eight Schauffele, and seven Morikawa. That puts you in such a good spot, as you often have to pick the champion to win these pools. If Morikawa or Schauffele were to win, you’re battling a smaller pool of entries compared to the masses who took the frontrunners.