Masters Field 2019: Odds, Favorites and Tournament Preview

The world's best golfers will fight it out for the most coveted garment in all of sport this week—the green jacket handed to the winner of the Masters at Augusta.

So often this event is a stage for drama, as the course consistently provides a challenge of a player's composure and quality. A year ago, Patrick Reed showed he had both to win his first major event.

However, with so many high-class players in the field and Reed struggling for form so far in 2019, the green jacket will feel up for grabs for anyone who goes out on Thursday.

Here are the selected odds to win this year's event and a closer look at some of the players expected to be in contention come Sunday evening.

Masters Odds

Rory McIlroy—7/1

Dustin Johnson—9/1

Justin Rose—14/1

Tiger Woods—14/1

Justin Thomas—14/1

Jon Rahm—18/1

Jordan Spieth—18/1

Rickie Fowler—18/1

For the odds in full visit OddsChecker

Preview

The last four editions of the Masters have been won by players who had never triumphed at Augusta previously. The betting markets point towards another first-time winner in 2019 too.

The man with the shortest odds going into the week is Rory McIlroy, as he's enjoyed a fine start to 2019 and appears to have his swagger back.

After winning the Players Championship at TPC Sawgrass—an event dubbed as golf's unofficial fifth major—ahead of veteran Jim Furyk, McIlroy carried his good form into the WGC Matchplay event. There, he was flawless in his group matches, before eventually losing out to Tiger Woods in the lat 16.

As relayed by Stuart Fraser of The Times, for McIlroy a big victory was needed, having suffered something of a drought by his own high standards:

Golf writer Jason Sobel said he thinks the four-time major winner will go into Augusta as the man to beat, as he chases a career grand slam:

Even so, there are high-class players scattered all over the top of the betting market, with Dustin Johnson tucked in just behind McIlroy.

He too has never been able to get over the line at Augusta. In 2017 he was in red-hot form going into the tournament, only for a freak injury after a fall down some stairs ruled him out; the last three times Johnson has played the Masters he's been in the top 10.

Speaking ahead of the tournament, Johnson said he thinks he's approaching the levels of 2017 again.

"Now is the closest I've been to that," he said, per Will Gray of the Golf Channel. "I mean, back then that was probably the best form I've ever been in, and getting injured it's taken a while to get back to that form."

Per Teryn Gibson of the PGA Tour, the world No. 2 is fantastic at putting himself in a position to win titles:

The same can be said for world No. 1 Justin Rose, who has saved some of his best golf for the biggest tournaments in 2019. At the Farmers Insurance Open he was a winner and at the Players he recovered from a poor first round to finish in eighth.

Jordan Spieth is rarely out of contention at the Masters, but has been in wretched form overall ahead of Augusta. Since the 2018 edition of this tournament, when he finished third, he's only notched one top-10 finish in strokeplay events and has fallen down to 30th in the world rankings.