Masters 2011: Tiger Woods and 15 US Players Who Might Win, 9 Who Won't

Kathy BissellApr 5, 2011

As much as golf tournaments are about picking who will win, it’s also about who won’t. The factors that rule people in or out are experience, age, how they’ve performed at the highest levels and what kind of shots they hit compared to the golf course they are playing.

Former winners and those who play well should do well in The Masters, but golfers are unpredictable. They can wake up cranky. Pull a muscle warming up. Get food poisoning. Break their favorite driver. You just can’t tell. Dumb stuff happens all the time, and it will this week, too. Lucky stuff will also happen, and we just don’t know where.

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Of the 46 US players, three are amateurs, seven are first timers at Augusta National as professionals, five are over 40, and six are Champions Tour players. The likelihood of an amateur or a Champions Tour player winning are not impossible, but as the saying goes, Slim Left Town.

As much as we’d all like to see Fred Couples or Tom Watson win, Watson is now 60. Couples is into his second season on the over 50 circuit and he has a bad back. If there’s an office pool, those two Champions Tour players would be super dark horse picks. They may be able to post two or three good rounds, but it’s the four good rounds over 50 that are tough. No one knows why, no golfer over the age of 50 has been able to define it or explain it. With luck they will show the youngsters how it’s done by making some birdies and eagles.

The amateur tradition at the Masters is wonderful, but the last two amateurs to win professional tournaments were Scott Verplank (Western Open) and Phil Mickelson (Tucson Open). That’s something even Tiger Woods was not able to do. Nathan Smith. Peter Uihlein, Lion Kim and David Chung enjoy the Crow’s Nest. Study the jacket.

The Forty-Somethings, Jim Furyk, Jerry Kelly, Davis Love III, Phil Mickelson, Steve Stricker and David Toms still have an opening. Phil Mickelson proved at the Shell Houston Open that despite being 40-going-on-41, he’s favored. David Toms still has the back nine hole record of 29, which he shot in 1998. He is a phenomenal putter.

What may hurt Toms, Kelly, Stricker and potentially Furyk is length. To stop a ball on the greens at Augusta National, you need to be either a high-ball hitter or hit a short iron to the greens. However, Zach Johnson proved that length isn’t everything, winning by laying up on all the par fives. As someone pointed out, it wasn’t so much Johnson’s strategy as the fact that he couldn’t get to them. And it was so wet with rain that year—the course didn’t quite play like Velcro, but it wasn’t anyplace near a US Open baked out surface on the greens. Longer shots to the greens were not penalized quite as much.

Some players, you just never count out, like Jim Furyk. He’s the guy who won a $10 million FedEx bonus missing the first playoff event due to a bum alarm clock. No one will ever repeat that.

Davis Love III may be so frustrated by not winning a jacket at this point, that who knows, he might be able to relax and finally do it. He still has the necessary length.

First timers, except for Fuzzy Zoeller and Horton Smith (won the first playing in 1934), don’t typically win at August National. Everybody says the course takes too long to learn. Fuzzy had a local caddie that year and was smart enough to listen. If a guy picked the brains of a few winners, the way Rickie Fowler has done, it might be possible to speed up the learning curve.

The rest of the field is more than likely where history will be made.

Of the US players, these are most likely to succeed:.

Phil Mickelson – He’s the defending champ, he loves the course, and he’s Phil.

Tiger Woods – Because he’s Tiger Woods. .

Length is a definite advantage when green jacket hunting, The next group of players are not clones, but they are all very, very, very, incredibly long. Who will come out on top depends on how they are playing this week. Most weeks they play well. Highly favored, and not necessarily in this order are:

Dustin Johnson - Because of his length, nerves of steel, and a great putting stroke.

Bubba Watson - For his length, for getting nervous, for an improved putting stroke and making golf fun. Fans love Bubba, and they love to see him hit it BubbaLong. This young man makes magic happen on the golf course.

Gary Woodland – Read Dustin Johnson.

Nick Watney - Read Gary Woodland.

The next group has quality, gutsy players who are long enough:

Hunter Mahan - Because he’ll never be more nervous than he was at the Ryder Cup. It takes you to hell and heaven and back.

Anthony Kim - Read Hunter Mahan. Add even more attitude and perhaps a better putting stroke.

Ryan Moore - Underrated perhaps, but as long as Mahan and Kim, and very stealthy. He was the first player since Tiger Woods to go from college to the PGA TOUR in the same season without going to Q School. He won the U.S. Amateur, U.S. Public Links (twice), NCAA Championship and the Western Amateur.

Matt Kuchar - Has not won this year, but has only been out of the top 10 twice.

Jim Furyk - Basically defines tenacious play. His ace in the hole: Fluff Cowan who was on Tiger’s bag in 1997.

Lucas Glover - Because you do not win a US Open champ without inner strength.

There are also outside contenders, like Stewart Cink, whose last victory was the British Open, Zach Johnson who is a past champ and big event players like Ricky Barnes and Rickie Fowler.

Those are the 15 US players plus Tiger Woods most likely to win and the nine most likely not to win at Augusta National. Of course that means, something completely different will happen because it’s golf.

US Players at The Masters:

Ricky Barnes

Jason Bohn

Jonathan Byrd

David Chung - Amateur

Stewart Cink

Fred Couples

Ben Crane

Ben Crenshaw

Rickie Fowler

Jim Furyk

Lucas Glover