Steve Palmer's Masters second-round preview, best bets, free golf betting tips

Free golf tips, best bets and analysis for the second round of the Masters at Augusta National on Friday.

Where to watch

Sky Sports Main Event and Golf, 2pm Friday

Best bets

Luke List to win 5.35pm threeball
2pts 6-4 general

Sepp Straka to win 4.29pm threeball
2pts 23-20 BoyleSports

Christiaan Bezuidenhout to win 1.22pm threeball
2pts 5-4 BoyleSports

Story so far

Tiger Woods dominated the spotlight in the build-up to the Masters - and the five-time champion justified the attention with a magnificent effort on his return to competition at Augusta.

Woods, in his first tournament for almost 17 months and labouring with a right leg still badly injured from a high-speed car crash, carded a one-under-par 71 to finish tied for tenth place after round one.

Bookmakers who laid Woods at fancy prices in the expectation that his fragile body and competition rust would severely handicap him - they will have had a twitchy Thursday - although the first round was probably going to be the easiest one for the sore 46-year-old. It should be extremely challenging for Woods to hold himself together through another 54 holes.

Masters favouritism has been passed from Jon Rahm to Cameron Smith after the opening 18 holes. Rahm struggled to a 74, while Smith, despite starting his round with a double-bogey at the first hole and ending his round with another double at the 18th, carded a 68.

Smith is in second place, one shot behind Sungjae Im, who fired a 67 which included an eagle at the 13th hole. Im was a pre-tournament 66-1 chance, but is no bigger than 9-1 heading into Friday.

Dustin Johnson, the 2020 champion, is second in the outright betting after a 69, with Scottie Scheffler, the world number one, third in the betting after also laying a three-under-par foundation for the week.

Pre-tournament 12-1 second-favourite, Justin Thomas, is tied for 70th place after a 76, while Collin Morikawa (73), Rory McIlroy (73), Xander Schauffele (74), Jordan Spieth (74), Sam Burns (75), Brooks Koepka (75) and Bryson DeChambeau (76) will also start day two over par.

Leaderboard
-5 Sungjae Im
-4 Cameron Smith
-3 Danny Willett, Joaquin Niemann, Scottie Scheffler, Dustin Johnson
-2 Jason Kokrak, Corey Conners, Patrick Cantlay
-1 Harry Higgs, Kevin Na, Daniel Berger, Tiger Woods, Tony Finau, Webb Simpson, Harold Varner, Will Zalatoris, Matthew Fitzpatrick

Best prices
11-2 C Smith, 13-2 D Johnson, 7 S Scheffler, 9 S Im, 12 P Cantlay, 16 J Niemann, 25 C Conners, 28 W Zalatoris, V Hovland, 33 J Rahm, R McIlroy, M Fitzpatrick, 35 C Morikawa, 40 T Woods, D Berger, 50 bar

Second-round preview

Tiger Woods exhibited courage and class to go under par on day one, but there is so much post-round recovery work and pre-round preparation required for him to even be able to continue his Masters campaign. The Augusta patrons only get to see Tiger at the course, but away from the famous track he goes through a long process to be fit for action.

Staying on the leaderboard for 72 holes is a hugely demanding physical and mental challenge for Woods. As much as it is painful to be the party pooper, the 71 could easily be Tiger's best score of the week. He can be fancied to make the cut, but the idea of the 15-time Major champ contending on Sunday still seems an optimistic one.

Masters outright punters should arguably be concentrating on Scottie Scheffler, Dustin Johnson and Cameron Smith. Aside from a bogey at the difficult 18th hole, the massively in-form Scheffler kept his scorecard clean and his hopes high of securing a fourth win in six tournaments.

Johnson scrambled a par well at the 18th, making up for the disappointment of failing to pick up a shot at the 13th or 15th, and the former world number one seems focused and confident.

Smith was entitled to a slow start after taking almost a month off since the Players Championship, but the Aussie is off to a flyer at a track he loves. Smith seems by far the biggest threat to the American duo a shot behind him.

Second-round threeball punters are pointed towards Christiaan Bezuidenhout, Sepp Straka and Luke List. Bezuidenhout should prove too solid for a second day running in his threeball with German veteran Bernhard Langer and out-of-form Masters debutant Cameron Davis (1.22pm).

Matthew Wolff slumped to a Thursday 81 and the mentally fragile Californian seems almost certain to be missing the cut. Augusta resident List carded the same day-one score he made in his only previous Masters - a 77 - but that year (2005) he fought back with a Friday 69 to make the cut. Given the form he showed when winning at Torrey Pines at the end of January, there seems every chance of history repeating itself. List seems a fair price against Wolff and Mackenzie Hughes.

Straka made a decent start to his Augusta debut with a Thursday 74 and the Georgia-based Austrian will hope for better on Friday. Veteran no-hoper Larry Mize should be easy to outscore. Francesco Molinari, for whom fitness and form rarely go hand in hand these days, opened with a 78 and may struggle to keep up with Straka.

A sunny day with light to moderate breezes is forecast. The morning should be cool, before a warmer afternoon. Wind speeds should peak between 1pm and 5pm local time (6pm and 10pm UK and Ireland).

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