The Masters: Jeremy Chapman's tips, betting preview, lowdown & TV details

TV: Sky Sports Golf, 7pm Thursday

Beautiful to look at, thrilling to play and a golf watcher’s paradise as long as you don’t shout “you da man” or chomp a Big Mac on its hallowed fairways, Augusta National is rightly regarded with awe and wonderment.

But is it right that the Masters, with its dinky little field of 87, at least two dozen of whom won’t have a chance of being competitive, should count as a Major?

While the US Open, the Open and the USPGA are bona fide championships, the Masters is no more than an elite tournament, admittedly a very upmarket one, because the powers-that-be can choose who they invite to play.

Several players with the ability to contend for the coveted Green Jacket are not in Georgia. It happens every year. Contrast that with the Players Championship which is not a Major (but maybe should be) yet is open to all who matter.

This week Japanese golfer Shugo Imahira is at Augusta by special invitation even though he ranks well outside the top-50 automatic qualifiers.

As winner of last year’s Japan Tour money list, he arrives as a “deserving international player”, carrying on Augusta’s tradition of making the Masters as global as possible.

Fair enough, but why can’t Jim Furyk, Lee Westwood or other worthy absentees rate a special invite? There surely should be more flexibility. They are great golfers the paying public want to see.

Furyk selflessly put his own playing career on the back-burner while he did the mighty job of being 2018 Ryder Cup captain and all that entailed in the long lead-up to a heavy defeat in Paris.

As it was, he has ended up just outside the top 50, albeit still ranked higher than Imahira. Had he been able to concentrate on his own game, the odds are he would have qualified. It must feel like punishment for not bringing the cup back home.

If ever a special invitation was merited, Furyk is it.

And Westwood? For the second year running, the Masters is the poorer for not finding a spot for a double Masters runner-up who has graced Augusta for two decades. Sadly, Lee’s 43rd worldwide victory at the Nedbank in November was not enough for him to qualify.

Instead, the “patrons”, as spectators are quaintly called, will have to watch six amateurs and a bunch of former Masters heroes, most of whom will be relieved to miss the cut and avoid two more rounds on what is an exhaustingly hilly golf course.

Tradition is one thing - and of course we love seeing little Woosie and big Sandy again, even these days when they’re no more than ceremonial golfers - but the qualifying conditions need tweaking and more use made of “special invitations”.

Why not extend the field to, say, 100 and make the Masters more relevant?

Justin Rose ready to realise Augusta dream

There are now 48 members of the 300 Club - golfers whose average drive covers 300 yards or more - and it’s a far cry from the wild pre-Tiger days when John Daly was the only one who would have qualified and was out on his own by 30 yards.

So it’s no surprise that Augusta National at just 25 yards short of 7,500 yards is the longest it has ever been, courtesy of 40 yards being added to the uphill fifth which turns it into a 495-yard par four.

From a sub-7,000-yarder up to 2006, Augusta has been turned into a monster for one week of the year and not a course familiar to its well-heeled and well-fed members whose own card, at a mere 6,365 yards, is now a whopping 1,110 yards shorter.

Ironically, the only out-and-out bomber to have won since the 2006 makeover is dual champion Bubba Watson, at 313.6 yards ranked second to rookie Cameron Champ.

Zach Johnson, currently 179th in the power league at 285, wasn’t fazed by the extra yardage in 2007, making 11 birdies on the 16 par fives with a magical wedge and putting game that confounded theorists who thought short-hitting winners were toast.

Erratic drivers such as Jordan Spieth, Phil Mickelson and defending champion Patrick Reed can get away with it on Augusta’s generous fairways. Their successes prove that a brilliant short game can often make up for lack of accuracy off the tee.

So who wins this time? Well, it’s unlikely to be Reed, who hasn’t posted even a top-ten finish since October, and backing Spieth with his yip problem (less evident in San Antonio apart from a nightmare first nine of 42 on Saturday) is not for the faint-hearted.

I’ll risk ridicule by putting him up for a small bet on a course where he has played some of the most inspired golf seen in the 87-year history of this legendary contest.

With 18 birdies and an eagle at the Texas Open, Spieth is clearly doing a lot of things right (but a lot of things wrong too as he got beaten by 13 shots) and he guardedly said his putting on Saturday was as good as it had ever been.

Even if we take that comment with a pinch of salt, it is hard to argue with a Masters record of 2-1-2-11-3 which unsurprisingly makes him possessor of the best scoring average there.

For my main wedge I’m pinning my flag on FedEx Cup and Olympic champion Justin Rose and looking for a European 1-2-3-4 with Jon Rahm, Paul Casey and Rory McIlroy, the only player at single-figure odds, filling the places.

They all have the mix of course and current form I always look for and three of them already winners on the 2019 PGA Tour.

Rose, twice a Masters runner-up in the last four years, goes back to world number one if he wins, McIlroy has a big Grand Slam incentive, at 41 Casey is playing the best golf of his life and Rahm is surely going to win a Masters or two before he’s done.

With Open champion Francesco Molinari, Sergio Garcia and Tommy Fleetwood potential winners too, this could be a big week for European golf and a repeat of 2017 when they provided the champion in Garcia and five of the top seven is on the cards.

Dual champion Bubba Watson, Louis Oosthuizen and the Asian threat of Hideki Matsuyama and Haotong Li, good value at 125-1, look next best.

McIlroy misses the staking plan only on value - no way he should be half the odds of Rose - while it’s 14 years since Tiger Woods won the last of his four Masters and good luck if you have him in a double with Tiger Roll. He’s not for me but what a lovely story.

Staking plan
Justin Rose
2.5pts each-way 14-1 Ladbrokes
Jon Rahm
1pt each-way 18-1 BoyleSports
Paul Casey
1pt each-way 30-1 Ladbrokes
Jordan Spieth
0.5pt each-way 25-1 Hills
Bubba Watson
0.5pt each-way 35-1 Hills
Haotong Li
0.5pt each-way 125-1 Betfair, Paddy Power

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