The Masters 2023 Side Markets

*Winner without Scheffler, Rahm, McIlroy, Spieth and Cantlay.

The top 3 in the market, Scottie Scheffler, Jon Rahm and Rory McIlroy, take some shifting from any shortlist despite the conditions and, in the case of the defending champion, Masters history. Jordan Spieth and Patrick Cantlay also have their merits and cannot be discounted from this year’s renewal either.

Any of those players could win, or come very close to winning this year’s Masters, which could potentially reduce the number of each-way places that are available on the outright market, or indeed sap the value out of any other players if all we’re playing for is an each-way place.

The alternative of course is to play the ‘without’ markets and take a number of dangers out of the equation, which then brings the win element back even if one of the big 5 does slide on the Green Jacket on Sunday evening, especially when the odds on offer about some players aren’t massively different to their outright prices.

Given his outright market price of between 20/1 and 25/1 depending on the individual bookmaker terms, the 16/1 about Xander Schauffele when taking the big 5 out of the equation is an attractive proposition, especially when you consider that the 29 year-old has finished 2 and 3 here over the past 4 years and is playing some tidy golf at present, including a quarter-final appearance at the WGC Match Play on his last start.

Five top-7 finishes at the US Open from six appearances and a runner-up finish to Francesco Molinari at the Carnoustie-hosted Open Championship in 2018 reinforce the fact that the world number 7 is a top-class Major Championship performer.

There’s scope of course for the Californian to win this outright, however with a strong case to be made for each of the top 5, should he come up a little short this week then there’s still scope for this bet to be a winner.