The 2023 Masters handicap tournament will be interesting for a number of reasons, but the elephant in the room will be how to handle the competitors currently playing under the LIV Golf banner.
Three of the last six winners – Dustin Johnson, Sergio Garcia and Patrick Reed – are playing in the runaway competition and several other contenders such as Abraham Ancer, Brooks Koepka, Bryson DeChambeau, Cam Smith, Joaquin Niemann, Louis Oosthuizen and Paul Casey. Since jumping ship to play with PGA Tour golfers for the first time.
It should make for an awkward meeting and great drama for the golf-watching public, but it creates quite the dilemma for the handicapper: do you completely eliminate LIV players?
Or do you buy bass?
Patrick Reed drives from a bunker to the 16th green during an LIV Golf event on March 17, 2023.Getty Images
For the most part, the LIV cohort will be underrated at Augusta National next week.
Bookmakers know that most gamblers are influenced by natural tendencies, such as betting on players they like (eg Tiger Woods) and staying away from those they don’t.
Patrick Reed is a prime example of this phenomenon.
Even before going to LIV, Reed almost always went for more than you’d expect from a golfer with his talent level and resume.
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Betting pundits always had Reed surrounded in deep areas because he wouldn’t take a lot of money, which would keep him under the radar.
You can probably apply the same logic to most of the LIV golfers going into next week.
In previous years, players like Johnson, Koepka, Smith and DeChambeau would have been popular bets to win the green jacket, but this year they are unlikely to receive much betting support for the game’s most prestigious tournament in 2023.
There are some valid reasons to stay away from LIV players.
The Renegade circuit lacks the depth of the PGA Tour, so the quality of competition is lacking compared to what we see on the big stage.
Also, they aren’t playing often and LIV events are only 54 holes, meaning we don’t have much of an idea if LIV players can adjust their game to compete in one of the toughest events of the season.
This is not just a betting guess.
Cam Smith, pitching in front of dozens of fans at the LIV Golf Invitational in Tucson, Ariz., in March, won his 150th Open Championship in St. Andrews last July.Getty Images
The Masters is the biggest DFS golf event of the year and there will be a lot of money in the pools.
You can be pretty sure a lot of people will draw a line through LIV players because they haven’t seen them play and/or don’t like them for jumping ship.
That means he should have value against many dropouts, with Cam Smith perhaps being the only exception.
But even Smith, who is a major champion and has a formidable career at Augusta National, is likely to be aware of what you’d expect from a player with his resume.
Paulina Gretzky celebrates with her husband, Dustin Johnson, and won a team LIV Golf event last fall.USA TODAY Sports
It’s a tough call to make, but there’s no doubt that protecting Augusta’s LIV golfers is the strategy with the best advantage.
It could blow up in your face if they’re all out of shape, but if they come to play you could be part of a small percentage of punters putting money behind this set of players, meaning you’ll get quite a bit. would have a leg up on the betting markets and bar pools or DFS contests.