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Ranking the favorites to dethrone Rory McIlroy as the king of Augusta in 2026

Contributor

Ten months ago, Rory McIlroy stood on the green at Augusta with his hands covering his face, finally letting it all pour out. Fourteen years of carrying the weight of that 2011 collapse: the four-shot Sunday lead that melted into an 80, the decade-plus drought since his 2014 PGA Championship, all those agonizing close calls at Augusta. It evaporated in an instant, the moment that playoff birdie putt dropped against Justin Rose. 

The Northern Irishman threatened to implode once again before steadying himself, blowing another four-shot lead on the back nine on Championship Sunday. He dumped a wedge into Rae’s Creek at 13 for double, then bogeyed 18 to limp into sudden death at 11-under. But this time the script flipped. 

Three feet for birdie on the playoff hole. The green jacket finally draped across those 36-year-old shoulders. Career grand slam complete. Now he’s got to do something arguably harder: defend the damn thing.

Wee Rors is considered a +700 second favorite to cling on to the Green Jacket this year. But who are considered the biggest threats to the crown? Let’s take a look. 

Scottie Scheffler

The thing about Scottie Scheffler that nobody wants to admit? He might actually be too good for his own legacy. Finishing fourth at last year’s Masters—posting seven-under while McIlroy’s playoff theatrics sucked up all the oxygen—somehow felt like a letdown for a guy who’d already won the green jacket twice in three years. That’s the burden of dominance. When you’re the world No. 1, when you’ve won six PGA Tour titles in a single season, including two majors, when you’ve converted 11 consecutive 54-hole leads into victories, fourth place registers as failure.

Scheffler’s 2025 was borderline obscene. He steamrolled the PGA Championship by six strokes, then became just the fourth player ever to shoot four rounds of 68 or better at The Open, winning by four at Royal Portrush. He defended his Memorial title—first to go back-to-back there since Tiger’s three-peat—and led the Tour in scoring average at 68.131, nearly three full strokes better than the average pro. That’s 12 strokes over 72 holes. Absurd.

As such, it’s hardly surprising that online betting sites make him the favorite to reign supreme at Augusta, and a short-priced favorite at that. The latest Masters odds from the popular Bovada site list the Texan ace as the +300 frontrunner, and judging by those odds, he will take some stopping in April. 

But here’s what makes him absolutely terrifying at Augusta: the putting renaissance. Scheffler jumped from 77th to 20th in strokes gained putting between 2024 and 2025, and it wasn’t fluky bomb-making from 25 feet. He dialed in everything from 5 to 15 feet, the exact range Augusta’s sloped greens demand. At The Open, he gained 7.87 strokes with the putter on Portrush’s undulating links surfaces that Rory called the gnarliest greens in golf. When the best ball-striker on Earth—leading the Tour in strokes gained approach for three straight years—suddenly becomes a top-20 putter? That’s when “favorite” becomes “inevitable.”

The 29-year-old Texan now owns three-quarters of the career grand slam, joining Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player, and Tiger Woods as the only players to capture the Masters, PGA, and Open before 30. His 2024 win here was vintage Scheffler—surgical, relentless, a 33 on Sunday’s back nine that buried Ludvig Åberg with birdies at 10, 13, 14, and 16. Now, he’s aiming to run it back and reclaim the Green Jacket from McIlroy once and for all. 

Bryson DeChambeau

Remember when Bryson DeChambeau slandered the relative ease of the Augusta course only to miss the cut in back-to-back years in 2023 and 2024? The golf gods don’t forget, and their brutal karma was on full display in 2025 as well. He entered Championship Sunday two strokes behind McIlroy in the penultimate pairing, briefly grabbed the lead early, then faded to finish five behind. Still, reaching that position marked massive progress for a guy who’d averaged 37th over his previous six Augusta appearances.

The mad scientist from Dallas has finally stopped trying to bully Augusta into submission and started playing actual chess. His sixth-place finish in 2024, followed by that stunning U.S. Open win at Pinehurst, where he holed a 54-yard bunker shot on 18 while Rory imploded down the stretch, represented a different Bryson: A more mature, more complete, less bombs-away lunatic than what we have become accustomed to.

If he can harness that formula at Augusta—obliterating par-5s off the tee while scrambling surgically around those glass-slick greens—that +1600 number looks generous. The 31-year-old isn’t the YouTube content creator goofing around anymore. He’s a two-time U.S. Open champ who knows what major pressure tastes like. Will his science experiment finally conquer Augusta’s tradition in April? That’s the storyline worth watching.

Jon Rahm

Jon Rahm’s 2023 Masters win was textbook patience. Four-putt double at the opening hole Thursday, then barely a misstep the rest of the week. Closed with a 69 to finish 12-under, leaving Brooks Koepka and Phil Mickelson four back after the LIV duo wilted down the stretch. The Spaniard has top-10s in five of eight Masters starts, never missed a cut, and possesses exactly the game Augusta demands—huge driving, iron precision, nerveless putting on slopes that would make most pros queasy.

But 2025 raised red flags. Playing primarily on the LIV Tour, Rahm won the individual season-long title without actually winning a tournament, grinding out consistency with four runner-ups and 12 top-10s in 13 starts. His stroke average of 68.2 led the league, 20 strokes better than Joaquin Niemann over the season. Impressive in LIV’s bubble, sure. But he tied 45th at the Masters and missed the PGA Championship cut entirely. 

For a guy who typically contends at Augusta, that felt like a different player. +1600 odds say he gets it right on the grandest stage.