\n<\/p>\n
World number one Scottie Scheffler<\/b> again arrives at Augusta widely considered as the man to beat.<\/p>\n
The 29-year-old American is already a two-time champion – in 2022 and 2024 \u2013 and goes into his seventh appearance still having never finished outside the top 20.<\/p>\n
Rory McIlroy <\/b>can never be discounted, of course, as he attempts to become only the fourth man to win back-to-back Masters.<\/p>\n
The build-up for the 36-year-old from Northern Ireland has not been as smooth as it was 12 months ago, but he remains among the frontrunners despite a lack of competitive action.<\/p>\n
The optimism of three top-10 finishes at the start of the season was replaced by concerns about a back injury, which forced him to withdraw from the Arnold Palmer Invitational and hampered him at the Players Championship, but he appears over that niggle.<\/p>\n
Another American, Bryson DeChambeau<\/b>, reignites his challenge for a first Green Jacket, hoping to have learned lessons from faltering last year when he went out alongside McIlroy in Sunday’s final pairing.<\/p>\n
DeChambeau might still play on a LIV Tour which has its detractors, but his place among the favourites – given his ability and form shown in two recent victories on the breakaway circuit \u2013 cannot be questioned given he is also a two-time US Open champion.<\/p>\n
Spain’s Jon Rahm<\/b> is another LIV player expected to feature high on the leaderboard. Rahm, who won in 2023, is a perennial challenger at the majors and searches for a third major title buoyed by leading the LIV standings this year.<\/p>\n
England’s Matt Fitzpatrick, <\/b>the 2022 US Open winner, comes into the tournament full of confidence after his recent runners-up finish at the Players Championship, while he has two Ryder Cup team-mates also hitting form heading into this week. <\/p>\n
Scotland’s Robert MacIntyre,<\/b> who was fourth at the Players and joint second in Texas last week has also hit form heading into Augusta, while Sweden’s Ludvig Aberg<\/b> \u2013 who was runner-up on his debut in 2024 and seventh last year – clearly enjoys the test.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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World number one Scottie Scheffler again arrives at Augusta widely considered as the man to beat. The 29-year-old American is already a two-time champion – in 2022 and 2024 \u2013 and goes into his seventh appearance still having never finished outside the top 20. Rory McIlroy can never be discounted, of course, as he attempts<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12503,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12502","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-golf"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12502","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12502"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12502\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12503"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}