Masters 2026: Your vibes guide to the top 41 Augusta National contenders

Welcome back to the only prediction franchise that gets the winners right every single time. That’s right: the Vibes-Only Guide has returned, and with it our record of constant victory. Folks, look at this track record:

Masters 2025: Successfully picked Rory (at No. 41) PGA Championship 2025: Successfully picked Scottie Scheffler (at No. 1!!) U.S. Open 2025: Forgot to do one Open Championship 2025: Successfully picked Scottie again (at No. 4)

That’s beyond impressive, especially when you consider that the VOGR (Vibes-Only Golf Ranking) doesn’t respect statistics or results—hell, we barely notice them—and goes solely off those sweet, sweet vibes.

The other gambling sites begged us not to come back—”you’re costing us too much money!”—but this is a public service, so we’ve broken out our guts and intuition to evaluate the players with the best chance to break through at Augusta. If you’ve had enough “real” analysis, buckle up and join me on a journey to discover the vibes kings of Augusta, starting at No. 41 and working up to the surefire winner. VAMOS!

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Good Vibes: World No. 1 player, two-time reigning Masters even-year winner, father of a brand new baby called Remy who has to be named after the main character in “Ratatouille” since they already have an older kid and have certainly watched it 50ish times by now.

Bad Vibes: Absolutely stinks in 2026, by which I mean he already has a win and has not finished worse than T-24 at any event and is the envy of his peers. Still, something’s off—he’s been chippy on and off the course, throwing fake fist pumps at missed putts, carping at the media and genuinely peevin’ it up. And he can’t even blame ravioli this year—you only get one ravioli exemption per lifetime.

Does he have more than a snowball’s chance in hell?: None. I am fully in Scottie’s headspace lately, and agree with him that he’s doomed. This week, instead of a fake fist pump when he misses an easy putt, he should do a sarcastic “donning the green jacket” move, and make Ted Scott pretend to drape it over his shoulders.

40: Jordan Spieth

Augusta National

Good Vibes: The good vibes are all fake. I’m telling you, it’s all a fake. [voice becomes increasingly hysterical] THEY’RE ALL FAKE! EVERYTHING YOU BELIEVE ABOUT THIS MAN IS FAKE!

Bad Vibes: DON’T YOU SEE? DON’T YOU SEE HOW HE’S STRAPPED YOU INTO THE ROLLER COASTER AGAIN? THE AGONIZING CLIMBS, THE TERRIBLE DROPS? DON’T YOU SEE THAT HE IS THE PUPPETMASTER OF OUR EMOTIONS? MUST WE FOREVER FALL INTO HIS EMOTIONAL SNAKE PIT?

Does he have more than a snowball’s chance in hell?: Hey, you know what? He hasn’t been too shabby this year! A couple of T-11s, a T-12, and now he’s going back to a course that rewards experience more than any other. I’m actually pretty optimistic he can be competitive. (From above, sinister laughter echoes, and for some reason “The Phantom of the Opera” plays.)

39: Sergio Garcia

Bad Vibes: This is more like a lifetime achievement award placement for Sergio, who doesn’t have a realistic chance to win the Masters but who has been pumping bad vibes out for so long that we need to drag him onstage just for the nostalgia. We barely see the guy anymore! If there was a Bad Vibes Ryder Cup, he’d be their Seve—the guy who brings tears to everyone’s eyes just for his sheer longevity. In Sergio’s honor, I’m not even including a good vibes section here.

Does he have more than a snowball’s chance in hell?: Obviously not—he’s bad even by LIV standards this year.

38: Wyndham Clark

Jordan Bank

Good Vibes: Do you have a time machine that will take you back to 2023?

Bad Vibes: When someone goes the way of Wyndham, I call it the “Kyrie Trajectory” after former Duke star Kyrie Irving, who was basically one of the coolest people in America before absolutely obliterating his reputation in every way possible, including flat-earth trutherism. Wyndham is not quite on that level, but man, with incidents like the Oakmont locker room and complaining about the course at the Hero World Challenge of all places and his gripes with the Brooks Koepka decision, the whole vibe is generally unpleasant here in 2026. Wasn’t he supposed to be Buddhist at one point?

Does he have more than a snowball’s chance in hell?: Oh heavens no. The play has been woeful this year.

37: Jacob Bridgeman

Good Vibes: Playing very good golf, won at Riviera, now inside the top 20 in the World Ranking and by most metrics a serious threat to win. Seems like he helps old ladies carry groceries.

Bad Vibes: An Augusta rookie, and rookies never win. Also, do we know what this guy is actually like? We have to at least consider the idea that he was invented in a PGA Tour lab, given a last name that combines two common words and programmed with a generic backstory: From South Carolina, played for Clemson, studied “mathematics.” It’s brilliant, because it’s impossible to check.

Does he have more than a snowball’s chance in hell?: Not at Augusta. He’ll grab a top-10 in some other major this year, though, if his coding holds up.

36: Si Woo Kim

Good Vibes: You know he’s gearing up to do something hilarious at the Presidents Cup this year, and hopefully it tops the premature “night night” celebration, which for me was the greatest golf moment of 2024. Also, I will never see his name without immediately thinking of Jordan Spieth singing “shakin’ that ass.”

Bad Vibes: In my heart of hearts, in my vibe of vibes, I just don’t think he’s ever going to win a major. That’s somewhat unfair, I guess, because he won a Players, but the man has played in 34 majors with exactly one top-10 (last year at the PGA). He’s not a choker by any means, he just doesn’t seem to have that extra oomph.

Does he have more than a snowball’s chance in hell?: Nah. Classic middle of the pack Masters persona, for life.

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Good Vibes: Ole Sepp’s having his usual solid year, some good results, some good shots, some good fun. Top 15. That’s our Sepp. Eating cabbage, hitting up yard sales, telling folks we need the rain. Did you know he has his own Austrian sitcom, “Sepp Macht Es Schon Wieder!” which translates to “Sepp is at it again!” That’s not true, but it felt like it could be, right?

Bad Vibes: He has been bad to seriously bad at majors the last two years following a couple top-10 finishes in 2023 and skidded his way to three missed cuts, including at Augusta. He should be competitive in these things, but no other top-20 player was close to as rough. He’s got a lot to prove.

Does he have more than a snowball’s chance in hell?: He comes from the land of snowballs—that’s one of two official taglines of Austria, along with “Not Germany”—but still no.

34: Keegan Bradley

Scott Taetsch/PGA of America

Good Vibes: To be honest, not many! Is endless stoic suffering considered good?

Bad Vibes: He is reportedly still depressed from the Ryder Cup, and while there’s a part of me that responds to that with, “you should be, you shouldn’t have taken the job because you had no experience and divided focus,” there’s another part that’s more sympathetic, mostly because he should never have been offered the job. In any case, there’s something a little tragic about Bradley’s Ryder Cup trajectory—how it ended in sadness in Medinah and Gleneagles, simmered for a decade and, then, in his redemptive moment, got worse. The vibes are rough.

Does he have more than a snowball’s chance in hell?: No, he’s spent all of 2026 either barely making cuts or missing them.

33: Ludvig Aberg

Good Vibes: Still a Swedish heartthrob, still improbably nice, still about as likable as a professional golfer gets. I have a feeling he might even feed you dinner if you were his guest, a huge no-no in Sweden. Also, still very good at golf.

Bad Vibes: It’s painful to say because he seems like such a good guy, but he’s not beating the bad-under-pressure allegations until he gets it done in a big moment. There were some questions before the Players this year, more murmured than spoken aloud, but his Sunday at Sawgrass was bad enough that now it’s blaring on a megaphone.

Does he have more than a snowball’s chance in hell?: For me, no. Pain’s still too fresh even if gets himself in contention.

32: Shane Lowry

Good Vibes: We’re not talking enough about his chance to make history by achieving the “F*** this place!” slam at Augusta this week. As you see in this video, he let that exact expletive fly at Quail Hollow, Oakmont and Portrush last year, and now he could hold all four major crowns. The Masters is obviously the hardest, because if you insult them publicly you’ll spend the rest of your life in an off-site dungeon, but if anyone can do it, it’s him.

Bad Vibes: Gagged in almost unbelievable fashion at the Cognizant. Hard to believe we were watching the same guy who holed the winning putt at Bethpage.

Does he have more than a snowball’s chance in hell?: Can’t see it. If your irons go that wayward in the most minor of PGA Tour events, your head isn’t in the right place for Augusta.

31: Collin Morikawa

Orlando Ramirez

Good Vibes: Overcome a few years of hurdles and setbacks to finally win again at Pebble, and his irons—always the best weapon in his bag—looked truly elite. Has made it months without lecturing the media about writing something true about him.

Bad Vibes: Stole Rory’s injury thunder by WD’ing from the Players, and in fact is still injured and might not play. And if he doesn’t play, I just can’t see him winning.

Does he have more than a snowball’s chance in hell?: Probably not, with the injury. Even if he plays, it will be the first time since the Players, and that’s not conducive to winning.

30: Sam Burns

Good Vibes: This entire vibes post takes a long time to write, so I’m always grateful when a player comes along where I have truly nothing to say and can’t even force it.

Bad Vibes: See Above.

Does he have more than a snowball’s chance in hell?: No.

29: Rory McIlroy

Photo by JD Cuban

Good Vibes: Seems happier than last summer, when he had to suffer through the unthinkable hardship of achieving a lifelong dream.

Bad Vibes: There are a few too many documentaries and videos and remembrances about last year’s Masters for my liking. It hasn’t even been a year! We can have a nice date with nostalgia, maybe a good-night smooch, but we can’t propose marriage yet! I wonder if this year he’ll save himself the work in 2026 and do sit-down interviews after each hole so they can get a potential winning documentary out by Saturday at Hilton Head.

Does he have more than a snowball’s chance in hell?: No. I’d like to believe it, but last year we learned the folly of the “pressure’s off, now he’ll win them all!” take, and his game this year, while thrilling in spots, hasn’t been good enough to make me believe.

28: Jason Day

Good Vibes: The bird clothes.

Bad Vibes: Also, unfortunately, the bird clothes.

Does he have more than a snowball’s chance in hell?: No. Call me old-fashioned, but I just don’t think you can win at Augusta in those clothes, especially considering their sinister history with birds. If it came close, Ridley would call in a drone strike.

27: Corey Conners

Good Vibes: See Burns, Sam.

Bad Vibes: Actually, I have something specific here—this guy has won twice in his PGA Tour career, and both times were at the Valero Texas Open. And last week he skipped it??? To prep for the Masters??? That’s like leaving the only woman to ever love you because you think you have a chance with Scarlett Johansson. I doubt ScarJo even knows Corey Conners.

Does he have more than a snowball’s chance in hell?: Karma alone will stop him. You don’t mess with (volitional Buddhist concepts in) Texas.

26: Tyrrell Hatton

Warren Little

Good Vibes: He bent the knee to the DPWT (unlike Jon Rahm) and feels like someone who will slowly gravitate back to the PGA Tour. Had himself a nice little undefeated Ryder Cup, and the fans were so busy trying to figure out how to pronounce his first name that they forgot to shout heinous things at him.

Bad Vibes: Not even playing well on LIV right now, which has to make one of golf’s angriest men even madder. What do you do when you get furious during a LIV event? Throw something at the DJ? Have the one fan tossed out?

Does he have more than a snowball’s chance in hell?: Not this time.

25: Michael Kim

Good Vibes: Welcome to the vibes rankings, Michael Kim! You’ve earned it here with your strong play and your prolific tweeting, and even if you don’t win this week, we appreciate in advance the Q&A you’ll hold as you fly home, where people can ask you questions like “what makes the tee shot on 12 so difficult?” and “is it true that Fred Couples has large teeth?”

Bad Vibes: Badly yoinked his wedge on the 18th hole Sunday with a chance to make the playoff in Texas.

Does he have more than a snowball’s chance in hell?: No, despite some strong play lately and a T-2 in Texas. I still think of him as a consummate “happy to be here!” player, which might be unfair … but which is supported by his major results to date (nothing better than T-17, and that was as an amateur).

RELATED: Michael Kim roasts himself rewatching his first round at the Masters

24: The Danish Hordes

Good Vibes: There are three of them now, and two of them are genetically identical. The third, like the first two, has double vowels in his last name. They are tall, strapping men, although one may actually be short. All are from Denmark, where they speak the same language, possibly eat fish, and have put together strong but not quite exceptional results.

Bad Vibes: Only whatever residual negative feelings you hold for the rampaging Norsemen of a different era. Personally, I hold them completely blameless for these crimes, while still keeping a close eye on them for signs of marauding.

Do they have more than a snowball’s chance in hell?: Despite hailing from a land of snow, I don’t think so.

23: Adam Scott

Jordan Bank

Good Vibes: I missed the story of him being “traumatized” by Bubba Watson’s Masters champions dinner when it first came out, so I’m glad it resurfaced, because you know it had to be bad for someone as polite and refined as Scott to make a public comment. Without looking, can you guess what Bubba served? That’s right: Cool Ranch Doritos, sour gummy worms and warm Sprite.

Bad Vibes: I worry that perhaps he is too handsome and dignified.

Does he have more than a snowball’s chance in hell?: It would be a heck of a late-career coup, and his results have been average to good this year, but it’s too far-fetched for me.

RELATED: Adam Scott reflects on nerves, swing envy and Augusta changes

22: Patrick Cantlay

Good Vibes: No longer has the most soulless hat sponsor on tour! (Thanks, Tommy!)

Bad Vibes: Still about as sympathetic as an eviction notice.

Does he have more than a snowball’s chance in hell?: Negative. Do you know that later this month, it will be four years since he’s won a tournament? They should call him Patty “Melted” Ice. (He won’t recover from that one.)

21: Viktor Hovland

Good Vibes: Hey, you know what? He’s endured a couple hit-or-miss seasons, but the man’s still smiling, and it’s a heck of a smile. It has to be, to disguise the constant thoughts of alien life running through his brain.

Bad Vibes: Just not quite up to his former high standard, and it’s been long enough now that the cold spell is halfway to Spieth-ian. You never want to be halfway to Spieth-ian. At most, you only want to go 35 percent Morikawan.

Does he have more than a snowball’s chance in hell?: Very doubtful. He was sorta/kinda in the mix at the Players, but he’s only grabbed one top ten this year, and feels far away from contending.

20: Justin Thomas

Andy Lyons

Good Vibes: Seems healthy very quickly after his microdiscectomy, with a top-10 at the Players to show for it. Has not lost his natural good cheer.

Bad Vibes: He apparently took a lot of advice from Tiger on the back surgery, and while it appears to have worked out, we’d just caution him on going too far down the “advice from Tiger” road.

Does he have more than a snowball’s chance in hell?: Not yet, no. But a top 10? I can see that.

19: Russell Henley

Good Vibes: Remains consistent, puts together solid finishes, hovers inside or near the OWGR top 10, soldiering on in the mini-career renaissance, seems like a nice fella in a very low stakes way. I’d buy insurance from him.

Bad Vibes: A brutal Ryder Cup took the shine off him somewhat, and he had to watch Lowry making the winning putt, so that was a tough comedown at the end of the best year of his professional life. He should have shouted “F*** this place!” after Lowry’s putt went down.

Does he have more than a snowball’s chance in hell?: At a stretch. At a farrr stretch. Last year, you felt like a major for Henley was possible, but this year it’s just that much more uneven.

18: Hideki Matsuyama

Alex Slitz

Good Vibes: Honestly? No idea. Can we still use his caddie bowing to the course after he won? Has the statute of limitations run out on that?

Bad Vibes: Same, very little clue. For a guy who is constantly surrounded by Japanese media at the biggest events, he’s done a remarkable job hiding from the English-speaking press. You could tell me he robbed banks for fun in Japan, and I’d believe you.

Does he have more than a snowball’s chance in hell?: As a former champ on so-so form, I guess potentially, but it would take a flukey week.

17: Jake Knapp

Good Vibes: Did you know Jake is leading the PGA Tour in Strokes Gained this year? He’s ahead of Scottie, and Rory, and all the bigwigs. Basically, shot for shot, he’s the best player in the professional game right now. If he kept up his current pace, he’d be the only guy not named Scottie or Rory to finish a season averaging more than two strokes gained per round in the last five years. That’s extremely good! And yet …

Bad Vibes: He still hasn’t really done anything to break through for the semi-casual fan. Which just shows you the difference between consistent excellence and finding ways to win. It’s wild, in its way, that he’s finished between T-5 and T-11 six times this year, but never better.

Does he have more than a snowball’s chance in hell?: Not this year. That kind of breakthrough will happen for him, but it won’t happen for the first time at Augusta.

16: Marco Penge

Good Vibes: Tons of firepower, won twice on the DPWT last year, has had a couple solid starts in America this year. Has the most British possible last name, with a decidedly un-British first name. Exotic!

Bad Vibes: Like a lot of “young” Europeans just coming onto the scene, you assume he’s 21, but he’s actually 27. What is this, a 1990s teen drama on the CW?

Does he have more than a snowball’s chance in hell?: Ehhhh … he has the game, but he’s never been to Augusta and he still seems a couple years from dreaming that big.

15: J.J. Spaun

Warren Little

Good Vibes: He’s back! J.J.’s energy is vastly underrated in golf, and also, this post-round interview with Jordan Cornette was hilarious for the sheer size disparity. I half expected Cornette to pat him on the head. In the non-Bob-MacIntyre category, Spaun takes first place in the “professional golfer who you would absolutely never guess is a professional golfer” competition. It’s his size, it’s his voice, it’s his seemingly happy-go-lucky attitude. You have to love the guy.

Bad Vibes: None.

Does he have more than a snowball’s chance in hell?: I think he might! In my more sober moments, I realize his putting probably isn’t back where it needs to be for Augusta, but if he’s solved the mental hiccups that came after winning the U.S. Open, he’s crazy clutch, and maybe he can become the first guy since Phil in 2006 to win at Augusta after winning the week before.

14: Gary Woodland

Good Vibes: His game is stellar right now, and he’s riding the feel-good story of recovery from PTSD following his brain surgery. It’s hard to understand his version of PTSD—fear of crowds, fear of danger—in the context of what he actually went through, which was a medical procedure and not a war, but he’s doing a good job explaining it and showing a lot of courage.

Bad Vibes: He’s bad-vibe free, and the mental-health issues he’s struggling with didn’t seem to affect him under pressure in Houston, so why not?

Does he have more than a snowball’s chance in hell?: Sure. Not what you’d consider a top-tier contender, but this has felt like a weird Masters for at least a month, and the kind of year where someone unexpected can sneak through.

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Good Vibes: Rampaging through the tour this year, with lots of high finishes and no missed cuts. Still has inexplicable hair, but in a fun way.

Bad Vibes: I’m sick of the “let him cook” thing. It feels like that’s only a fun thing for kids and stupid people, and I am both old and wise.

Does he have more than a snowball’s chance in hell?: Slightly more. Skill wise, he’s got plenty, but if he ever got close, it feels like he’d follow the path of Jason Day and early Adam Scott where he doesn’t quite have the maturity and composure to win a major yet.

12: Brooks Koepka

Good Vibes: The transition back to the PGA Tour seemed incredibly easy from a social standpoint, with only Wyndham Clark saying anything publicly that felt vaguely hostile. Still as gruff as ever.

Bad Vibes: Maybe he should have taken some more hostility? In my opinion, too many people were fooled into complacency by the fake money he fake lost.

Does he have more than a snowball’s chance in hell?: Slightly more. His game isn’t as sharp as it will be with more reps, but it’s a major, there aren’t a ton of contenders, and by Koepka’s own famous major math, there really aren’t that many people he needs to beat.

11: Chris Gotterup

Mike Mulholland

Good Vibes: Showed some good emotion at TPC Scottsdale after winning, though it was kind of funny because he kept saying “you always make me cry” to Amanda Balionis even though she was asking him pretty normal questions. She wasn’t going full Rinaldi on him. Still, it made him look human.

Bad Vibes: He’s still super pissed at not making the Ryder Cup team. (Oh wait, that’s not him … that was me.) Last name still sounds vaguely filthy to me in a way I can’t quite explain.

Does he have more than a snowball’s chance in hell?: I think so, yes. Augusta rewards a bomber, and he showed at the Open last year in Portrush that he’s got the stones to hang around the top of the leaderboard at a major.

10: Akshay Bhatia

Good Vibes: Based on how skinny he is, must be pound-for-pound the strongest professional athlete to ever live.

Bad Vibes: “See, I know it looks like he could be anchoring, but he’s definitely not. You can’t prove that he’s not, I concede that, but still, he 100 percent isn’t. Would it be good if you could see that he wasn’t anchoring with the naked eye, since the absence of that makes it impossible to know for sure beyond these meaningless assurances I keep giving you? Yes. But you’ll have to take my word for it. Now stop looking at him.”

Does he have more than a snowball’s chance in hell?: Yes indeed. He’s made two straight cuts at the Masters, he’s playing lights out, and he’s a lefty. It feels like a lot of things are lining up.

9: Patrick Reed

Stuart Franklin

Good Vibes: Spent the first part of the year treating the DPWT like it was a group of 7-year-olds challenging him to a long drive contest as he serves out his time in the purgatory between LIV and the PGA Tour.

Bad Vibes: For the second straight year, nothing comes to mind.

Does he have more than a snowball’s chance in hell?: I’d say yes, although it’s at least slightly interesting that he hasn’t played in the last month. Feels like he’d want to find one more rep somewhere before Augusta.

8: Jon Rahm

Good Vibes: He’s dominating LIV, with a top-five finish in all five events so far, and finally broke his drought with a win in Hong Kong. LIV gave him the clutch player of the year award when he won zero events last year, so imagine what he’ll get this time!

Bad Vibes: People will be mad at me for putting him this low, but I went deep on his whole bizarre fight with the DP World Tour, and although there are parts of that story that will make you sympathetic to Rahm, you also get the feeling he’s following an original rogue decision (going to LIV) with an escalating series of stubborn entrenchments. Even the rest of the guys on LIV aren’t taking this hard a line, and increasingly he looks and feels like a man on his own.

Does he have more than a snowball’s chance in hell?: Yes, he does. But keep in mind that most LIV players in contention on Sundays at majors have fared poorly down the stretch. We still can’t dismiss the theory that you lose some competitive experience by year two.

7: Tommy Fleetwood

Maddie Meyer

Good Vibes: On course? Just fine. Things have gone swimmingly since his PGA Tour breakthrough last year at the Tour Championship, and his major window is wide open for the next two to three years.

Bad Vibes: Even his biggest fans are having trouble with the Blackstone sponsorship. Just an out-of-nowhere bucket of cold water, and depending on your value system, about as bad as it gets. What happened, was Enron not available?

Does he have more than a snowball’s chance in hell?: Yes, and a major win seems like the next step in his career evolution, but I’ll just say that coming down the stretch at Augusta will be miles different from anything he’s felt before. Not that he won’t be up for it, just that it won’t be the same as East Lake.

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Good Vibes: He just never goes away. Another win on the PGA Tour this year at age 45, and you start to wonder if that mobile spa and workout thing he brings everywhere has some voodoo inside. Is he doing santeria? Has anybody noticed chicken heads lying around his trailer?

Bad Vibes: It’s a law that you can no longer say anything bad about Justin Rose, and I’m pushing for it to be a crime to even think anything bad.

Does he have more than a snowball’s chance in hell?: Yes. He’s come so close to getting that second major he clearly longs for, and it would be cool to see him make another run at Augusta. Can you imagine what a story it would have been if he won last year, instead of whoever beat him in the playoff?

5: Xander Schauffele

David Cannon

Good Vibes: He’s figuring out how to win again, in little halting steps. It’s like watching a baby deer trip around on the moss, knowing that one day he will be a mighty warrior buck. He’s getting closer and closer.

Bad Vibes: Other than the Baycurrent Classic, an event that might be made up by the same people who invented Jacob Bridgeman, still hasn’t made the winner’s circle since Troon.

Does he have more than a snowball’s chance in hell?: I think so, although I’m worried this is still a bit early. It feels like a year where he’ll sniff the lead, lose by three shots, and then romp at the PGA.

4: Robert MacIntyre

Good Vibes: Between the Players and the Texas Open this past weekend, he’s all over it, and he’s doing it with that same mix of ho-hum/thoughtful/aggrieved cycle of emotion that makes him so singular in this game. He leaves me with the feeling that the next time he gets a serious crack at a major, he’s not letting it slip away.

Bad Vibes: I didn’t love that hook on 18 in San Antonio, if we’re talking pressure play, and I wish he had a few more wins under his belt. And I still haven’t decided if his almost whispery Scottish accent is more poetic or frightening.

Does he have more than a snowball’s chance in hell?: I think so. Augusta loves a lefty, and he doesn’t love Augusta quite yet, but maybe this is when the love affair begins.

3: Matt Fitzpatrick

Ben Jared

Good Vibes: The man is just on it in every sense of the word. It took some ridiculous play from Cam Young to wrench the Players Championship from his grasp, but then he came back and won at the Valspar, and he seems to have it all figured out, including how to play under pressure. He’s got incredible nerve for someone who looks like he belongs on a fainting couch in the Victorian era.

Bad Vibes: Hasn’t quite figured out Augusta yet. That’s the only hesitation. Well, that and the danger of his wry English demeanor being mistaken for pomposity by some small-town Georgia sheriff who throws him in jail for the duration of the tournament.

Does he have more than a snowball’s chance in hell?: Oh yeah. Gun to head, I like him better at any of the other majors this year, but he’s fully capable of grabbing the green jacket.

2: Cameron Young

Good Vibes: Hit the jaw-dropping shot of the year off 18 tee at Sawgrass when it mattered most, seems to have put his almost-winning days behind him, rumors abound that he has been witnessed in the act of human talking.

Bad Vibes: Still unsure if he has a good personality or no personality. But I’m pretty sure it’s not a bad personality, at least.

Does he have more than a snowball’s chance in hell?: Powerful, white, silent, cold … there’s a chance he is a snowball.

1: Bryson DeChambeau

Augusta National

Good Vibes: YouTube is thriving, he’s winning events on LIV, he’s smiling, and millions seem to like him. Plus, he’s riding two straight Masters top-10s into 2026.

Bad Vibes: Nothing huge … just the unshakable, upsetting sense that everything you see is artificial, and exists atop a layer of unsatisfied yearning and incurable sadness.

Does he have more than a snowball’s chance in hell?: 100 percent. Most books I’ve seen have Rahm and Scheffler ahead of him in the odds, but to me he feels like the alpha dog here. And while Rory followed his win with dozens of documentaries with titles like “A Solemn Afternoon Which Begotteth Glory,” it might be a breath of fresh air to just get a single YouTube video from Bryson called “OMG…I did WHAT in Augusta????”

This article was originally published on golfdigest.com