Ben Coley has two first-round leader selections for The Masters, which begins on Thursday.
Recommended bets: Masters round one
1pt e.w. Jhonattan Vegas to lead after round 1 at 125/1 (1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7)
1pt e.w. Charley Hoffman to lead after round 1 at 100/1 (1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6)
1pt double Jason Dufner and Charley Hoffman to win their 3-balls at 4.93/1
1pt Rafa Cabrera Bello to win his 3-ball at 9/4
The forecast for day one of the Masters suggests an early start will prove advantageous, and from the very first three-ball perhaps Jhonattan Vegas can find his way to another low round.
In-form and finally free from the fitness issue which stalled his career, Vegas has been flying out of the blocks frequently this year, including just last week when shooting 66 to lie third in the Shell Houston Open.
Back in January, Vegas shot 65 to open the CareerBuilder Challenge while he was eighth after Thursday’s play at the Genesis Open thanks to a round of 67, a score he matched one week later at the Honda Classic.
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Going back to last year, Vegas shot another 65 to lead the Barbasol Championship and while his challenge there petered out, just one week later he gained a deserved second PGA Tour title via the RBC Canadian Open.
Yet another 65 saw him hit the frame in the first-round leader market at the Quicken Loans National, he went one better with a 64 to lead in New Orleans last spring, and come the autumn an opening 68 was close to landing an each-way payday for backers in the PGA Championship.
So, we know Vegas starts fast – there’s evidence of that throughout his career – and while his sole start in this event resulted in a missed cut, an opening 72 offered promise with five birdies and an eagle.
Day one leader Rory McIlroy made the same gains, the difference between them only the mistakes made by Vegas which were absent from Rory’s scorecard.
Six years on, the Venezuelan is playing well enough to build on that effort and Augusta is certainly a course which would appear to suit his power-packed game, so by the time the wind picks up the hope is he’s under-par and still able to attack the scoring section from holes 13 home.
Vegas also makes some appeal to win his three-ball, of course, but Brendan Steele is a dangerous opponent and we’ll stick to a small-stakes play in the first-round leader market.
While the wind may be at its strongest midway through the day, there’s a chance that a very late draw proves beneficial as things die down a little and the 18/1 offered about McIlroy in the first-round leader market is probably a shade too big given his history of early fireworks.
However, I’d rather keep things speculative and won’t be complaining if McIlroy does shoot the lights out, so Charley Hoffman gets the second vote.
Truth be told, three-figure prices about Hoffman would probably have done for me regardless of the draw, and it’s difficult to argue that an early-afternoon slot is ideal.
However, in his favour is the fact that he is a habitual fast starter who tends to feature on day-one leaderboards in bursts and that’s enough to overlook slight worries over the weather.
This time last year, Hoffman’s round one positions read 4-5-1-13-7-3-5 from Doral through to New Orleans. The worst of those was here (T13), but still confirmed the promise of his previous Masters play and underlined what a danger he can be early on.
In three starts at Augusta, Hoffman is yet to finish outside the top 30 and in 2015 he was up there most of the way, sitting second after both 18 and 36 holes, before fading to fourth after 54 and, ultimately, finishing in ninth place.
Having sat second after the first round at Bay Hill two starts ago, soon after playing really well at Riviera, the 40-year-old is playing well enough to strike once more for first-round backers, as he has done so many times in the past.
Hoffman also gets the vote to win his three-ball, as Yuta Ikeda has started 2017 very poorly and it’s hard to construct a strong case for Chris Wood, who is yet to shoot par in six rounds here and hasn’t been in the best of form lately.
Rather than a chunky single, the advice is to double Hoffman with the last man off my round one shortlist – Jason Dufner.
This former PGA champion certainly won’t be a bag of nerves on the first tee and his relaxed demeanour has paved the way for many a flying start before. In fact, he was T19 in round one scoring last year and is close to the top 10 this time around.
And while his record at Augusta National doesn’t leap off the page, he was the halfway leader in 2012 having been fourth after day one thanks to a solid round of 69, while one year later another solid start saw him sit seventh at halfway.
This year, Dufner has been in the top 25 in every stroke play start bar the Sony Open, but even there he opened with a brilliant 65 before somehow missing the cut, further evidence that he’s one to watch on Thursday.
Playing alongside Dufner are Ernie Els and Bernd Wiesberger, and while the former is showing all of his customary class off the course, his efforts on it make for grim reading and this really could be his final Masters appearance.
Wiesberger is altogether more dangerous and I don’t like to oppose such consistent players in three-balls, but his credentials are simply not as strong as Dufner’s whichever way you seek to dress it.
Not only does Wiesberger lack Dufner’s high-class wins, he also fails to match the American in recent and Augusta form, having not yet broken 70 here despite proving typically solid throughout both visits.
In what should prove to be a match, Dufner has to be the call and it’s only the fact that he tees off when the wind is expected to be at its strongest which prevents me from firing one more first-round leader dart.
Finally, it’s worth chancing Rafa Cabrera Bello to get the better of Phil Mickelson in another three-ball which should boil down to just two.
Si-Woo Kim has talent in abundance but was thrashed by Mickelson at the Match Play before withdrawing yet again last week, a clear sign that the wrist injury he started the year with is nowhere near fully healed.
Mickelson is clearly therefore the most likely winner of this match, but his effort in Houston last week was his worst there in many years and just has the alarm bells ringing a little as he seeks to win this title for a remarkable fourth time.
Granted, he’d previously made the quarters at the Match Play and I’d seen enough in his 2017 form to back him last week, but while a return to his best would by no means surprise, he simply looks underpriced to do so.
Cabrera Bello missed his first cut since last May in Houston so must also be excused, but everything else he’s done for the last year or so suggests that upwards of 2/1 to beat Mickelson (and Kim) over 18 holes is generous.
The Spaniard finished 17th on his debut here and, in demanding conditions, his superior tee-to-green accuracy is preferred at the prices.
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Posted at 0830 BST on 05/04/17.
