Betting market: Scheffler leads

Scottie Scheffler is still the Masters favorite, but the market has cooled on him a little: ESPN reported him at +510 at DraftKings on April 8 after he had been as short as +380 earlier in the year, and some books had him as long as +600 before Thursday’s first round. (espn.com) That drift matters because Augusta National is not a normal weekly stop with 156 players and six rounds of form to sort through. The 2026 Masters opened Thursday, April 9, at Augusta National Golf Club in Augusta, Georgia, with a field of about 91 players and first-round tee times starting at 7:40 a.m. Eastern time. (pgatour.com, cbssports.com) Bryson DeChambeau is the name sportsbooks are watching most closely behind Scheffler. ESPN said DeChambeau became the biggest liability at BetMGM and moved to +1050 at DraftKings, which means bookmakers were taking enough money on him to notice even with Jon Rahm sitting nearby on the board at +900. (espn.com) The board behind Scheffler is packed tight enough that one hot week can scramble everything. ESPN listed Rahm at +900, Rory McIlroy at +1175, Ludvig Aberg at +1650, Xander Schauffele at +1750, Cameron Young at 22-1, and Tommy Fleetwood at +2250. (espn.com) CBS’s betting model pushed that point even harder after the field was finalized. CBS said SportsLine ran 10,000 simulations and came back with two surprises: Ludvig Aberg finishing well outside the top five, and Tommy Fleetwood making a serious run at the green jacket despite opening at +2200. (cbssports.com) That is the gap between betting favorite and betting value. Scheffler at +550 in the CBS snapshot can still be the most likely winner in a model, while Fleetwood at +2200 can still be the more attractive ticket if his simulated chances come out better than the odds imply. (cbssports.com) The same logic explains why public money and model money do not always line up. ESPN described DeChambeau as a popular public play, while CBS highlighted Fleetwood as a model-friendly longshot and flagged Aberg as a possible fade even though Aberg had already posted a solo second and a solo seventh in two Masters starts. (espn.com, cbssports.com) CBS tied part of its Aberg caution to current form and setup, not just reputation. Its writeup said Aberg had slid to No. 17 in the Official World Golf Ranking after peaking at No. 4 last year, and it noted a Thursday-Friday afternoon-morning draw that could leave him playing in firmer, faster conditions. (cbssports.com) The side markets show how steep the respect for Scheffler still is even after the odds drift. ESPN listed him at +110 for a top-five finish, -186 for top 10, -430 for top 20, and -1400 to make the cut, which is the profile of a golfer books expect to be on the first page of the leaderboard even if he does not win. (espn.com) So the market is saying two things at once. Scheffler is still the man to beat at Augusta, but once the favorite moves from “dominant” to merely “clear leader,” the real action shifts to players like DeChambeau, Rahm, McIlroy, Fleetwood, and the rest of a board where one good fit can beat one short price. (espn.com, cbssports.com)