When John Rahm approached the 17th green in Hong Kong on March 8th, he knew that a birdie could finally bring his 18-month drought to an end. The Spanish drained it, then walked to 18 with that particular composure, the jaw set, the body language of a man who’d already done the hard emotional work. When the final 64 posted at 23-under, three clear of Thomas Detry, he let out a sigh of relief, rather than jubilation. “It feels like a big weight off my shoulders,” he said afterward. “That’s all I can say.”
That exhale matters more than the scorecard. The 2026 Masters tees off in April with golf’s civil war still simmering—PGA Tour loyalists still grumbling, world ranking points still denied, exemption clocks still ticking for certain defectors. LIV signed Brooks Koepka’s fifth major, absorbing Bryson DeChambeau’s 2024 US Open thriller over Rory McIlroy. It houses the reigning 2023 Masters champion. And now, coming off Hong Kong, it sends three players to Georgia with legitimate Green Jacket credentials. But can any of them get the job done to become LIV’s fourth-ever major champion?
Jon Rahm
The weight Jon Rahm described after Hong Kong wasn’t just about the drought. It was a specific, gnawing question: had LIV somehow dulled the major-grinding edge that made him one of Augusta’s most reliable executioners?
His post-signing Masters record—T45 in 2024, a marginally better T14 in 2025—stung precisely because the underlying numbers never lied. Scoring average of 70.97 at Augusta, fifth-best among multi-starters since 2007. Five top-10s in nine starts. A 2023 Green Jacket claimed the hard way, four shots down to Koepka on Sunday morning before he systematically dismantled every Augusta ghost on the back nine and won by four.
The no-cut format, critics whispered, was softening him. LIV’s 54-hole pace couldn’t replicate the psychological weight of a Friday cut at Augusta. Fair concern. But Rahm’s Hong Kong week answered it directly. He isn’t rusty. He was just unlucky, repeatedly.
The iron play that makes Augusta’s par-5s into birdie factories is still intact; his Strokes Gained: Approach numbers throughout LIV’s 2025-26 stretch track among the league’s elite. He even chartered a private jet to rescue seven stranded LIV colleagues mid-week in Hong Kong, then went out and won the tournament. The man is dialed in on every frequency, and online betting sites know it.
Just one month out from golf’s crown jewel, golf betting at Bovada odds position the former champion as a +1400 third favorite, solely behind the scintillating Scottie Scheffler (+300) and reigning champ Rory McIlroy (+750). If Hong Kong is anything to go by, he will certainly fancy his chances of claiming a second green jacket.
Bryson DeChambeau
On January 6th, three months before the first tee shot of the 2026 Masters, Bryson DeChambeau was already at Augusta National—walking greens, clocking pin positions, feeding data into the mental model he’s been constructing for years. This is the mad scientist’s paradox: no player on the LIV roster studies Augusta more obsessively, yet the vaunted course has historically resisted his most aggressive instincts. After back-to-back missed cuts in 2023 and 2024, he had a breakthrough T6 in 2024 and looked in genuine contention last year, only for a Championship Sunday collapse, which allowed Wee Rory to banish his ghosts.
His 2024 US Open victory, that one-shot edge over McIlroy at Pinehurst, confirmed major-championship capacity in a way that silenced everything except the most stubborn PGA loyalists. He’s a proven closer now. But here’s the Augusta-specific chess problem: the course rewards spin-rate discipline and controlled iron dispersion far more than raw carry distance, and DeChambeau’s gear-effect putting on the stimpmeter-fast Augusta greens has periodically betrayed him when the tournament’s on the line. Amen Corner doesn’t care about launching monitor data from a Dallas practice range—it demands feel, improvisation, touch.
His 2026 LIV season has been uneven; a T34 at Hong Kong’s 72-hole format exposed the consistency gaps that Augusta amplifies under Sunday pressure. Yet the ceiling is enormous. When the bomb-and-gouge game meshes with the strategic patience this course demands, he’s terrifying. At +1600, he’s worth a flutter if you believe the T6/T5 trajectory continues its logical next step.
Cameron Smith (+8000)
No player in this group carries a more complicated Augusta relationship than Cameron Smith. Four rounds in the 60s in 2020—a record-threatening sequence of 67-77-65-69—and he still trailed Dustin Johnson by five shots at the end. That kind of near-miss lingers.
Here’s what makes him dangerous at +8000: short-game sorcery that borders on the supernatural. Ranked first in Strokes Gained: Around the Green on the 2025 LIV circuit. Second in scrambling rate. Augusta rewards that skill set more than almost any major venue—recovery shots from the pine straw, lag putting on sloped greens, up-and-downs from positions where lesser players make bogey. Smith makes par from places that would rattle a journeyman.
His 2022 Open Championship exemption expires after 2026—this is potentially his last Masters invitation absent a major win or a top-level qualifying finish. Two LIV seasons without a title and a 2025 major record featuring four missed cuts suggest a player in statistical decline. But a last-dance exemption creates dangerous focus. If the irons twitch back toward respectability at Augusta specifically—a course his short game was built for—Smith isn’t a top-10 threat. He’s a contender. Dark horse, sure. But contender, nonetheless.