Value Report: The Masters

WE ARE BACK! The 2026 Masters is upon us. There truly is no better week, as DraftKings rolls out the red carpet in terms of GPP offerings. Not one, not two, but three million-dollar first-place prizes are up for grabs, and to have a shot at seven figures, you’re going to need a player or two at low ownership to come through massively. For those who are joining us for the first time, welcome aboard, and appreciate your support! Each week, I write up the Value Report, which is focused on golfers priced $7,500 and less who appear to be off the radar. I typically shoot for single-digit ownership, but in a week where there are just 91 golfers to pick from and a handful at the bottom are unplayable, there’s a likelihood that a couple of them drift above 10%. The plays outlined are focused on the large-field contests, which this week means taking on upwards of 400,000 entrants if you’re playing the $10 Millionaire. The Drive the Green features a $100K top prize, though, and runs similar ownership to the flagship, as will the $100 Milly.

What’s unique of course this week at The Masters is how much signal we have from course history. Augusta National stands alone in regard to experience paying off for future success, but with that often comes an elevation in pricing, as the market is heavily factoring it in. That presents an interesting wrinkle in some spots as players get a bump due to recent form, which can even lead to a handful of under-owned course horses because of their new price range. Above all else, what Augusta has rewarded simply is the best players peaking at the right time, and the 2026 edition of that is different than what the public is prepared for. There are questions for just about everyone at the top of the board, which should have the field leaning into balanced builds like they usually prefer and gives us a chance to get even more unique in the value range. Jeremy will highlight how to handle the pairings in large-field contests, specifically in his Wednesday preview, but stars and scrubs will likely be seldom used by the field. It all lines up for a special week ahead of us, and I look forward to having a massive one for our ETR Team!

Cameron Smith, $7,500 – Starting with the most difficult part of assessing major championships, and that is determining if anything matters from form on LIV, so let’s rip the band-aid off with Cameron Smith. Five LIV events in 2026 have resulted in four top 20s, with the looks of his short game being still near the best in the entire world, and that is necessary to overcome the challenges he still faces with ball striking. That’s a big deal in almost every single major championship, and it’s really no surprise he’s been irrelevant in majors over the past two years. However, what intrigues me about Cam this week is that we are likely to see one of the more difficult Augusta setups, with zero rain in the forecast, meaning firmness of the course could place even more of a premium on the already uber-important around-the-green play. This is for sure a large-field-style play, as it takes a needle in a haystack to beat 100,000+ entrants, but Cam’s ceiling relative to other players in this range is being deep into contention. And unlike the others, it will come with zero ownership.