Saturday is the day best known at The Masters as ‘Moving Day’ as those who have made the cut will be looking to position themselves in a place where they can launch a tilt at the title over the final 18 holes on Sunday.
Plenty of players will need to make significant moves over the course of the third round on Saturday though as one man has shot clear of the field, however if there is one thing we know about this tournament it is that 36 holes is a lot of golf and so much can still happen.
Round 2 Recap
People could be forgiven for putting the Green Jacket around the shoulders of Scottie Scheffler already because he goes into the third round holding a five shot lead on eight under par. Every player who has been in his position since World War II has won the title so that won’t be good news for the chasing pack which is headed on three under by the defending champion Hideki Matsuyama, former winner Charl Schwartzel, previous Open champion Shane Lowry and Sungjae Im. Another quartet a shot back includes Dustin Johnson and Cameron Smith. Tiger Woods, Jon Rahm and Rory McIlroy all made the cut but will start their third round over par and will need to make a serious move to get back into it on Saturday.
It was another annoying betting day on Friday with us losing our three ball bet on Hideki Matsuyama despite him shooting a joint fourth best round of the day, a classy 69. Unfortunately that was two shy of the 67 Justin Thomas posted. We were saved what would have been a crazily annoying loser in the other bet we placed though as Louis Oosthuizen withdrew which voided the three ball bet on Joaquin Niemann which was handy because the Chilean double bogeyed the last to tie with Tiger Woods.
Saturday Betting
A number of bookmakers have priced up a third round leader bet and if you think that Scottie Scheffler is going to come back to the field then you will certainly get a value price on anyone that you pick as the world number one is around a 2/5 shot to take the lead into the final round with him. He does have Charl Schwartel out with him though so it might be that the chasing pack can feed off each other and go and get him. I still don’t expect them to catch Scheffler without a bit of help but that can happen around here. Hopefully from an outright point of view Cameron Smith can lead the chase on Scheffler and set himself up to deliver the goods on Sunday but I’ll go to the two balls for a bet here.
Saturday 2 Balls
The players who made the cut go out in two balls on Saturday with the final group of Scottie Scheffler and Charl Schwartzel going off the first tee at 19.50 BST. It will be Shane Lowry and Sungjae Im out in the penultimate group at 19.40 BST while those hoping to keep an eye on Tiger Woods will need to use the bonus coverage we’ve been getting this week. He is out alongside Kevin Kisner and tees off at 18.00 BST. Two past champions form a decent two ball at 17.40 BST when Bubba Watson goes out alongside Sergio Garcia. I’ll take a bet from the penultimate pairing onto the course.
Shane Lowry vs Sungjae Im
Match tees off at 19.40 BST
Two men who are part of the chasing pack on three under are Shane Lowry and Sungjae Im with the task for both men a pretty simple one – get off to a fast start if possible and try and get some heat on Scottie Scheffler as quickly as they can.
Lowry goes into this third round off the back of what he described as his best ever round of golf on Friday and finally he looks to be delivering the goods on a track which everyone thought would suit him but which until now he has had a poor record on. Im has already been second round here but that was in the 2020 edition in November when the course was soft. His better round this week was also when it was soft but the course is drying out by the hour and will be at its firmest on Saturday which might go against the Korean. Lowry probably had the harder of the conditions of these two on Friday yet still beat Im by six. I think he beats him in more favourable conditions when the two play alongside each other on Saturday.
Tips
Back S.Lowry to beat S.Im for a 3/10 stake at 1.95 with Betway
