Brandt Snedeker now in the Masters conversation with Pebble win
Before Sunday, Vegas sportsbooks had Brandt Snedeker at 50-to-1 odds to win the Masters.
He wasn’t even in the field yet.
Snedeker locked up his invite to Augusta National in April, however, with his second win in the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am in three years. His 22-under-par total set a new tournament scoring record in relationship to par — breaking the old mark shared by Mark O’Meara and Phil Mickelson — and earned him a three-shot victory.
Any player who wins a regular PGA Tour event earns a spot in the Masters, one of the many perks of winning.
“It gets me back on track to where I feel I belong,” Snedeker said after the win, referring to his eighth Masters invite.
Snedeker, who has been working with Butch Harmon since last July, would have qualified for the Masters had he finished 2014 in the top 50 in the Official World Golf Ranking. However, he injured his knee in a November 2014 Segway accident, and Snedeker chose not to play for the remainder of the year. He ended up 58th in the world ranking as the calendar turned, needing to win or climb in the top 50 before the Masters. The win lifted Snedeker to No. 31 in this week’s ranking.
The Vanderbilt product has previously said the Masters is the major he wants to win above all others, and he’s come close several times. He was in position to win a green jacket after 54 holes in 2008, but a final-round 77 dropped him down a spot into a tie for third as Trevor Immelman won his only major. Five years later, Snedeker had a share of the lead with Angel Cabrera entering the final round. That Sunday, a 75 left Snedeker out of the picture as Adam Scott became the first Aussie-born Masters winner. Last year, a third-round 80 wiped Snedeker off the leaderboard.
If you didn’t get in on backing Snedeker before his seventh PGA Tour win on Sunday, wagering on him at the Masters isn’t quite the sneaky pick it was a week ago. He’s now pegged at 30-to-1 to win a green jacket.
Ryan Ballengee is a Yahoo Sports contributor. Find him on Facebook and Twitter.
