Australia's US Masters hopes: Cameron Smith leads four main contenders

The US Masters at Augusta takes place in mid-April and Australian hopes of glory rest primarily on the shoulders of four golfers who will have genuine hopes of putting on the famous Green Jacket.

Adam Scott is the lone Aussie to have already had that honour, having triumphed in 2013 when he defeated Angel Cabrera in a play-off.

Now the challenge is to try and add another name to that current list of one, with Scott himself a possible contender to claim what would be his second Major title.

The action gets underway on Thursday 11th April and builds to what is sure to be a tense and exciting finale on Sunday 14th April.

Name	Outright	Top 5	Top 10
Cameron Smith	19.00	6.00	3.40
Jason Day	36.00	10.25	5.10
Min Woo Lee	56.00	14.00	7.00
Adam Scott	71.00	18.00	8.25

Smith the leading Aussie contender

Cameron Smith is the Australian golf who most recently claimed a Major title, having done so by clinching a one-shot victory at the 2022 Open Championship by firing a superb final-round 64 at St Andrews.

The 30-year-old Queenslander opted to join LIV Golf soon after his Open triumph but has yet to record a victory on the alternative circuit, although he showed his strength with top-10 finishes at both the USPGA Championship and the US Open in 2023.

He also has four top-10 Masters finishes to look to for inspiration, with his best Augusta performance a tie for second place in 2020, when he ended up five shots adrift of winner Dustin Johnson.

This season on the LIV tour he has finished in a tie for eighth place at the LIV Golf Mayakoba and then in a tie for 15th at LIV Golf Las Vegas, so his game would seem to be in decent order as the build-up to the action at Augusta starts to ramp up.

Day still looking for second Major

Prior to Smith’s Open success, Jason Day was the previous most recent Aussie Major winner, having taken the title at the 2015 USPGA Championship.

That was the sole time that Day manged to convert, having finished in the top-10 of a Major on 17 separate occasions and been runner-up at all four showpiece events during his career to date.

Injuries and illness seemed to have derailed Day until the last couple of years and a tie for second place at the Open Championship last year proved that the Queenslander remains a realistic challenger for the biggest of prizes.

His last victory on the PGA Tour came at the AT&T Byron Nelson in 2023, while he has begun the current year with three top-10 finishes from five starts, firing 13 rounds of under 70 from the 17 rounds he has completed.

Lee the leading new hope

Min Woo Lee is certainly the best of an emerging group of Aussie players hoping to break into golf’s elite, with the 25-year-old Perth native having announced his potential with victory at the 2021 Scottish Open.

Meanwhile, his most recent success came late last year as he claimed the Australian PGA Championship title, although he has failed to make much of an impact on his three starts on the PGA Tour in the first few weeks of 2024.

On the Major front he proved that he can mix it with the best by finishing in a tie for fifth place at the US Open in 2023 and he will be eager to follow that up with a good showing on his third Masters appearance.

Scott the only Aussie Master

Adam Scott is, of course, the only Australian to have donned the Green Jacket to date, but the feeling is that now aged 43, his opportunities to grab a second Major title may be slipping away.

He is without a top-10 finish at a Major since the 2019 US Open, although any golfer with 19 such finishes over his career cannot be discounted entirely.

Five of those lofty finishes have come at Augusta, including his history-making 2013 victory, but he has been well off the pace in Georgia in the last few years.

Scott is without a win on the PGA Tour since his triumph at The Genesis Invitational in 2020, while he has begun the current calendar year by finishing inside the top-20 on all three of his starts, so there is definitely some life left in the old dog yet.