BettingPros has posted its 2026 Masters head-to-head picks, and the matchup between Kurt Kitayama and Cameron Smith comes down to one thing the numbers at Augusta have already made plain: Smith’s track record there is far stronger. DraftKings Sportsbook listed the odds, and the recommendation was to take the -104 price on the veteran with the amazing short game.
Smith has nine Masters starts, three top-five finishes and five top-10s at Augusta National. He won the Open Championship in 2022, then finished inside the top 10 at the PGA Championship and U.S. Open in 2023, but he has not won a tournament since that year and missed the cut in all four majors last season. Even so, he has shot in the 60s in 10 of his last 12 rounds on the LIV Tour, a run that keeps him in the conversation when the game moves to a course that rewards touch as much as power.
Kitayama is a different kind of bet. He has played The Masters only twice before and carries a 74.33 stroke average over his rounds at Augusta, a figure that reflects how unforgiving the course has been to him. His ball-striking is the appeal: he ranks 11th in strokes gained on approach. But the rest of the profile is less convincing for a week at Augusta National, where misses around the greens tend to linger. Kitayama ranks 117th in strokes gained putting and 126th in strokes gained around the green.
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That is the heart of the handicap. Augusta history matters, and Smith has plenty of it. Patrick Reed won The Masters in 2018, Hideki Matsuyama became the first Japanese player to win it in 2021, and Xander Schauffele has finished second in 2019 and third in 2021 while placing inside the top 10 in each of the last three years. Among those names, Smith still brings the clearest blend of experience and repeated contention at the course.
There is also the question of present form, and it does not point cleanly in one direction. Matsuyama finished 13th or better in each of his first four events in 2026, then fell outside the top 20 in each of his last four tourneys. He ranks 105th in strokes gained off the tee and sits outside the top 75 in both driving distance and driving accuracy. Reed, meanwhile, has been on a sharp run over three weeks in late January and early February, winning the Hero Dubai Desert Classic, finishing second at the Bahrain Championship and then winning the Qatar Masters. Schauffele’s case is steadier: only Scottie Scheffler ranks ahead of him in strokes gained tee to green at Augusta National since 2015, though he is 36th in strokes gained putting in 2026.
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For the Kitayama-Smith matchup, the logic is simple enough. Kitayama brings the better iron play, but Smith brings the cleaner Augusta record, the stronger short game and the kind of top-end results that still matter when Masters betting begins and ends with who can survive the week at the last place you want to get cute.
