Amanda Balionis is not trying to shrink the Masters field. She is trying to name it. The CBS Sports reporter said on the Fairway Rollin' Podcast that she has 12 or 13 players on her shortlist for Augusta National, and neither Scottie Scheffler nor Rory McIlroy is on it.
That leaves room for a crowd, and Balionis made clear who sits near the front of it. Bryson DeChambeau is still part of her thinking, but she said Justin Rose has to be at the top of the list. Rose is priced at best odds of 35/1, a number that reflects how deep the field is even when a player arrives with a strong Augusta record.
The timing matters because McIlroy, the defending champion, and Scheffler, the world number one, are the betting favorites for the season’s first major in Georgia. Balionis’ view cuts against that top-heavy market and points instead to a veteran who has spent years making Augusta National look familiar. Rose won the Farmers Insurance Open in February for the 13th PGA Tour title of his career, and he arrives at his 21st Masters start with seven top-10 finishes and three runner-up finishes there.
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Those numbers are the reason Rose keeps coming up whenever the conversation turns to this tournament. He lost last year’s Masters in a playoff to McIlroy and also fell in a playoff to Sergio Garcia in 2017, two close calls that sit alongside one of the most consistent records at Augusta National. Balionis’ shortlist suggests she sees more than memory in that profile; she sees a player still capable of turning it into a result.
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The rest of the conversation is the familiar Masters tension between the market and the course. Scheffler and McIlroy may carry the shortest prices, but Balionis is still weighing the chasing pack, and Rose is front of mind because Augusta keeps rewarding players who know how to survive its late-round pressure. That makes him less of a long shot than the odds imply and more of the kind of contender the tournament often remembers after the favorites have faded.
