Totally Noob Masters Futures Betting Questions (I'm Almost Apologizing in Advance)

I'm going to play some futures on the Masters for fun, but I wanted to know what type of odds have a realistic shot of winning.

For example, in Horse Racing from what I've seen the horses with the shortest odds typically win. It feels like one horse is always going for the Triple Crown every year, and if they don't win it's usually someone in the +800 to +1000 range or less. Yeah, I know sometimes there's a massive upset, but I feel like those are rare.

In Auto Racing, I feel like you can really bet anyone for a lotto ticket and they have a realistic shot at winning. It feels like the people that win the majors are people you've never heard of before. The favorite to win that Dayton 500 was +1200, and the winner this year Ricky Stenhouse Jr. won, and he was +3300. 

In Football and Basketball it feel like teams in the +600 to +800 range or better usually win. With the outlier being the NY Giants a couple of years. Hockey is probably the most unpredictable of the mains. 

So anyways, is Golf like Horse Racing in that I should be focusing on the 4 guys that are under +1000 (Scheffler, Mcllroy, Rahm). 

Or is it more like Auto Racing where I can seriously look into guys at +2000 or better like Dustin Johnson, Jason Day, or Cameron Young at +3500? Brooks Koepka at +4000 screams sucker bet to me. 

I don't really want to waste my time looking into all these long shots if it's gonna be like a once every 8-10 years someone like that wins. 

From what I remember, the day one leader is usually some longshot guy that shot a great round. And that person starts to fade towards the end of the weekend, and names you recognize start to chip away and move up. But I'm a little rusty on my golfers at the moment. And limited time to look into it. 

I believe only Tiger in the last 20 years has won as the betting favorite and guys usually win are in the 20-1 to 60-1... and don't think anyone has won at 100-1 or more.

@GottaWinItAll

 Thanks for the straight forward response. I was going to go into more detail about my analogy but I guess my post explained enough.

But I was gonna say like in the NFL, there's 5 teams with +1000 or better odds to win the super bowl, and those 5 teams are highly likely to win it. (Buffalo, Kansas City, San Fran, Philly, Cincy). The teams outside the +1000 can make it interesting, but probably won't win. (NY Jets, Dallas Cowboys, Chargers are +2000, Dolphins are +2100). 

So other than the top 3 guys, everyone is +1800 or better, and I'll probably pick one of those guys then. If you had told me otherwise, I was looking into Jon Rahm at +850. That's basically like picking Cincy to win the super bowl. 

@slamspurs

 I guess if the NFL had 50 teams with a legit shot to win... in NFL you have 32 teams and they are all the very best and very worst in the majors these are all the very best ( in the master there are past champions and amatures that don't have a shot) but the rest are only the very best of the best... be kinda like in NFL of the league was only KC, Buff, Pitt, Sf, Philly etc... so in NFL the long shots suck and have zero shot... but a 20-1 or 60-1 can easily hit and does more often than the 7-1 in golf...

Definitely players have won at odds more than 100/1. Did you forget about Danny Willett, and also Zach JOhnson was a massive underdog.. Fairly certain he was much higher also. Charl Schwartzel is another notable way over that price. 

@Professor1258

 Danny Willet was ranked #12 in the world when he won and was only 50/1.  Immelman, Zach Johnson, Cabrera, and Schwartzel were the only ones at 100/1 or greater.

Scheffler won last year as the favorite 

Brooksy was definitely not a sucker bet,,,anyone who had him going into the final round would have made serious profits if they properly hedged with Rahm.

It's all a crapshoot when picking futures in Golf, at best you're hoping to have a few horses live at the end and see where you can hedge for profit.

You were right there with your thoughts, Rahm  the cream of the crop usually rises at Augusta

@packersbackers

 I actually overslept and didn't get my bet in day one. On day 2 when I saw that Rahm was one of the leaders I was kicking myself for not taking him, so I did some longshot parlay.

I took Rahm at +310 to win, Murikawa Top 5 at +280, and Scheffler Top 10 -165. Paid 25-1

Rahm came through. Scheffler got 10th and came through, but Murikawa faded and finished 10th too.

I really liked my chances going into the last day, because like I said, if Koepka won it was probably the easiest bet in the history of Golf. I honestly thought he would be the favorite, not knowing much about golf, but knowing he's like the best in the sport. 

It's easy to say in hindsight, but you can't hedge Koepka if there's 40 or whatever other people playing. 

Koepka swung a +3 on the day. If Rahm swung a +1 on the day, neither of them wins and you lose your main bet and your hedge. 

Sucks I picked the winner and ended up losing, but it was an interesting weekend. I think Spieth and Mickelson ruined a lot of Top 5 bets for people. 

If Rahm swings a +1, then Mickelson probably wins, and I'm pretty sure nobody had him swinging a -7 today.