Augusta – Tiger Woods, Bubba Watson, Rory McIlroy, Justin Thomas and Phil Mickelson lead a host of in-form golf stars creating high expectations for an epic Masters.

And those aren’t even most of the top-ranked players stirring a special anticipation in the Georgia pine trees beneath which the year’s first major championship opens next Thursday at Augusta National.

The 14-time major champion Tiger Woods has become a Masters oddsmakers favourite based on sharing second at the Valspar Championship and fifth at Bay Hill in his Augusta National tune-ups.

Watson, the 2012 and 2014 Masters champion, won last week’s WGC Match-Play and in February at Riviera to serve notice he could be in the hunt. “Obviously I want a green jacket. I never felt a coat feel so good,” Watson said. “I don’t know if I can get lucky three times.”

Four-time major winner McIlroy won the Arnold Palmer Invitational with a Sunday back-nine charge and makes his fourth try at completing the Career Grand Slam by winning the Masters. “I’m very happy to have my game in this shape going into the first major of the year,” McIlroy said. “The last three years went OK. I’ve played well. Not well enough. Hopefully I put the last piece of the puzzle in there this year and get it done.”

Thomas, who won last year’s PGA Championship, took his eighth US PGA title at the Honda Classic six weeks before the Masters, but missed a chance to reach Augusta as world number one by losing in the WGC Match-Play semi-finals to Watson.

Five-time major winner Mickelson ended a 96-event win drought of nearly five years at the WGC Mexico Championship, beating Thomas in a playoff. The left-hander and three-time Masters champion captured his 43rd career US PGA title at age 47. – Sport24.com