My 5 Masters Picks

Well, it's time for me to make every other futile try to pick out predominant winners... Although I ought to say that I did pretty nicely at closing year's Masters, having picked both Bubba and Louis, the winner and the runner-up.

Let's face it, I'm not going to get that fortunate this yr!

This year's discipline has me stumped. It looks pretty wide open to me and I have no concept the way to begin to thin out the possibilities. Therefore, for the primary time, I'm selecting (all three inside the equal tournament):

• Tiger Woods
• Phil Mickelson
• Rory McIlroy

The reasons are pretty simple. Tiger has 3 wins already -- and yes, I know that hasn't bode well for his Masters hopes in the past, but I think he's on a mission this year. Phil has 1 win and when you consider how he can "turn it on" at Augusta, I feel he's going to do well. (With his notorious Phrankenwood in the bag, how can he miss?) And Rory seems to have gotten his swing back on track, plus he's the only one of the three with several weeks of play leading into this major.

Yeah, I recognize. Sellout choices, every one of 'em. They're on anybody's brief list, however I suppose they surely deserve it this time.

But my last selections...? Those aren't so clear to me. For my fourth choose I'm deciding on:

• Graeme McDowell

Graeme's been playing really well this year, with 3 Top5s and a T9 in his first 6 events. I know he's a bit of a low ball hitter -- supposedly the kiss of death at Augusta -- but that didn't stop Arnold Palmer or Zach Johnson from winning. He's 4th in Driving Accuracy, 12th in Strokes Gained Putting, and 9th in Scoring Average.

And historically, my remaining desire is a dark horse, a longshot nobody expects to do nicely. So I'm picking:

• Freddie Jacobson

He's played pretty well this year, but the Junkman is NEVER a factor at Augusta. I'm picking this to be his year. And why not? After all, it's a wide open field.

Besides, if all else fails I can always fall back on the glory days of my picks at the 2012 Masters. "You know, young whipper-snapper, I remember back in the good old days..." Ah, memories...