AUGUSTA, GEORGIA | The time has come, as the second green jacket draped around Scottie Scheffler’s shoulders suggests, to begin thinking about what the 27-year-Texan with the shuffling feet and a baby on the way is in the process of doing.
Winning one Masters earns a lifetime invitation to the most special place in golf.
Winning two Masters ushers in the shadow of history because only 18 players have won more than one.
Winning the way Scheffler is doing it – he has won three times this year, lost another event by the width of a golf ball on the 72nd green, and he’s yet to post a single round over par this year – is treading in the land of the extraordinary.
“He’s a different kind of special,” Ted Scott, Scheffler’s caddie, said early Sunday evening.
There is a beautiful simplicity to Scheffler on the golf course. He plays with an uncluttered mind and an uncluttered approach.
Watch his range sessions before and after rounds and he’s not looking at a TrackMan or FlightScope. His lifetime instructor, Randy Smith, stands and watches.
Scheffler takes a complicated game and deconstructs it. He hits the ball where he’s aiming, does it again and then again, and pretty soon he has separated himself.
Since he shot 66 in the first round on Thursday, there was a growing sense of inevitability about Scheffler and the green jacket. He came in as a heavy betting favorite, and once he cruised around the first 18 holes, the feeling grew.
“He keeps it simple,” said Collin Morikawa, who played the final round with Scheffler. “And he just never puts himself in trouble.”
That may be Scheffler in two sentences.
Scheffler is as sturdy as the 2012 GMC Yukon he still drives, the one with about 190,000 miles on it. It’s tempting to say they don’t make them like Scheffler anymore because he’s something of a throwback, a player who is grounded by a deep faith in his personal life and in his profession.
He is static-free. He doesn’t make the big mistake, which his nearest challengers Ludvig Åberg, Max Homa and Morikawa did over the closing 10 holes, and he seems to grow into the moments others may stumble over.
“He feeds off the environment,” Smith said.
Asked what separates Scheffler, Smith answered succinctly.
“Guts,” he said.
Scheffler does a brilliant job of disguising his intensity behind the veneer of a Texas ranger. Long and lanky, Scheffler’s face doesn’t give away much via his facial expressions, which makes him a master of illusion.
Two years ago, on the morning of the day when he would go out and win his first Masters, Scheffler was in tears, telling his wife, Meredith, he wasn’t prepared for what he was attempting to do.
Twenty-four months later, with his wife back home in Dallas counting down the shrinking days until the birth of their first child, Scheffler found himself killing time on another Masters Sunday morning, this time with some friends. He felt overwhelmed again but for a different reason.
“I told them, I wish I didn't want to win as badly as did I or as badly as I do. I think it would make the mornings easier,” Scheffler said.
“But I love winning. I hate losing. I really do. And when you're here in the biggest moments, when I'm sitting there with the lead on Sunday, I really, really want to win badly.”
Scheffler’s friends pointed him to his faith, which runs like a river through him, assuring him that regardless of how the final round turned out, he was victorious already.
“It doesn't matter if I win this tournament or lose this tournament. My identity is secure for forever,” Scheffler said.
Rory McIlroy, disappointed again in his quest to win at Augusta National, played the first two days with Scheffler.
“It doesn't look like it's 6-under-par, and then at the end of the day it's 6-under-par. He's just so efficient with everything,” McIlroy said.
Friday and Saturday at Augusta National were like golf’s version of a street fight as the wind blew knives across the property. It felt as if everyone was one bad swing away from getting blown away.
“I can't even describe to you how difficult the conditions were,” said Scheffler, whose final-round 68 was the second-best score of the day and left him at 11-under par 277, four clear of Åberg.
As an example, Scheffler said he hit driver, 3-iron into the par-5 15th on Thursday and driver, 4-iron into the same green Sunday. On Friday, he hit driver, 4-iron again but was left with a 70-yard third shot.
Scheffler rolled with it. When the final round got off to a scratchy start, Scheffler didn’t panic. He let the round come to him and did all the right things, such as playing away from the flag at the 11th and 12th holes that doomed Åberg, Morikawa and Homa.
“He is pretty amazing at letting things roll off his back and stepping up to very difficult golf shots and treating them like their own. ... I think that is his superpower.”
Max Homa
He pointed to a 10-foot birdie putt at the par-5 eighth as the most important shot of the day because it ignited some positive momentum. It was soon followed by two swings that led to sublime results.
The first was a lob wedge into the three-tiered ninth green that landed just left of the hole, then slow-rolled down the slope as if it had eyes for the hole, only to veer two inches left at the last instant.
At the par-4 14th, Scheffler essentially ended any lingering drama by hitting another wedge that flirted with the hole before stopping 2 feet away for a birdie that could have been accompanied by the sound of doors slamming shut across the property.
“He is pretty amazing at letting things roll off his back and stepping up to very difficult golf shots and treating them like their own. He's obviously a tremendous talent, but I think that is his superpower,” Homa said.
Scheffler doesn’t have Tiger’s presence, Mickelson’s personality nor Brooks Koepka’s swagger but he has his own understated blend of those things. He’s true to himself, which can be difficult in a sport in which players stand shoulder to shoulder with one another on the range and can measure themselves against their opponents one swing at a time.
Last fall, Viktor Hovland was the hottest player in the game, winning the FedEx Cup and helping spur Europe to a Ryder Cup victory. That apparently wasn’t good enough, so he changed coaches and has been chasing what he gave up, a missed cut at the Masters being the latest entry on the debit side of his ledger.
Scheffler has had the same coach for 20 years, and both were secure enough to ask putting coach Phil Kenyon to look at Scheffler’s sometimes streaky stroke. The results weren’t instantaneous, but now he is borderline unbeatable.
“I feel like I'm playing really good golf right now,” Scheffler said, the understatement as heavy as his thumb on the game’s scale these days.
As sweet as Sunday afternoon was, Scheffler said he wanted nothing more than to fly back to Dallas to be with his wife and count down the days until they become parents. They hardly talked Sunday morning and managed just a brief Zoom call after his victory.
Scheffler was in Georgia with his parents, his friends and his team, but his heart was home in Texas. He’s already imagining what it will be like to be a father, sounding like others might imagine what it would be like to win the Masters once, not to mention twice.
“I wish I could soak this in a little bit more. Maybe I will tonight when I get home. But at the end of the day, I think that's what the human heart does. You always want more, and I think you have to fight those things and focus on what's good,” Scheffler said.
“Because, like I said, winning this golf tournament does not change my identity. My identity is secure, and I cannot – cannot emphasize that enough.”
Demonstrating who he is may, in fact, be Scheffler’s superpower.
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Top: Scottie Scheffler, with caddie Ted Scott, wins the 2024 Masters.
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