With All the Answers to Sunday at the Masters, Scottie Scheffler Aces his Major Test

The final round at Augusta National had drama but Michael Rosenberg writes that not much of it was at the top, as the world No. 1 added a major to his exploding resume.

Author:
Michael Rosenberg
Publish date:
Apr 11, 2022

AUGUSTA, Ga. – Scottie Scheffler cried in the morning and Meredith Scheffler cried in the evening, and in between, the most incredible thing happened: Nothing, really. No tears. No real tension. None of the drama that usually makes the Masters the most riveting show in golf. Scottie arrived at Augusta National with a three-stroke lead and left with a three-stroke victory. It was like he knew exactly how well he had to play, and so he did.

“I’ve heard all the things that everybody says,” Scheffler said Sunday night, after walking off the 18th green to thunderous applause with his wife, Meredith. “‘It doesn’t start until the back nine on Sunday. Anything can happen. Don’t hit it in the water on 12.’ All of that stuff.”

He started the back nine at 10 under. He didn’t hit it in the water on 12, or anywhere else. He made one bogey in the first 17 holes, then reached the 18th green and decided, “I’m going to enjoy this.” What followed had to be the most enjoyable four-putt in golf history.

Your 2022 Masters champion was winless on the PGA Tour two months ago. But he showed up here with all the answers to the test. Augusta National gets in so many golfers’ heads. Tyrrell Hatton felt so wronged that he looked like he wished he’d brought an attorney instead of a caddie. Sergio Garcia moaned, “It's difficult for me to get it going here other than one year,” and the fact he won that one year seems to be beside the point to him.

Scheffler gets the place and embraces it. Hit it long. Know where to miss. Be patient. And if you happen to find yourself nursing a lead, remember this: “The minute you play overly conservative, bogeys start racking up. You have to be conservatively aggressive. You can’t just limp your way in.” Scheffler could have laid up on the par-5 15th, but he realized he was just a 5-iron away from clearing the water, and so that is what he hit. But he remembered the goal was to clear the water, not to make eagle. He aimed at a bunker: “It seemed like the safest play at the time.”

You would never know that the guy’s stomach was a pretzel for two days, or that when he woke up, “I cried like a baby this morning. I was so stressed out. I didn’t know what to do.”

He said he told Meredith: “I don’t think I’m ready for this kind of stuff.”

She said: “Who are you to say that you’re not ready?”

Scheffler said “I calmed down when I got to the course.” His approach was as simple as Yoda’s words on the yardage book protruding out of the left back pocket of caddie Ted Scott: Do or do not. Or as Scheffler said: “The human condition is just to make things bigger than they really are. In the moment, you think it’s a lot bigger deal than it is.”

Scheffler said afterward, “I felt like I wasn’t ever really going to make a bogey. That was my goal.”

That was also Tiger Woods’ goal when he arrived on Sunday with a big lead. It’s both mathematically sound and psychologically deft. It kept Scheffler from being too aggressive or too conservative – and just as importantly, it kept him from thinking ahead.

“This game, (it’s) difficult to stay in the moment and not time-travel,” Scott said.

Scott sensed his man was a bundle of energy when he teed off. But Scheffler said it dissipated on the first hole, and Scott could tell that by the time Scheffler chipped in for birdie on No. 4, he was in a groove. After No. 5, Scheffler said, “I kind of just started cruising.”

Most of us wondered about pressure. Most golfers would, too. But Scheffler has the most elusive quality in professional golf: When he is in position to win, he gets calmer. Scheffler, a Texas native, said this weekend that when he was younger, he would lose concentration early in tournaments, costing him strokes that annoyed him later. “Definitely easier late on Sunday to focus,” he said. Nobody ever told that to Greg Norman.

““It’s fun being in contention,” Scheffler said. “I enjoyed yesterday and today on the golf course thoroughly … I didn’t break my concentration once. Maybe on 17 I got a little loose.”

He made par there anyway. He has now won four times in six tries, which just doesn’t happen on the PGA Tour these days … and now that he has won the Masters, winning might actually get easier for him.

Scott, who caddied for Bubba Watson’s two Masters victories here, said he “wasn’t too concerned” about the pressure getting to Scheffler: “His mind. He’s very tough.” How did he get that way?

“If I knew that, I’d sell it,” Scott said.

This week, Woods compared Scheffler to Fred Couples in 1992, because Couples had a torrid start to the year, won the Masters, and ascended to the No. 1 ranking. But the comparison doesn’t quite work. Couples needed one of the luckiest breaks in Masters history (his ball stayed on the bank on No. 12) and, despite a swing that was the envy of his peers, never won another major. Scheffler did not need an ounce of luck. Nobody will copy his swing.

In mentality, if nothing else, he reminds me of Brooks Koepka, because he thinks high-pressure moments are easier than the rest. Scheffler and those around him attribute his calm to being grounded. A week ago, Meredith asked him to take out the garbage, and he jokingly texted Scott that he was No. 1 in the world and shouldn’t have to take out the garbage anymore. But of course he did anyway.

Sunday night, wearing his green jacket, Scheffler looked out during his press conference and saw Meredith, sitting one row ahead of his questioner, wiping away tears. He smiled at her. She saw him smile, and she laughed. They were a world away from him crying just hours earlier.

“Gosh, it was a long morning,” he said.

But it was a blissfully boring afternoon.

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