AUGUSTA – World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler comes into this week’s Masters as a unifying force in a divided golf world, playing the type of game that has grabbed the attention of fans everywhere.
As the PGA Tour and LIV Golf try to iron out an agreement, the reality that fans are the big losers in their feud is sinking in. The Majors have always attracted elite fields but the buzz around this Masters has been dialled up several notches with most of the world’s top players set to go toe-to-toe for the first time since the 2023 British Open in July.
“It’s going to be great to see all these great players together. That’s what we want to see as fans and as broadcasters, to be able to get the best against the best,” said two-time US Open winner and broadcaster Andy North, 74. “To get (Jon) Rahm and (Brooks) Koepka and these guys here to play on the same golf course at the same time as everybody else, I think is really important for our game.”
With those big-name departures, the PGA Tour has lost currency, seriously diminishing their product but now a golfer of some consequence is starting to emerge from the chaos. Yet Scheffler is not an unknown commodity. He has won a Major – the 2022 Masters – and seven other PGA Tour titles, including two this season.
“I’m an extremely competitive person and I like competing out here. I’m excited about how I’ve been playing to begin this year. I had two nice wins, which was obviously a bunch of fun,” he said on April 9. “There’s definitely nervousness. There’s definitely excitement, anxiousness. It’s just about how do you use those feelings and emotions... You have to stay so patient and trust in all aspects of your game.”
The 27-year-old American is a modest man – when he won at Augusta he said his big splurge was a hot tub – but he is widely seen as the best golfer by a mile, even by world No. 2 Rory McIlroy.
Statistically, he has entered Tiger Woods territory. McIlroy said at the end of last season that Scheffler was having perhaps the best ball-striking season of all time, which would top Woods’ 2000 campaign.
This season he is posting even better results. Of the eight PGA Tour events Scheffler has entered, he has finished no worse than 10th in all but one.
With back-to-back wins at the Arnold Palmer and Players Championship and a runner-up finish at the Houston Open, he is the hot favourite to slip into the Green Jacket on April 14.
When play begins on April 11, Scheffler will be the focus of attention but there are others who will grab the galleries’ attention.
Rahm won the Masters in 2023 and returns to defend the Green Jacket as an employee of LIV Golf. The Spaniard is among 13 LIV golfers in the field which includes Koepka and the evergreen Phil Mickelson – a three-time winner who was runner-up last campaign.
“I feel physically better than I did last year. But then once competition starts, it doesn’t really matter. Once the gun goes off, whatever you feel is out the window,” said Rahm.
Woods, 48, maintains he never enters an event if he does not believe he can win but even he would have to view his chances of a sixth Green Jacket as a long shot.
The injury-prone 15-time Major winner has never missed the cut at the Masters as a professional but that run of 23 consecutive cuts made could be in danger.
McIlroy, who yearns to complete the career Grand Slam, has not won a Major for a decade and like Scheffler, the 34-year-old believes that patience will be key this week.
“I would say not trying to win it from the first tee shot. It’s a 72-hole golf tournament,” he said. “And I’m pretty confident in my golf game. I can do most things, but sometimes you just have to take the conservative route and be a little more disciplined and patient.” REUTERS, AFP
