AUGUSTA, Ga. — Scottie Scheffler dropped a bag of balls next to an Augusta National practice green Thursday afternoon. His opening round in the Masters wrapped an hour earlier. Now it was time to go to work.
He jabbed a few Titleists out of the bag and looked at three flagsticks. He picked one. He hit a few nippy little chips, barely covering the top of the bunker in front of him, skipping and skidding to the hole. He stopped and chatted with his coach, Randy Smith, standing a few feet away leaning on an umbrella. He flipped up some lofted lobs, the kind that hop and stop.
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It was as if the guy knows exactly what kind of shots it takes to win here.
Scheffler looked content and moved along to whatever lies ahead.
Most likely? Let’s guess a really good showing in Friday’s second round comes next. And then maybe an incredible Saturday. And then probably a Sunday that ends among familiar shadows splayed across fairways, a long walk up Augusta’s 18th, a hat brim pushed up off his forehead, a final putt, a final roar, a teary embrace with his family, and then a 44 Long in green.
Hyperbole, of course.
But not really.
It is all inevitable. Or it at least sure feels like it, has since Scheffler rolled in a 62-foot birdie putt on the par-3 fourth. He moved to 2 under when that one dropped, and you could picture the other 94 men in this tournament glancing at the leaderboard and groaning. Not this again.
62 feet for birdie. Scheffler reaches two under par for the Tournament. #themasters pic.twitter.com/4McwujgliJ
— The Masters (@TheMasters) April 10, 2025
Scheffler’s first round wrapped with a clean and (seemingly) easy 4-under 68. It was nice of him to do everyone a favor by not outright running away with the thing, but considering recent history, there can be only so much comfort.
Scheffler’s last four opening rounds at Augusta consist of this bogey-free 68, last year’s bogey-free 66, a 68 in 2023 and a 69 in 2022. He won by four strokes in 2024 and three strokes in 2022, despite four-putting the 72nd hole. His 10th-place finish in 2023 was shaped by a second-round 75 amid pounding rains.
Now Scheffler is off in his attempt to become the second player ever to win three Masters in four years. The other is Jack Nicklaus.
Heading into this year’s second round, Scheffler trails Justin Rose by three and is tied at 4 under with Corey Conners and Ludvig Åberg. Rose, at 44, is the Day 1 leader or co-leader here for the fifth time in his career. He finished runner-up in 2015 and 2017. Coming off last year’s near-miss at Troon, he’s again in position to win his first major since the 2013 U.S. Open. He is also, of course, not even particularly close to Scheffler’s current odds to win this week. It’s worth noting that since 1985, four players have led the Masters by three or more strokes through 18 holes — Rose by four in 2021, Charley Hoffman by four in 2017, Jordan Spieth by three in 2015 and Darren Clarke by three in 2003. Of those, only Spieth went on to win.
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Teeing off nine groups after Scheffler, Rose noticed Scheffler already at 3 under through eight holes. How could one not?
“You do notice Scottie on the leaderboard and you’re like — that’s a great start for him,” Rose said late Thursday afternoon. “You know, he’s going to be tough from there, for sure. Like, you know that.”
Despite this all feeling like a given, Scheffler arrived at Augusta this week surrounded by something resembling skepticism. His last five starts all ended with top-25 finishes, including T2 in Houston, but his game has been on a bit of a journey. He cut his hand in December while preparing Christmas dinner and was forced to undergo surgery. The recovery time required exactly that — time — and his short game and driver suffered. Scheffler didn’t hide his frustrations on the course, creating some reasonable speculation if he was as far-and-away a favorite as numbers indicated. Rory McIlroy, without question, arrived in Augusta in better form.
And what happened Thursday? Scheffler navigated Augusta with few mistakes and four birdies. McIlroy corkscrewed through a front-nine 33 and a back-nine 39 and finished even par.
There’s a difference between those who win here and those who don’t.
“I struggled for what felt like two pars today,” Scheffler said. “I had to make two really good up-and-downs. But other than that, the golf course was in front of me most of the day, kept the ball in play, did a lot of really good things out there.”
Scheffler said earlier in the week he planned to do exactly this. Keep the ball in the fairway, find spots to score. On Thursday, he hit 10 of 13 fairways and made 161 feet of putts, including the 62-footer on the fourth and a 42-footer on 16.
So is it hyperbole to say this is already Scheffler’s tournament to lose? At the risk of offending Rose, Åberg, Bryson DeChambeau (3 under) or anyone else … no, not really. We’ve seen this movie before. So have Scheffler’s competitors. His dominance is creating an air of intimidation that shouldn’t go ignored. Darth Vader in scripted Nike.
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“What we’ve seen Scottie do over the last three, four years is quite impressive,” Jon Rahm said earlier this week. “His ball-striking level is outstanding. Anytime you have a year where you’re being compared to Tiger in his prime, I don’t think I need to add anything else to that.”
Even Nicklaus knows. After hitting the tournament’s honorary opening tee shot Thursday, the six-time Masters winner said he desperately wants to see McIlroy finally score his long-awaited win here. Then Nicklaus admitted: “But I think obviously Scottie Scheffler is just coming back in again and he’s a defending champion. There’s nobody playing any better in the game than Scottie.”
Sometimes you can’t ignore the obvious.
And sometimes things are obvious as early as Thursday.
(Photo: Richard Heathcote / Getty Images)
This news was originally published on this post .
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