A major first: Scottie Scheffler makes history with 2022 Masters victory
Scottie Scheffler’s final round at the 2022 Masters began on Saturday night around 9 p.m. under the luminescent glow of the lights positioned in the middle portion of the driving range at Augusta National Golf Club — well, it looked that way.
Scheffler smoked balls well into the cold, Georgia night as longtime coach and confidant Randy Smith looked on. After all, golfers are supposed to be meticulous practicers and obsessive competitors.
The 25-year-old sweet swinging Texan might be both of those things. A late-night grinder on the eve of closing out his first major victory, though? Not exactly.
“All that stuff about us meeting and meeting,” Smith said Sunday through his deep West Texas drawl, “We were trying to kill time so he could get (a massage). I was trying to take care of him.”
Fast-forward 24 hours and a green-jacketed Scheffler sat atop the stage in the Augusta National press conference room, his grin even wider than the massive gap between him and the 90 golfers he slugged his way past for this year’s Masters crown with a 10-under-par, three-shot win.
Scheffler never got this far in his dreams, he admitted. He filled the time regaling reporters about how his third-grade classmates made fun of the long pants and polo he wore most every day in his youthful yearning to be a PGA pro. He joked how he picked up dinner after his 1-under 71 on Saturday and dropped it in the car on the way home, much to the amusement of his beloved wife Meredith Scudder, who smirked as he retold the tale.
That laser focus, or what came off as such, between the ropes has been thrown to the wind. Why the hell not? Scheffler is No. 1 in the world. He’s won four of his last six starts. Oh, and he’s a Masters champion.
“Yeah, maybe I should play more poker or something,” he chided of his muted mannerisms throughout the week.
That Scheffler ran away with his first career win at Augusta National felt like a foregone conclusion after Friday’s second round. He fired a 5-under 67 in gusty conditions that better mimicked Scotland than the southeast United States.
The round made Scheffler one of just five players in the 86-year history of the event to lead by five strokes after 36 holes. Three of those players became Masters champions. The only one who didn’t? Harry Cooper in 1936.
Scheffler’s competitors waded into media scrums situated a few feet from the first tee like punch drunk boxers waiting for that inevitable knockout blow on Friday and Saturday. The wildly windy conditions had brought the sport’s best to their knees.
But this New Jersey-born, Texas-bred youngin’ was cut differently. He floated like a butterfly and stung like a bee en route to rounds of 69, 67, 71 and 71 over four days. It all amounted to a major championship.
“He checks all the boxes,” said Scheffler’s caddie Ted Scott, the man on Bubba Watson’ bag during his two Masters wins. “He practices hard. After the round — Monday, Tuesday Wednesday — he’s working and always trying to get better. He’s not content just playing messing around and playing great golf. It is a recipe for being a winner.”
The field nipped at Scheffler’s heels throughout Sunday’s final round, but never quite mustered enough strength to trip up the man who’s bulldozed his way to the top of the official World Golf Rankings over the past two months.
A pair of pars on holes 1 and 2 coupled with birdies by mulleted Australian Cam Smith cut his lead to one stroke 25 minutes and two holes into the afternoon. Rory McIlroy, too, landed a haymaker by shooting an 8-under 64 after starting the day 1-over.
Neither could send Scheffler to the mat.
“I feel like I’ve played some of my best golf around here,” said Smith, who’s recorded top 10s in four of his last five Masters appearances. “It’s quite frustrating, I guess, to not walk away with a win yet, but at the same token, I look forward to the challenge of coming back here next year and trying to do it again.”
Scheffler’s rise to the pinnacle of the sport at its most storied venue is meteoric. Two months ago, no one outside of golfniks knew who he was. Wins at the Waste Management Phoenix Open, Arnold Palmer Invitational and even the World Golf Championships-Dell Technologies Match Play were explainable.
A win at the Masters, though, was unthinkable.
“I cried like a baby this morning,” Scheffler conceded. “I was so stressed out. I didn’t know what to do. I was sitting there telling Meredith, ’I don’t think I’m ready for this. I’m not ready, I don’t feel like I’m ready for this kind of stuff.’ And I just felt overwhelmed.”
It wasn’t quite record-setting dominance — that honor still belongs to a 21-year-old Tiger Woods and his 12-shot win at Augusta National 25 years ago — but Scheffler did his best to channel his own version of 1997 Woods. His shoes, a shirt and sweater bore the 15-time major champ’s branding. Even the irons Scheffler played all week were designed with Woods’ name.
But in a ceremony that Woods — who returned to competitive golf this week 14 months after a horrific car accident — has been front and center for on five occasions, Sunday night’s festivities off the 18th green belonged to a young gun who outplayed the legendary winner by 23 strokes.
“I remember watching the highlights of him winning in ‘97, kind of running away with it, and he never really broke his concentration,” Scheffler said. “That’s something that I reminded myself of today. I tried not to look up. I tried to keep my head down and just keep doing what I was doing because I didn’t want to break my concentration.”
Scheffler reached the final green of his 72-hole coronation just after 6:40 p.m. Those around the putting surface erupted for the mild-mannered former high school basketball player who’s suddenly become the hottest thing in golf since his former Texas teammate Jordan Spieth first slipped on a green jacket seven years ago.
It took a quartet of putts for Scheffler to close out his last act at Augusta National. “Only three more and we could have a playoff,” a patron in the overflowing gallery pieced together after Scheffler’s third putt went awry.
Scheffler acknowledged post-round through that goofy grin of his that the double bogey was a lack of focus. He wanted to soak in the moment, a liberty afforded by building a five-shot advantage entering the final hole.
“We’re going to figure out what went on,” Smith quipped. “He power hammered both of them.”
That’s a next-week problem. Scheffler headed off to celebrate.
He’s 25. He’s the best golfer on the planet. And, after Sunday, he’s a Masters champion.
Masters top final scores
Scottie Scheffler (-10) 69-67-71-71-278
Rory McIlroy (-7) 73-73-71-64-281
Shane Lowry (-5) 73-68-73-69-283
Cameron Smith (-5) 68-74-68-73-283
Collin Morikawa (-4) 73-70-74-67-284
Will Zalatoris (-3) 71-72-75-67-285
Corey Conners (-3) 70-73-72-70-285
Who won the Masters: recent champions list
2022 — Scottie Scheffler (USA)
2021 — Hideki Matsuyama (Japan)
2020 — Dustin Johnson (USA)
2019 — Tiger Woods (USA)
2018 — Patrick Reed (USA)
2017 — Sergio Garcia (Spain)
2016 — Danny Willett (UK)
2015 — Jordan Spieth (USA)
2014 — Bubba Watson (USA)
2013 — Adam Scott (Australia)
2012 — Bubba Watson (USA)
2011 — Charl Schwartzel (South Africa)
This story was originally published April 10, 2022 at 6:58 PM with the headline "A major first: Scottie Scheffler makes history with 2022 Masters victory."
