Inevitable Scottie went Tiger mode Sunday at Augusta

Perhaps the biggest compliment to Scottie Scheffler is that it seemed inevitable all along.

Nobody batted an eye when oddsmakers installed him as the 4-1 favorite to win the Masters – the shortest odds at the top of the board for anybody since Tiger Woods in 2013.

The common pre-tournament joke was that Scheffler’s wife, Meredith, was the only person who could stop the World No. 1 from claiming a second green jacket. The Schefflers’ first child is due in a few weeks, and Scottie was adamant all week that he would leave should she go into labor, regardless of where he stood in the tournament.

The final-round performance by Scheffler on Sunday – and the inability of the chasers to challenge – proved the joke to be incredibly accurate.

Scheffler’s statistical profile from tee to green is the best we’ve seen since Woods at his peak. The 27-year-old entered the week ranked first in approach on the season, second off the tee, and fifth around the greens. The only thing keeping him from complete invincibility is a putter that acts up from time to time.

Since the start of March, Scheffler has faced a total of 446 golfers in tournaments and lost to one – by a single stroke. He now has three wins this season and zero over-par rounds of golf.

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However, not everything in golf can be boiled down to statistics, as Scheffler showed Sunday that there’s an aura about him reserved for the all-time greats. The way the final round played out was eerily similar to the scenes in 2019 that saw Woods grab his 15th career major.

In 2019, it was the 12th hole that played a massive role in deciding the tournament. The leaderboard showed four men surrounding Woods when he entered Amen Corner. Brooks Koepka, Tony Finau, Francesco Molinari, and Ian Poulter all found the water off the tee and made double-bogeys. Woods opted for safe passage to the center of the green and two-putted for a comfortable par. He walked off the green sharing the lead after entering trailing by two strokes.

This time around, it was the combo of No. 11 and No. 12 that did in the competition and separated Scheffler from the field. The long par-4 11th presents the players with one of the most difficult approach shots in golf. There’s one cardinal rule: Do not, under any circumstances, hit the ball left where a pond frames the green. Both Ludvig Aberg and Collin Morikawa committed that sin and were scolded with double-bogeys as a result. Scheffler played his ball out well to the right just off the green, eventually making bogey after missing his par putt. Bogeys are rarely a coveted score, but in this case, it actually pushed Scheffler further ahead thanks to what was happening on the 12th hole at the same time.

Max Homa was the only one of the three chasers to avoid disaster at 11, but the 12th made sure he didn’t get through Amen Corner unpunished. The World No. 11 pulled his tee shot into the shrubs behind the green, eventually leading to an unplayable lie and a double-bogey 5.

In perhaps the best example of how he sees the game like Woods, Scheffler hit an almost identical shot from 2019: center of the green and two putts for par. He walked to the 13th tee now leading by three shots, having removed just about any drama remaining in the day.

Most would dial things back holding a three-shot lead with six holes to play at Augusta. However, that’s not in Scheffler’s DNA, and he added birdies on 13, 14, and 16 to make sure his victory was an accurate representation of his dominance. Adding Sunday’s four-shot edge to his 2022 victory by three strokes puts Scheffler alone among all Masters champions.

Scheffler has now won two Masters in the fewest amount of starts of any player since 1936. Not even Woods claimed his two green jackets in fewer chances than Scheffler has.

The next major chance for Scheffler to continue his Tiger-like performance comes in a month at the PGA Championship. It just so happens the tournament will be contested at Valhalla – the site of one of Woods’ most dramatic major wins in 2000.

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