AUGUSTA, Ga. — The Masters runs on a current of unpredictability yet certain forces remain immune to chaos, their fates etched in stone. The day turns to night, the annoying song from the radio haunts you through three meetings and a shower and, as Gary Player so bluntly put it Thursday morning when speaking to the press after serving as an honorary starter, "you or your wife are going to die." Among these inevitable forces also stands Scottie Scheffler, a golfing grim reaper disguised in a shaggy beard and clean Nikes. His fellow players don’t compete against him so much as hope to avoid being runover by him, like trying to negotiate with a Cape buffalo using strongly-worded emails. This Masters no longer feels a tournament; it's just Scheffler's waiting room.
Yes, it is Thursday, and there is plenty of golf still to play. But spare us your tired platitudes that the Masters doesn't begin until the back nine on Sunday. Constraints apply only to mortals, a category from which Scheffler has seceded. Unless the Louisville police department stages a full tactical extraction from Washington Road or Scheffler once again comes out on the business end of a wine glass and ravioli, the club tailor can take a three-day weekend, for this year's green jacket will be the green jacket that was handed out the year before. Augusta National might as well replace its traditional Sunday ceremony with Scheffler simply high-fiving himself in a mirror while everyone else battles for the coveted silver medal of "First Human,” which comes with the privilege of standing next to Scheffler in his triumphant photo-ops.
That's the incontrovertible truth after Scheffler's opening four-under 68. Bogey-free, no-nonsense, in and out before anyone else knew what happened. It was tied for the clubhouse lead before Justin Rose posted a seven-under 65 and Bryson DeChambeau made a late Thursday charge to move near the top of the leaderboard. But that is math, and math is for nerds, which Scheffler is not because nerds don't suck the life out of their competitors. While statisticians frantically adjust their probability models, Scheffler casually adjusts his glove and checks his grip, unaware his footwork is breaking the laws of physics and the shots that dance produces violate several Geneva Conventions.
We feel for the rest of the poor bastards in the field. They have been indoctrinated with tales of romance and mystery of the Masters, only to arrive and discover a woodchipper dressed in dark khakis lurking these forever-green fairways with neither malice nor mercy, simply leaving others to count the collateral damage in the aftermath of his relentlessness. At least there’s a beach to decompress in Hilton Head next week.
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It shouldn't be this easy. Three Masters wins in four years? Tiger never did that. Neither did Palmer nor Hogan. The only one who accomplished such a feat was Jack Nicklaus, and he was playing against club pros and plumbers and guys who smoked cigarettes to keep the Hamburger Helper weight at bay. Scheffler is doing things that he shouldn't be able to do. The modern game has produced a generation of power hitters and analytical strategists, but Scheffler has developed a mystical communion with Augusta that transcends those truths. This isn't just dominance; it's a rewriting of what we thought possible.
We hear your skepticism and doubt, dismissing our claims as hyperbole. Such precious innocence. Allow us to methodically dismantle these doubts with the same ruthless precision Scheffler has brought to Augusta:
• He is being chased down by the world's best. OK ... yes, Collin Morikawa is halfway to the career Grand Slam and is hitting the ball as well as he ever has, which is saying something for a guy who looks like he learned to swing by studying protractors rather than golf pros. Rose perennially contends here. Same with Corey Conners, Canada's gift to golf and human embodiment of a perfectly toasted maple sandwich. Tyrrell Hatton is a guy who once pantomimed his putter as a bazooka to blow up the 13th hole and just said last year he has no chance at Augusta ... but he also shot 69, suggesting all that anger is like a high school boy teasing his crush rather than telling her how he feels because he doesn't want to get his heart broken again. There are others capable of similar red figures and they are all good and formidable. But formidable is not synonymous with "inevitable," which Scheffler is.
• There is this year, where Scheffler has displayed strong play without quite reaching the dominance of his 2024 campaign. OK ... yes, Scheffler has shown a subtle regression that has occasionally revealed a steely, almost glacial demeanor from the three-time player of the year. Make no mistake; the gentle giant can run hot. Yet such temporal considerations hold little relevance here, for Augusta exists in a realm that defies the boundaries of time. Fred Couples, at 65 years young, shot under par Thursday, while 67-year-old Bernhard Langer stands poised to make the cut in his Masters farewell. Those who tame this course’s demands tend to maintain that rapport indefinitely, and Scheffler's history here—twin victories bookending a top-10 finish in 2023—portends brilliance going forward.
• There looms Amen Corner, where dreams go to die and scorecards go to explode (including a fellow Texan in recent history). OK ... yes, challenging this sacred ground is like poking a hibernating bear with a hot prod but he'll saunter over when duty calls. His game—methodical, precise, and total—produces rounds that can be misconstrued as plodding. It lacks drama, and that's precisely the strategy, because the Masters can’t be won and only lost in this corner of the course.
Perhaps there's solace for his competitors in the beauty of the rolling landscape and the promise of clement weather. There are worse ways to spend the weekend. And acknowledge with respect the challenges standing between him and Sunday's twilight victory, and frankly hope resistance happens, because we’ve lacked a Masters nail-bitter for some time. This missive could backfire: Golf, in its essence, remains an exercise in futility—what appears effortless one moment becomes impossibly elusive the next. There is no perfect in this sport, only the hope to be better tomorrow.
That is the belief, at least, but Scheffler is a reality unto himself. And the reality is, human intervention stands no chance in the path of a tornado. Perhaps it’s fitting that Bobby Jones, the founder of Augusta National, once said “on the golf course, man may be a dogged victim of inexorable fate.” In this case, fate happens to be the defending champ.
Golf Digest senior writer Joel Beall’s debut book, Playing Dirty: Rediscovering Golf's Soul in Scotland in an Age of Sportswashing and Civil War, is on sale now at BackNinePress and all major bookstores.
