4 minute read
Post Game
Enjoying the Scheffler Show on the world’s biggest stage
BY TONY DEAR • CG EDITOR
It might not have been the Masters that quite had it all, but this year’s tournament did throw up its usual litany of notable events and talking points. The week began with something that hadn’t happened in 84 years, with play/ practice briefly halted while the moon got in the way of the sun (maximum obscurity happening at 3:08 p.m. with about 75 percent of the sun concealed).
On Wednesday, a measured and eloquent Masters Chairman Fred Ridley gave his usual de facto state-ofthe-game press conference. He celebrated the success of the Augusta National Women’s Amateur, dealt deftly with questions relating to the LIV/PGA Tour brouhaha urging the professional game’s power brokers to resolve their differences, and opined on the issue of the ball rollback saying he hopes never to see Augusta National reach 8,000 yards. In the afternoon’s par 3 contest, five players made aces while Rickie Fowler made the dreadful error of winning — since it was first played in 1960, no one has won both the par 3 and Masters in the same year.
Bryson DeChambeau, one of the 13 LIV players in the field, shot a seven-under 65 to lead after Thursday’s first-round (which ended on Friday morning because of Thursday’s frost delay), and Tiger Woods was Friday’s headliner after making a record 24th straight cut at the year’s first major. The 15-time major champion sadly shot an 82 in Saturday’s forgettable third round when just two players went sub-70 and the 60 players who made the cut averaged 74.08.
In Sunday’s final round, Korea’s Tom Kim shot an early 66 with eight birdies, raising hopes of an exciting finale with players at the top of the leaderboard trading birdies and eagles in an afternoon shoot-out. But it never happened. Collin Morikawa, Max Homa and Sweden’s Ludwig Åberg — whose first major win surely isn’t far off — were never able to match Scottie Scheffler’s relentless, unflinching and quietly determined march to victory which came with an air of invincibility.
The hundreds of millions (more?) of social media comments the event provoked naturally ran the gamut of opinion. Most seemed to focus on Scheffler’s brilliance though there were plenty who lamented the lack of surprises and thrills, exasperation, and jubilation we’re so often treated to at the Masters. Those folk called the final afternoon a bit dull, tedious even.
There was even one commenter on Facebook (friend of a friend of a friend…) who said he had “hated” the final couple of hours. To be fair, English isn’t his first language apparently, so I wondered if he meant it. But the follow-ups confirmed he really hadn’t been entertained — “Worst Masters ever”, “So boring”, “Nothing exciting happened”, etc.
We’re all prone to a little hyperbole and exaggeration in the social media era, and it’s true the final round was no 1986 when Jack Nicklaus turned back time with a backnine 30 or 2019 when Woods beat Dustin Johnson, Brooks Koepka and Xander Schauffele by a stroke. But “hate”?
Forget all the sensitivity and controversy that word provokes these days. This is nothing about that. When I and, I’m sure a lot of you, grew up, we might use the word to register our mild dislike for a certain song (“I hate ‘We Built This City’”), or the slightly stronger disapproval of the evening meal our mothers dished up. “Aww, carrots? I hate carrots”, we’d moan, blissfully unaware of the effort Mom had made to feed us.
I suppose I would have preferred it had Åberg (my favorite swing on Tour) or Homa (my favorite person on Tour) got a little closer and put some heat on Scheffler over the final two or three holes. But having played the game for 30-plus years and therefore knowing how hard it can be even outside a Masters back nine when, I imagine, stress, anxiety and heightened nerves can complicate things, I appreciated Scheffler’s mastery.
The ability to maintain your composure and rise to the occasion on life’s biggest stages is a rare and enviable skill. Scheffler has it in spades and though no one is predicting he’ll ever reach Woods’s level of dominance (not yet anyway), we should heed those who suggest we just sit back and enjoy the Scheffler Show while it lasts.
