Scottie Scheffler Primed to Take Shot at First Masters Championship
Has the time arrived for Scottie Scheffler to follow his fellow Texas Longhorn Jordan Spieth and try a green jacket on for size?
Scheffler is as well-positioned as anyone to win the Masters, which begins on Thursday in Augusta, Ga. He skipped the Valero Texas Open in San Antonio, which ended on Sunday. In truth, there was no reason for Scheffler to play in that event. He is primed for the rigors of 72 holes in Augusta, thanks to his hot streak the past two months.
Entering the 2021-22 season, Scheffler had not won a PGA Tour event, though he had come close. Plus, he had three straight Top 10 finishes in the last three major championships. He finished tied for eighth in the PGA Championship, tied for seventh in the U.S. Open and tied for eighth in the Open Championship.
He’s grown more comfortable with Augusta National, too. He finished in a tie for 19th in 2020 and a tie for 18th in 2021.
But now? Scheffler has won three of his last five starts, beginning with the Waste Management Phoenix Open on Super Bowl weekend. Scheffler needed a playoff to beat Patrick Cantlay, which helped battle-test him for the one major that determines ties by sudden-death playoff. Scheffler won the playoff with a 25-foot birdie on the third hole.
A month later, with the PGA Tour shifted to the Florida swing, Scheffler went to famed Bay Hill Club and won the Arnold Palmer Invitational. Scheffler won by a shot, shooting just 5-under on the difficult Arnold Palmer-designed layout and claiming more than $2 million in prize money. He saved two difficult pars down the stretch to protect his win.
Three weeks later, at Austin Country Club, Scheffler won the World Golf Championship Match Play, the event he nearly won a year ago when he reached the final match before losing. Scheffler beat the player that beat him in the 2021 final, Billy Horschel, in the round of 16. Later, he beat Dustin Johnson and Kevin Kisner on championship Sunday.
With that, Scheffler not only remained No. 1 in the FedEx PGA Tour standings, he moved to No. 1 in the World Golf Rankings and pushed his earning this season to more than $5 million.
The next logical step for Scheffler is to win a major championship.
If Scheffler were to win the Masters, it would be in his 11th major championship start, including two he made as an amateur in the 2016 and 2017 U.S. Open, the latter of which saw Scheffler earn low amateur status.
Scheffler already had a great deal of security on the PGA Tour, thanks to his scorching February and March. The Bay Hill title came with a three-year PGA Tour exemption. But a Masters win would come with even more security.
Scheffler would earn a Masters invitation for life, and invitations to the other three major championships for the next five seasons. His membership for the PGA Tour would be locked in for the next five years and he would earn honorary membership at Augusta National for life.
Now, all Scheffler has to do is, well, win, which is easier said than done.
You can find Matthew Postins on Twitter @PostinsPostcard.
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