Scottie Scheffler Wins His Second Masters
The 2022 champion survives early setbacks to hold off first-time participant Ludvig Aberg and win by four strokes. Plus, Lundquist signs off, Tiger salutes Verne, contender quotes, and more.
Masters Sunday By The Numbers
4 - Scottie Scheffler’s margin of victory.
-9 - Scheffler on the par 5s this week
66-72-71-68 -277(-11) - Scheffler’s scores
27 and 24 - Scheffler (27 years, 298 days old) and Ludvig Aberg (24 years, 166 days) are the second-youngest set of players to finish first and second at the Masters. (1937, Byron Nelson (25) and Ralph Guldahl (25))
11 - rounds in the 60s Sunday
9 - rounds in the 60s all of Thursday, Friday and Saturday.
66 - Low round Sunday by Tom Kim
4:22 p.m. - Four-way tie at -6 (Aberg, Scheffler, Morikawa, Homa)
5:29 p.m. - Scheffler -9, Homa -5, Aberg -5, Fleetwood -4
8 - Total 3-putts for the week by defending champion Jon Rahm.
0 - Final round eagles at 13, the first time since 2013 without final round threes on the par 5
302 - Tiger Woods’ highest four-round score as a professional.
300 - Total by low amateur Neal Shipley (71-76-80-73-T53) to earn the Silver Cup trophy.
1st - Rank of the par 4 17th Sunday (first time since World War II)
Lives can change in less than an hour at Augusta National.
The 2024 Masters somehow went zooming for Amen Corner with four thoroughbreds rounding the turn enjoying legit shots at winning. Sixty minutes later attendants up the hill were zipping shut all but Butler Cabin’s Scottie Scheffler size 44 Green Jacket and sending the rest back into cold storage.
The ingredients for a classic back nine shootout were quickly extinguished by the kerplunk of 11th green pond water and Scheffler’s knack for shrugging off the silly setbacks that come with playing a super-crispy, tiny-fine-line Augusta National. And while there were lingering memories of Scheffler’s four-putt to cap off his 2022 win as a reason to keep watching until the end, most patrons and their overdressed garden gnomes were on the way off property once Scheffler struck a 14th hole approach within inches as the competition wilted on an 86-degree day.
“I tried not to let my emotions get the best of me this time,” Scheffler said after posting a final day 68 and an 11-under par total for a four-stroke win over first-time major championship participant Ludvig Aberg. “I kept my head down. I don't think I even took my hat off and waved to the crowd walking up 18. I did my best to stay in the moment, and I wanted to finish off the tournament in the right way. And I got to soak it in there after 1-putting instead of 4-putting, which was a little bit better.”
Early in the day Scheffler appeared off his game. An approach to the first green was at least ten yards short of his intended distance. Then a strange mishap at the second green saw him back off a flop shot from behind the green only to be assured by patrons he had not moved his ball with aggressive pre-shot mashing. A birdie at the third was offset by bogeys at the fourth and seventh to welcome Aberg into a share of the lead. Soon thereafter two others joined the race and The Masters felt delightfully old school heading to its unofficial back nine Sunday start.
Then the competition gifted Scheffler with the outright lead.
First to go was Scheffler’s playing partner and former Walker Cup teammate Collin Morikawa, who got “greedy”—his words—on a bunker shot at the ninth to make double bogey. Once Scheffler pounded a drive down the 10th and made birdie, it was Aberg’s turn to show why it’s so tough for first-timers to win here when they haven’t studied old final round Masters.
After an optimal 305-yard drive down the left side of the 11th, Aberg’s 216-yard approach started at the center of the green, drew too hard, and ricocheted off the pond bank.
“I've been playing that same shot all week where I basically aim just right of the right edge of the green and try to draw it in there,” said the 24-year-old. “It came out a little bit too far left and the wind caught it and hit it in the water. It was probably one of the few swings this week where I really put it in a bad spot where I knew I couldn't miss left and I missed it left.
“But overall, I think a lot of the other things I did this week kind of oversees that one shot I think.”
Not to be that guy—particularly since the classy-sweet-swinging-happy-go-lucky-uber-talented-kid-loving-gem-of-fellow Aberg appears to be a gift the spoiled pro game doesn’t deserve in the jackwagon era—but there is a reason Ben Hogan’s adage holds.
“If you ever see me on the 11th green in two, you’ll know I missed my second shot.”
Anything on dry land would have been better than Aberg’s double-bogey six. But the Swede who went to Texas Tech bounced back and made millions of new fans with two birdies coming in. There were more smiles after hugging family and friends at the 18th. Then, if he hadn’t won the world over, the CBS depth-of-field camera followed him to scoring in what has become arguably the most important camera shot of the week since its institution in 2021 when we saw Hideki Matsuyama’s emotional shield crack. Aberg shed some tears and tried to smile while fist-bumping fans all the way to scoring.
Back to Amen Corner a little over an hour before, Scheffler was in with a birdie at the tenth after hitting lob wedge into the 495-yard hole to move to -9. Then it was Max Homa’s turn to succumb to the wee 12th. Unlike past victims, Homa missed just long, his ball took a huge bounce into the maintained shrubbery, and an unplayable lie drop ensued. He went from -7 to -5 and with little chance to reach the 13th, Homa was also toast.
All Scheffler had to do was survive the 11th. He did so by channeling his inner Hogan, missing the green right and making bogey 5.
The former champion received the standard patron ovation boost reserved for Champions Locker holders, got his 12th tee shot on dry land, and somewhere in Dallas his expecting wife Meredith and friends probably knew what the rest of the world also understood: another Masters was his. Not that Scottie was thinking that way.
“I tried to soak in stuff around me today,” he said. “I looked up at the trees at times. I looked up at the fans occasionally to try to soak in some of their energy. But did not ever let myself get attached to the lead. I just tried to keep pushing. I mean, I think if I would have played a little bit defensively it would have been a significantly different finish. I went for the green in two on 13, was able to make birdie. I attacked the pin on 14 and was able to make birdie. Went for it again on 15 and made a nice par, and I hit a really good shot on 16 to make birdie.
“If I was just trying to make pars the whole back nine, I would have been standing on 18 having to make par and hoping Ludvig would only make a par.”
Instead he stayed aggressive and came to the 18th with the only real test being a wait for Morikawa who had to play backwards before hitting a wood into the green. This time around Scheffler two-putted to win his second Masters.
Not even 28 and headed home to be with his wife as they expect a child, Jim Nantz’s final call said “the father to be is the champion of today” and then asked, “could life be any sweeter?”
Judging by the playful embrace with caddie Ted Scott—on the bag for a fourth Masters win—along with Green Jacket ceremony thank yous to his longtime instructor Randy Smith, new short game coach Phil Kenyon, and to his golf-loving family, it’s hard to imagine a happier man Sunday in Augusta.
Wait, what?
“I feel like playing professional golf is an endlessly not satisfying career,” Scheffler said in the press center. “For instance, in my head, all I can think about right now is getting home. I'm not thinking about the tournament. I'm not thinking about the green jacket. I'm trying to answer your questions and I'm trying to get home.
“I wish -- I wish I could soak this in a little bit more. Maybe I will tonight when I get home.”
Well, there you go!
Scheffler already had a lifelong second home in Augusta as a former champion, but with a second jacket becomes the 18th player to win more than one and only separates himself from the rest of a splintered game in an otherwise muddled, parity-prone mess that now only sees the best come together in majors.
“When I'm out there, I try to compete to the best of my abilities,” Scheffler said. “I really want to win. I feel like that's how I was designed. I've been that way since I was a young kid. That's always been a part of me, and I don't think that should be going away anytime soon. I don't think there's anything wrong with that either. At the end of the day, like I said, my identity is secure already.”
Scheffler’s Sunday Birdies
No. 3: Driver and a lob-wedge
No. 8: Driver, 3-iron, lob-wedge.
No. 9: Driver, lob-wedge.
No. 10: Driver, pitching wedge.
No. 13: Driver, 4-iron.
No. 14: 3-wood, wedge.
No. 16: 8-iron.
Quotable: The Champion
