AUGUSTA, Ga. – Ninety players combined for thousands of shots at this year’s Masters. But in the end, the entire tournament turned on just two.
Scottie Scheffler holed a screamer of an approach on the third hole on Sunday. Nine holes later, Cam Smith dunked his tee shot on the 12th into Rae’s Creek. The first gave Scheffler the breathing room he needed to fight for the green jacket. The second gave him the margin he needed for victory.
Fifty-seven days after he won his first PGA Tour event, 14 days after he ascended to No. 1 in the world, Scottie Scheffler is now a Masters champion.
The 25-year-old Scheffler blew away the field, firing a final round 71 to finish at 10-under, three strokes better than Rory McIlroy, who finished second.
The story before the story
The Masters exists as a bridge between past and future, an annual opportunity to revisit some of sports’ finest moments even as today’s best players are attempting to create their legacies in real time. In most years, history relinquishes its control over the tournament shortly after the ceremonial starters offer up creaky, slowed-down versions of their legendary swings. Yes, it’s wonderful seeing Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player, and new invitee Tom Watson conjure up memories of Masters long past.
This wasn’t most years. To begin, 2022 marked the first year since 2019 that Augusta National welcomed back a full contingent of patrons. The energy around the tournament surged upward, cheers echoing through the pines once again.
This year also saw the unexpected return of Tiger Woods, just 14 months after a catastrophic car wreck that destroyed his ankle and left him with a leg so ravaged that first responders feared Woods was dead, and doctors later contemplated amputation. Woods stoked hopes the week before the Masters with the news that he’d traveled to Augusta for a practice round, then arrived on Sunday with the intention of testing his leg for what he said would be a “game-time decision” on whether to play. The leg held up … barely.
Also notable: who wasn’t in attendance. For the first time since 1994, Phil Mickelson didn’t take the long drive up Magnolia Lane during Masters week. In exile — whether self-imposed or otherwise — since his explosive comments about Saudi Arabia and a golf league to rival the PGA Tour, Mickelson quietly informed Augusta National in February that he wouldn’t be attending. Without ceremony, his name showed up on the list of “prior champions not playing,” and Mickelson remained a phantom for the entire tournament week.
Thursday: All Tiger, all the time
Every Masters takes a couple days to decide what it wants to be: a coronation, a slog, a horse race or a heavyweight bout. This one was a sampler platter of Masters days, with sunshine, gusting winds, rain, lightning and icy breezes all taking a turn onstage. No matter what weather the players and patrons had prepared for, it wasn’t enough.
Smith began his Thursday with a double-bogey and ended it the same way, but in between those two misfires he put together a round brilliant enough to end up just a single stroke behind Sungjae Im. But Smith, Im and the rest of the 90-man field played their day in the shadow of Woods, who walked the course among waves of praise and love. Patrons stood 10 deep all around the course to get a glimpse of Woods, and they weren’t the only ones with their eyes on the legend.
“I actually found myself a couple of times today, because we were waiting so much, just watching,” said Smith, who played in the grouping ahead of Woods. “I almost felt like a patron out there at some points today. You can’t not watch him; he’s unreal.”
Over the course of the week, Woods’ walk went from a slightly off-rhythm gait to a ginger step to an outright limp. He made the cut, a phenomenal achievement in itself, but was never anywhere close to contention. Still, he brought a wave of hope and nostalgia back to the Tour, along with the news after the round that he planned to return to tournament golf no later than the Open Championship at St. Andrews in July.
Friday: Scheffler takes charge
Far above Woods on the leaderboard, Friday marked the moment when Scheffler began distancing himself from the pack. Playing in wicked, swirling winds, Scheffler steadied himself — he’s played in worse conditions, like the beer can hurricane at the Waste Management Open — and posted a 67 to go with his Thursday 69. That was enough to claim a five-shot lead heading into the weekend, where worse — and much better — weather awaited.
“The front nine was such a grind. The wind was crazy,” Scheffler said. “There was some times where we saw the sand blowing up out of the bunkers out there. It was ridiculous.”
Friday featured some cinematic heroics — Stewart Cink aced the 16th hole, for instance, and Bubba Watson unleashed a shot from the woods 10 years to the day when another shot from deep in the pines won him the Masters. But Friday also marked the day multiple big names, including Brooks Koepka, Jordan Spieth and Xander Schauffele, failed to make the cut.
Scheffler rolled into the weekend with a five-shot lead, tied with five others — including Spieth and Jack Nicklaus — for the largest lead ever at the Masters after 36 holes. Four of those five ended up winning.
Saturday: Augusta cools off
As frigid temperatures chilled Augusta National on Saturday, Scheffler ended up needing almost all of that cushion. He bogeyed four of the final seven holes and managed to keep his head as he dealt with a tricky rules situation when he pushed the ball deep into the woods on 18. He ended the day three strokes ahead of Smith, with Im another two back.
“It should be a great fight tomorrow,” Scheffler said after his Saturday round. “ Obviously Cam is a tremendous player, and he’s got a fantastic short game, and he’s coming off a huge win at The Players … Playing in the final group is always so much fun, so I’m looking forward to it.”
Sunday: The race for the green jacket
Sunday appeared set up for a two-horse race, right up until a third horse came galloping around from the far outside.
Scheffler said he planned to spend Saturday night watching episodes of “The Office.” To quote Michael Scott quoting Wayne Gretzky, you miss 100 percent of the shots you don’t take. Unfortunately for Scheffler, sometimes you miss the shots you do take, too.
His opening drive flew into the pines to the left of the first hole. His approach on No. 2 ended up in a sand trap more than a hundred feet from the pin. His tee shot on 3 ended up in the concession area in the shadow of the scoreboard looming over No. 3.
Smith, meanwhile, took advantage of Scheffler’s struggles, lopping two shots off the three-stroke lead in just two holes. Dialed in from the jump, Smith rolled in a winding 11-footer to birdie the first, and his approach on No. 2 just barely cleared the bunker, giving him enough latitude to birdie the hole.
Right then, at that moment, his lead carved all the way down to a single stroke, Scheffler steadied himself, gripped the club, and swung through for what turned out to be the pivotal shot of the 2022 Masters, the hole-out from far off and below the green. Combined with Smith’s bogey, that ballooned the one-shot lead to three. Smith bogeyed the next hole, growing Scheffler’s lead to four strokes.
Meanwhile, five holes ahead, McIlroy shot right past his usual backdoor top-10 maneuver, riding a massive five-birdie, one-eagle run all the way through Amen Corner to enter the outside fringes of the green jacket conversation. McIlroy had spent the previous three days posting a rote 73-73-71 run, and that left him 10 strokes back of Scheffler coming into Sunday. A final round 64, lowest of the tournament, vaulted McIlroy all the way into second, but still well back of Scheffler who, after that third-hole chip in, was never seriously challenged.
He had a comfortable four-shot lead through most of the back nine, which was basically a coronation from No. 14 (where he birdied) on. His only hiccup came on the final hole where, with nerves flowing through him, Scheffler four putted. Not exactly the way he wanted to close out, but close out nonetheless.
For Scheffler, the 2022 Masters is his first major victory and solidifies his spot as the best golfer in the world right now.