IT’S TIME FOR SCHEFFLER TO REASSUME HIS GREATNESS AS THE BEST SINCE TIGER
The weirdness is over — he was “arrested” in Louisville and cut his hand making ravioli on Christmas Day — and at Augusta National, he's squarely in the hunt and prepared to win his third green jacket
This time, the police weren’t ready to throw him into a thoroughbred barn for dinner. This time, Scottie Scheffler was safe in Georgia and wasn’t arrested for second-degree assault of an officer in Kentucky. This time, his vehicle pulled effortlessly onto Magnolia Lane for another day at the Masters.
And this time, months after stabbing his right hand while using an upside-down wine glass to prepare ravioli, Scheffler didn’t bother making the same pasta at the Champions Dinner celebration. He served “Papa Scheff’s Meatball and Ravioli Bites” with a real chef. “If I was trying to take out the competition,” he said, grinning, “I would definitely do a demonstration, something along those lines. But yeah, hopefully avoid the injuries. Maybe they’ll cut up my steak for me so I won’t have to use a knife.”
It didn’t take him long Thursday to use his putter as a cutting tool. He stood over a 62-footer on No. 4 and canned it, simply waving at the patrons and lowering his head. Three more birdies awaited as he finished the first round at 4-under — he drilled a 42-footer on No. 16 — and it was sublime to note Scheffler had no bizarre issues as he did at the PGA Championship and at home on Christmas Day. Apparently, he’s prepared to resume as the supreme golfer since the prime of Tiger Woods, which would happen if he won his third Masters in four years.
For all the wacky things that happen to elite sportspeople, have we ever seen a year when a friendly champion encountered such weirdness? Scheffler might be the last man in the clubhouse with a detainment in Louisville and a required surgery below his middle finger. For instance: Woods would have mauled a pesky bug on his club, but Scheffler had no interest in killing the insect last summer. “It had wings, so I was able to grab it and just kind of move it,” he said. “It was entertaining because I grabbed both of its wings very gently. I was like, ‘I’m not going to kill it now that I caught it.’ So I just kind of let it fly away.”
Generally, he intimidates opponents with his dominance. A string of majors should be next, considering he won seven times on the PGA Tour and an Olympics gold medal in 2024. The only back-to-back winners at Augusta National are Woods, Jack Nicklaus and Nick Faldo, and Nicklaus is the only one to win three of four. Since the doctors fixed his hand, Scheffler doesn’t have a victory in 2025. He’s healthy. It’s time.
“Did it set me back a little bit? Maybe some,” he said of his pasta episode. “But each day, my hand continues to improve. My body continues to get back to where it needs to be. And I think my swing is coming around.”
Arriving off Washington Road without a fatal pedestrian accident, the issue at Valhalla Golf Club last May, should chill Scheffler. Charges were dropped, allowing him to play the second round of the PGA. He hasn’t won a major since last year’s Masters. His game and disposition are ideal for the scene. “Why does my game fit so well at Augusta National? It’s a good question,” Scheffler said. “The best way I could describe is when I’m in control of my golf ball, I have very good strategy for playing the golf course. But at the end of the day, you’ve got to hit the shots. And the last few years, I’ve been pulling off the shots I’m trying to hit.”
He might not have to worry about Rory McIlroy, who already is four strokes behind Scheffler after late bungling and seven behind leader Justin Rose. He never has won the Masters, as you know. “Seeing Scottie what he's done ... it inspired all of us to try to be better,” he said this week. “I know I have to be better to compete with him.”
“He's got significantly more tournament wins than I do. He has more major wins,” Scheffler said of McIlroy. “When you're a competitive guy like Rory is, I think you're always looking for some source of motivation ... especially when you're older.”
Ouch. Rory is 35. Scheffler is 28. No slight was meant, unlike Nicklaus, who said Thursday of wayward Phil Mickelson, “I don’t know what level Phil is competing at. I guess he’s still playing. He’s playing the LIV tour, is he? I don’t know if he’s playing or not. You never see him anymore.” Mickelson shot 75 in the first round. Or Justin Thomas, who fired at himself in dropping an F-bomb.
McIlroy visited Nicklaus last week in Florida. He’s serious about breaking through. “We went through it shot for shot,” Nicklaus said. “And he got done with the round, and I didn’t open my mouth. And I said: ‘Well, I wouldn’t change a thing. That’s exactly the way I would try to play the golf course.’ The discipline to do that is — the discipline is what Rory has lacked in my opinion. He’s got all the shots. He’s got all the game. He certainly is as talented as anybody in the game.” But he still cracks.
Scheffler is the one marksman who removes thoughts from the PGA Tour vs. LIV Golf conflict. He would prefer to play the entire field all season. As a PGA fixture, he speaks about the battle and moves on. “I definitely miss the competition,” he said. “They got some pretty good players on their tour. I still think the PGA Tour has by far the best players in the world. The depth of our fields and the competition that we have is still hands down the best competition that there is in the game of golf. That’s why I’m still playing on the Tour. I love the competition. I wish some of those guys had stayed, but at the end of the day, they made their choice. They knew the consequences of that decision, and I’m not here to change their minds. I hold no ill will toward any of those guys that left.
“They did what they wanted to do, and I can’t control their life. I’m not going to sit here and say they should have done something differently. They made their choice. If we want to figure out why the game of golf isn’t back together, go ask those guys. Go to wherever they are playing and figure out when the game is going to come back together.”
Preferably, he prepares for majors with family members. His mother, Diane, walked with him. “I think I definitely learned a lot of my work ethic from watching her,” he said, remembering her career as a law-firm executive. “She always put her best into her job and her best at being a mom, as well. She worked full-time while we were growing up. My dad stayed home and took care of all four of us. It wasn’t I would say an ideal situation for her. I think she would have rather have stayed home all day, stayed home and took care of us, and she definitely missed a little bit of that. So now on the other side with her being retired, she gets to spend a lot of time with us and with her grandchildren. So it’s really fun for her to be on this side of it.”
He is happy to say there were no offbeat problems Thursday. “I felt pretty good,” Scheffler said. “Anytime you can keep a card clean out here, it's a really good thing. I struggled for what felt like two pars today. I had to make two really good up-and-downs. But other than that, the golf course was in front of me most of the day, kept the ball in play, did a lot of really good things out there.”
How fun would it be if Scheffler carried the back nine Sunday, atop the leaderboard? That would lure bigger TV audiences when only 9.59 million watched the final round last year. He has no handcuffs and no broken stem.
This time, win two majors. Or three.
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Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.