To know how Scottie Scheffler progresses around Augusta National, it is to understand how the maintenance man is dealing with a leaking tube.
“It’s like a set of tools, right?” Says Randy Smith, Scheffler’s rocking coach since his 7 years.
When Scheffler, the winner of the two of the last three tournament masters, is facing an argued, a simple process. First evaluates. Then he chooses his tool – the same that everyone else has, but uses better. Scheffler has 7-weighing, but it’s his flying 5-yard fading, which is seemingly immune to the wind. It has a 60 -degree wedge, but it is a disposable and stop spinnny chip, which can overcome Greens Augusta. He has Caddy, but he’s the one who saw it all in Augusta, and if it’s not, he is not afraid to ask for help.
“I would compare Scottie Scheffler to an incredible handyman. He shows up and no idea what work is, but he has all the tools,” says Caddy, now Scott. “That’s just who it is. It will be very ready.”
As a result, Scheffler, for just 28 years, found a significant success with the famous design of Alister Mackenzie, who has hosted Masters since 1934. Win the tournament once and you have seen a career defining performance. Win it twice? You cracked the code. Augusta National quickly exposes even the more microscopic weakness in his play with winding locks and a deceiving surface. For the best players in the world for 99 consecutive weeks, this test is welcome.
This week, Scheffler will try to become the first golfer to win his back in Augusta National by Tiger Woods 23 years ago. In five appearances, Scheffler never finished outside the TOP 20.
“You have to hit shots at the end of the day. That’s what is in Augusta,” Scheffler said. “I could talk about it all day, about where to play it and a certain type of shot to hit. But if you don’t shoot, you’ll be punished there.”
Most of them are, but Scheffler has shifted two green jackets in three years. How and why he was able to make so smoothly in Augusta National-it is a multi-part answer.
Scheffler’s tendency to perform in Augusta can largely be credited with its iron game. Scheffler is the best iron player in the world almost one fifth of the shot, according to the Data Golf’s Reakes ranking, he has gained an approach rating. In the last three masters, Scheffler ranks first in the Greens in regulation, the strikes have gained access and the strokes gained the tears of the green light.
MASTERS: The best career scoring diameter
DiameterShe played the bikes
Scottie Scheffler
70.4
20
Jordan Spieth
70,95
40
Jon Rahm
70.97
32
Tiger Woods
71.3
100
(Source: Justin Ray / Athletic;; minimum 20 rounds)
But it’s not just the way Scheffler strikes the ball. It is also a place where his shots will end and how they get there.
Scheffler’s 73 -year -old swing coach sees what is happening, even though his student wants to pretend differently: “It’s as if he read the greenery from the nautical track,” says Smith. Scheffler, who dated with his junior golf days, chose golf courses by thinking a step ahead.
It is common for elite players to shape their shots, but in the era of modern golf equipment, the work of both ways is a somewhat lost art – most of the latest technologies are built to reduce the rotation and keep the ball straight. Players learn to build their game around the power and a specific direction of shot is usually part of it. Do you like to draw it (left to the left) or will it disappear (from left to right)? For Scheffler it is never about what he prefers. It’s all about what the hole requires.
“We usually don’t play the green, which are so hard,” Scott says. “That’s about Augud. It’s such an interesting puzzle that he must try to solve.”
Scheffler hits the children’s draws on the pegs on the final slope, so the ball runs down towards the cup. It hits a low cut on a pin on top of a steep ripple, causing the ball to lose speed below the hole and leave an easier chance for birdies. Scheffler always chooses conservative goals, especially in Augusta National, where the span of error is slim. But it also chooses the shape of a shot that will respond to the green optimally. Planning. Attack. “Neutralizing the slope,” says Smith.
At last year’s Scheffler, he joined Sunday 8 Tee tied to three players at the top of the ranking: Collin Morikawa, Max Homa and Ludvig Abeg. Scheffler continued to five under his last 11 holes. Other? They disintegrated one by one.
Scheffler won the Masters by firing his pegs when he could and seek security when he needed it. In No. 9, where the extreme fake front penalizes short errors, Scheffler turned iron back to 3 inches for birdies. After a sophisticated ride, Morikawa had to go out of pine. He left his iron shot in the front left bunker and left with a double bogey.
Scheffler continued to create a key birdie for 10, using a serious right to the left slope to set it up to set it. This compensated his bogey to No. 11, which he played on the right to avoid the first danger of Amen Corner. Unlike Aberg, however, he avoided a large number that lost access to the left and doubled. A moment later, Morikawa fell on the same trap. Another double.
With the 9th gel, Scheffler stood on Par-3 12, which was known to swallow some of the biggest names in golf. At the top forward, Homa fired the tee into the bushes for the same green. Like the others, he added a double bogey to his card. Scheffler stepped out of a hole with two-lest par.
As soon as Scheffler started at 13. Par-5, it was just a matter of time. When you come across your places with as much accuracy as Scheffler that week, the task starts to look easy, even in Augusta National. With Amen Corner in retrospect, Scheffler was on an autopilot. He also continued to birdie 14 and 17, and won his second gentlemen with four strokes with nine 33 backward.
“Always watch because he can’t help. If suddenly smiles break out, I’ll be really comfortable,” says Smith. “When you got through No. 13, you saw both both of them appear.”
If Scheffler is the best player on the planet, Scott may be the best National Caddy Modern era of Augusta.
The two championships with Scheffler and two with Bubba Watson (2012, 2014) make Scott one of the five Caddies who have four or more masters, and only the second from Augusta National began to bring their own Caddies in 1983.
However, Scott refuses to tell that he serves as a secret weapon for winning the Masters. “These guys are artists and I just wear brushes. I don’t want to paint too much, I just want to carry brushes and have a color available,” says Scott.
Part of the right color is to know where to look, and in Angc, which is in the Caddy barn. Scott first met Steve Kling on the right side of the driving range. A small team of club Caddies, including Kling, is all Masters Week, which loads white overalls, hats, towels – anything that the tournament may need. Kling and Scott were already friendly, but they approached when Watson started traveling to PGA Tour events in RV. Scott needed a place to stay in Augusta, so Kling and his wife kindly opened their home. It has become a tradition.
As soon as the location of the daily hole, Kling and Scott is released and fulfills over every nuance. Some of Kling’s advice will be self -explaining: “Don’t go over the green light to No. 7, never.” More notes could save Scheffler and Scott the whole shot. And one shot could be the tournament: “I won’t give an example, because I don’t want people to know what I’m talking about,” says Scott. If someone has a national edge of Augustus, it’s Kling. Scott learned to soak up all his knowledge and hand them over to Scheffler.
“I can’t imagine that now Scott finds herself in a position he hasn’t seen in Augusta,” says John Wood, a veteran Caddy, turned the NBC analyst.
Ted Scott, right, brings a tireless determination to understand Augusta National, a factor of two victories Scottie Scheffler. (Andrew Redington / Getty Images)
It can be Augusta National, Hilton Head, Bay Hill or TPC Sawgrass. Scott can dissect any golf course, but he also makes a sixth sense to tell Scheffler the right thing at the right time. That could mean nothing. It could also mean finding words that inspire the main victory in the championship.
If he constantly recognizes anything about the gloomy Scott, it is it: The act of encouragement-“pouring courage into someone,” says Scott’s gift.
“When you work with someone as elite as Scottie, with such a huge set of tools full of very sharp tools, if you can get a little bit out of it, it will play great,” says Scott. “Then you just have to close and watch – watch it build.”
Scott didn’t have to call his player much on Sunday.
Those roar coming from tens of thousands of people who go to ropes so much that they attract the look from the champion. Scheffler held his gaze reduced, but heard echoes. They strengthened him.
“There are a lot of fertilizers for Scottie outside,” says his coach. “You hear those roars coming from different areas of the golf course. It really lifts it.”
Even the best attackers of the ball and the longest Hitters may find themselves retreating in the face of fear. It never dreamed of a problem for Scheffler. Gravity of the tournament, the history that surrounds the course, and all the traditions that make the masters what it is, are stimulants for the world No. 1.
Scheffler remembers watching a tournament on TV as a boy and sitting on the couch next to his father. The patrons were still when Tiger Woods’s ball blinked Nike Swish and stopped before the edge of the Cup on No. 16. One other rotation perhaps the biggest roar in the history of Masters. It is not difficult to understand why this moment is Scheffler’s favorite. Seven years later he joined his teammates from high school to personally participate in the tournament. A group of golf obscene teenagers stood in the neighborhood with the 10th green and expected the playoffs. They had a first -class seat when the infamous hook Bubba Watson of the pine straw rounded the corner and set the victory of sudden death in 2012.
Well -known visual emotions and emotions support Scheffler. Therefore, when Morikawa, Abeg and Homa fell as a domino around Amen Corner last spring, Scheffler rose.
“The bigger the moment, the better,” Smith says. “Many people will sit there and they will be really nervous, Jukey and Scottish.
Is it ultra-competence? Extreme focus? A mixture of both? “If I knew how he was doing it, then I would do it myself,” says Scott. “It’s a superpower.”
(Illustrations: Eamonn Dalton / Athletic;; Graphics: Drew Jordan / Athletic;; Photos: Michael Reaves, Maddie Meyer / Getty Images)
