My Three Thoughts - The 2024 Masters
Scottie Scheffler has done it again and this time it snuck up on absolutely nobody.
The challenge and beauty of Augusta National encompassed my attention over the last week and it did not disappoint.
You better believe that writing about the four golf majors is a major objective here for our first full year at #Sturmstack. This one meant a bit more to me given that I have now crossed that wonderful event off my sports bucket list, but the tournament itself caused everything else to take a temporary backseat for my attention.
Scottie Scheffler has won his second green jacket and he did so with a fair amount of ease.
These are my Three Thoughts on this 1st major of 2024:
Scottie seems inevitable.
This is the first favorite to win the Masters since 2005 when Tiger Woods did it.
This should indicate to us how rare this weekend performance was because we may have the tendency to think looking back that it was incredibly obvious he would win. But, so many years in a row, the favorite does not deliver in this event and the ultimate winner comes from somewhat deep in the field. Patrick Reed was a 50-to-1 winner in 2018 and Hideki Matsuyama was 46-to-1 in 2021.
The fact that Scheffler was a 4-to-1 favorite this time last week and then pretty much spent the entire tournament at or near the very top of the leaderboard should tell you a bit about what we are looking at with this guy.
He is the No. 1 player in the world and it doesn’t feel close right now. Everyone is chasing Scheffler but they are having a hard time closing any sort of ground.
What makes this one a bit surprising to many of us is how quickly it has happened for this Texas Longhorn. I remember when we visited with him on the Hardline back in late 2021, he was a huge story because he was the last guy chosen as a somewhat questioned Captain’s Choice for the 2021 Ryder Cup team.
When he was able to deal with the pressure and the challenges of that by beating Jon Rahm head-to-head in singles, we probably should have known that it would be the last time anyone would question his abilities.
But, come on. The way he has bossed this tournament twice since then – with Rahm winning in between his two titles – should give us an indication of how much he has grown into his spot at the top of the sport and blown by all of the names that were stacked in front of him about 30 months back. Seldom has anyone looked so in charge of a Masters Tournament in this generation. This era is thought to present the deepest fields and therefore the realities of being declared a huge favorite on Monday and delivering on that oddsmaker promise on Sunday should not be undersold. It was a spectacular performance that frankly led to about 90-minutes of a ceremonial stroll through the “second nine” at Augusta for those of us who were hoping for some nail-biting.