‘Unstoppable’ Scheffler wins another Masters green jacket
Aberg backs up the hype, finishes 2nd
AUGUSTA, April 15, (AP): Scottie Scheffler spent more time looking at his feet than any of the white leaderboards at Augusta National, all of them showing what everyone was watching - a Masters champion again, the undisputed best player in golf.
He prefers to stay in his own little world, population one.
Nobody is close to him in the game at the moment.
Scheffler is No. 1 in the world by a margin not seen since Tiger Woods in his prime. In nine tournaments this year, he doesn’t have a round over par and has earned over $15 million. And on Sunday, he delivered the greatest piece of evidence when he slipped into that green jacket.
Scheffler pulled ahead with magnificent shots around the turn, poured it on along the back nine as his challengers melted away with mistakes and closed with a 4-under 68 to claim his second Masters in three years with a four-shot victory. “I had a lot of really talented players trying to chase me down, and I knew pars weren’t going to get it done,” Scheffler said.
Unlike two years ago when he won his first major, there were no doubts Sunday morning, no tears, and no wife to reassure him he was built for a moment like this. His wife, Meredith, was home in Dallas expecting their first child at the end of the month.
Scheffler made sure there was no drama, either.
Much like Woods he made the outcome look inevitable with sublime control, the difference being a peach shirt instead of Sunday red, and no fist pumps until it was over.
After sharing hugs with caddie Ted Scott and Collin Morikawa, Scheffler turned to face the crowd with both arms raised. “WOOOOOO!” he yelled, slamming his fist.
Masters newcomer Ludvig Aberg, among four players who had a share of the lead at one point, lost ground with his approach went into the pond left of the 11th hole and he made double bogey. Against a player like Scheffler, those mistakes are not easy to overcome.
Aberg closed with a 69 and was the runner-up, not a bad debut for someone playing in his first major championship.
Morikawa, who had two double bogeys to fall out of the hunt, shot 74 and tied for third with Tommy Fleetwood (69) and Max Homa (73), whose hopes ended on the par-3 12th with a double bogey from the bushes, not Rae’s Creek.
Woods, meanwhile, closed with a 77 and finished in last place at 16-over 304, the highest 72-hole score of his career. This came two days after he set the Masters record for making his 24th consecutive cut.
The 27-year-old Scheffler is the fourth-youngest player to have two green jackets. He now has three victories against the strongest fields - Bay Hill, The Players Championship and the Masters - in his last four starts. The other was a runner-up finish in Houston.
Scheffler finished at 11-under 277 and earned $3.6 million from the $20 million purse.
Perhaps even more daunting for the rest of golf is that Scheffler now has 10
GOLF
victories worldwide dating to his first PGA Tour title at the Phoenix Open just two years and two months ago.
During that stretch, Scheffler has finished in the top 10 a staggering 65% of the time.
It was the fourth straight Masters when the winner came to the 18th green with one arm in the green jacket. That doesn’t mean Sunday was a walk in golf’s most gorgeous garden.
Four players had a share of the lead at various points along the front nine, and then Scheffler began to assert himself with three straight birdies around the turn.
He got up-and-down with a 10-foot birdie putt at the par-5 eighth. He hit the perfect wedge that caught the ridge and came inches within going in on No. 9, leaving him a tap-in birdie.
Lyon win 7-goal thriller vs Brest
PARIS, April 15, (AP): Ainsley Maitland-Niles scored a penalty deep into stoppage time as Lyon rallied from trailing 3-1 to beat second-place Brest 4-3 in a dramatic French league game.
Alexandre Lacazette is Lyon’s regular penalty-taker but he had been stretchered off after being accidentally hit on the head by goalkeeper Marco Bizot, which saw the penalty awarded after VAR. Lacazette lay on the ground for several minutes before being stretchered off.
With 16 minutes of stoppage time on the clock, Maitland-Niles stepped up and sent Bizot the wrong way to give Lyon a win, and also open the door wider for Paris Saint-Germain to clinch a record-extending 12th league title.
Brest is 10 points behind PSG and only one point ahead of Monaco in third place. Brest has five games left and PSG, which did not play this weekend, has six. Lyon climbed up to seventh spot.
Brest looked set for a victory after scoring three times in eight minutes through striker Steve Mounié and a brace from Romain Del Castillo, but Lyon hit back in the 70th minute through Lacazette’s 15th goal of the season and left back Nicolás Tagliafico nine minutes later.
Tagliafico was sent off in the 86th along with Brest midfielder Pierre Lees-Melou after an altercation between them. It led to pushing and shoving between players from both sides and Lyon defender Jake O’Brien - a former national junior champion boxer in Ireland - was shown a yellow card.
Former France midfielder Corentin Tolisso gave Lyon the lead with a powerful strike in the 18th minute. It was harsh on Brest, which had a blatantlooking penalty turned down moments earlier when O’Brien blocked Bradley Locko’s header with his hand.