How McIlroy could prosper from playing in Scheffler’s shadow for first two rounds
Rory McIlroy is an expressionist. It’s 12.50pm. He is putting the final tweaks to his game for the first round of this year’s Masters. On Augusta National’s palatial range, a breathtakingly green vista, Rory hits wedge shots to a flag a hundred yards away. He pinches balls off the turf, sending them fizzing through the air.
Some consternation. Rory shakes his head. He turns and chats to Harry Diamond, caddie and friend.
McIlroy is unhappy with his launch angle. His trajectory is off.
We know this because he’s making that swooshing motion with his right arm to imitate the unintended flight. Rory doesn’t like it. He doesn’t hide it. This is his nature.
He makes his way to the first tee via the throng of spectators who have gathered on the hill. His presence crackles through the crowd before he appears. Mostly they seem surprised that he walks among them, that he hasn’t arrived via helicopter or spaceship.
Billy Connolly once observed that the Queen of England thought the world smelled of fresh paint. Equally, must McIlroy think ‘C’mon Rory’ is the sound of chirping birds.
By contrast, Scottie Scheffler is a minimalist. For such a big man, the world No 1 doesn’t seem to cast a shadow. For an athlete of his dimensions, he possesses very little physical presence. The sort of fella you could stand beside and not be sure that he’s there.
Yesterday, Scheffler made it to the putting green behind Augusta’s first tee box almost unnoticed. Eyes down, moving slowly and serenely. He is not particularly graceful or elegant. He is, however, extraordinarily relaxed looking. Horizontal. Rory bounces when he walks. Scottie lopes.
Scottie is either permanently in the zone or he hasn’t a lot going on upstairs. Either way, it seems to be a good state of mind from which to execute golf shots.
Both men smoked their drives on the first yesterday; Rory with a powerful snapping motion, Scottie with his little shuffle. Then they didn’t so much move the needle as take it with them down the fairway.
The first green at Augusta is arguably one of the most difficult on the course. Hit your approach anywhere other than directly below the hole and making par is tricky.
Yesterday, Rory hit his approach to 10 feet, perfectly under the hole, then pulled his putt. On the second, things started to get a little gnarly. Ruin-your-entire-week gnarly.
It was a masterclass in how not to play the second at Augusta. A big right push. A 20-yard miss with a wedge – that disobedient launch angle again – and three putts from the fringe. Rory made six. Scottie made birdie, easy like a Thursday morning.
From almost going one up on the first in their imaginary match, Rory was two down after the second.
Interesting to note the contrast between these two men.
Cumulatively, Rory has spent more than two years – 122 weeks
– as the world’s top-ranked golfer. That’s more than anyone in history bar Tiger, Greg Norman and Dustin Johnson.
Here at Augusta, he looks more human than anywhere else. His body language is the most readable in the field.
Scottie might not have a shadow, but his game is eclipsing everyone just now. Rory’s included.
No harm to Scottie. He seems a grand lad. All Southern manners and platitudes. God-fearing, yes. But just the right side of overt or preachy.
Under airs and/or graces, Scheffler can be observed to have none.
His people are good people.
Scottie’s own Masters past champions menu, served this time last year, was like something you’d read from a laminated sign at one of those Funzone places that hosts kids’ birthday parties.
‘Cheeseburger Sliders Served Scottie-Style.’
His game, staggering in its consistency, doesn’t ace the eye test either.
In its various iterations, Tiger’s swing was a thing of both great violence and beauty.
Stand near a tee box when Rory
‘Here at Augusta, he looks more human than anywhere else’
opens the shoulders and launches one with the driver. The coil, the torque, the snap. The statue finish.
It’s a jolting moment. Like a loud firecracker going off at your feet.
Scottie finishes his swing with an awkward little backwards two-step. The ungainly shuffle of a hapless groom-to-be learning the simple choreography of his first dance.
It was tempting in Augusta yesterday to view the day’s marquee group as a straight-up match between the players ranked world No 1 and No 2. You wonder whether Rory took that approach.
McIlroy’s error on his two most recent Major near misses – at St Andrews in 2022 and the US Open last year – was his failure to recognise when the time came to hit the accelerator, to take risks, to push it.
He didn’t need to look too far for inspiration yesterday. The best bet in sport just now is Scottie Scheffler contending for whatever tournament he’s in.
What better pacemaker for McIlroy to have over the first two days at Augusta?
He’d prefer not to be there of course. But playing from Scottie Scheffler’s long shadow might not be the worst place for McIlroy to mount this latest assault at cracking the Masters.