Stop. What occurred right here this week — good golf from Scheffler, concluding with Sunday’s steely-until-the-last 71 that left him at 10 below par and was sufficient to win by three — is about this week and this week solely. It’s no exaggeration to say it modified Scheffler’s life. It’s additionally no exaggeration to say it means nothing for subsequent month on the PGA Championship, nothing for subsequent yr at Augusta National Golf Club — aside from that he’ll host the champions dinner.
There is so a lot to love about what Scheffler did, so a lot to admire about how he did it, that there is a temptation to say the next: This isn’t only a main championship. This is the first main of what number of?
Don’t take the bait. It’s in no way to say he can’t. It’s simply to say there’s no approach to know whether or not he’ll.
“I’ve never been a guy that likes to look too far into the future,” Scheffler stated. “For me, just staying present is what works best for me.”
Well accomplished, then. None aside from Tiger Woods recognized the area Scheffler now occupies: a window. No one has loved extra home windows than Woods, unpredictable stretches of time when the sport is impervious to all outdoors influences and majors stand in the way in which. There’s no telling when one will open. There’s even much less predicting when it should slam shut.
Woods’s memory got here from all the way in which again in 1992, when his present caddie, Joe LaCava, was working the bag of Fred Couples. In the March main into Augusta, Couples gained at Riviera, then at Bay Hill and misplaced a playoff in one other event. That’s a window.
“Ended up here,” Woods stated, “and won the Masters. Scottie’s doing the same thing. … We all wish we had that two-, three-month window when we get hot, and hopefully majors fall somewhere along in that window.”
The key phrase there: hopefully. The downside is that the record of what can go flawed — from an unexpected flaw within the swing to an unshakable doubt within the mind — is as lengthy or longer than what must go proper to maintain such a run. Scheffler is enjoying the perfect golf on the earth proper now. What we learn about that: There’s an expiration date on it.
This week’s Masters was the twenty fourth main because the begin of 2016. Scheffler is the nineteenth completely different winner. The solely repeaters over that point: Brooks Koepka, who crammed 4 victories right into a nine-major stretch (fairly a window); Dustin Johnson, whose expertise is such that extra majors than his two would have appeared seemingly but whose 5 runner-up finishes show the issue of the duty; and Collin Morikawa, who simply accomplished his ninth main — and has gained two of them.
So possibly it’s simple to say that, in 10 years, Morikawa may have — decide a quantity — 5 extra majors? Doesn’t sound unreasonable, provided that he’s solely 25, simply completed fifth on the Masters and that will characterize only one main victory each different yr for a decade. It doesn’t sound unreasonable — till you notice that that will give him seven majors, which equals the profession of Arnold Palmer and Sam Snead.
This is hard. Think of it this manner: Rory McIlroy closed 2014 by winning the British Open and the PGA Championship, his third and fourth main victories. Here is the evaluation of 1 retired golfer — he goes by Jack Nicklaus — of McIlroy in between these tournaments:
“I think Rory has an opportunity to win 15 or 20 majors or whatever he wants to do if he wants to keep playing,” Nicklaus stated in a radio interview again then.
Nicklaus ought to know higher. McIlroy is now 32. This will go down as his finest Masters as a result of he closed it with a 64 on Sunday that completed with an exhilarating hole-out from the bunker for a birdie at 18 that left him three behind Scheffler. Yet he departs 0 for 14 at Augusta.
“I’ve always known that I can do it,” McIlroy stated. “I’ve played good enough around here. Maybe just haven’t strung four rounds together like that. But I’ve always known that I have the game to win at this place. It’s just a matter of having that game for four days in a row.”
The level: It’s simply so hard. If, on the finish of 2014, Vegas had supplied wagers on the variety of majors McIlroy would win over the subsequent seven years — Two? Three? Five? — possibly the longest odds would have been for zero. Yet right here we’re.
He’s not alone. In 2014, Jordan Spieth debuted on the Masters by practically winning the factor — tying for second. The subsequent yr, he did win it — and adopted it up by taking the U.S. Open, tying for fourth on the British Open, changing into the runner-up on the PGA and tying for second on the 2016 Masters. When he gained the British Open in 2017, he had crammed six top-four finishes into an 11-major stretch.
What it seemed like then was a legendary profession within the making. What it appears to be like like now — with 17 majors since his final victory, with a missed minimize this week at Augusta and no thought as to when or if the subsequent may come — is a window.
Koepka had his — and will nicely have extra. But at 31, his physique has already damaged down sufficient that he has missed time. There’s such a listing of uber-talented, still-young gamers for whom it might have been simple to ascribe a number of majors: Justin Thomas and Jason Day, Bryson DeChambeau and Jon Rahm, Patrick Reed and Francesco Molinari. They all have gained. There are 40-somethings — Justin Rose and Adam Scott, Henrik Stenson and Sergio Garcia — for whom it occurred as soon as and by no means once more.
There’s no disgrace in that. But there is actuality. The stress of ending one in all these off is actual. The hardest a part of Scheffler’s Sunday wasn’t the tee shot on the par-3 twelfth. It was the interminable wait main as much as his tee time.
“I cried like a baby this morning,” he stated. “I was so stressed out. I didn’t know what to do.”
He stated to Meredith, his spouse, “I don’t think I’m ready for this.”
This week, he was prepared. The window was open, and he climbed proper via.
“We take care of it in those windows,” Woods stated. “Scottie seems to be in that window right now.”
How lengthy will it final? That’s not the necessary half. The necessary half is that it occurred. Scottie Scheffler is a Masters champion, and that is an accomplishment that might be with him eternally. Just don’t get caught up in granting him extra accomplishments — but. Not due to any flaw in his recreation or his thoughts. Just due to the enormity of the duty.