Why does Scottie Scheffler dominate the Masters? He’s ‘an incredible handyman’ | USAEMALL.com

To know how Scottie Scheffler plots his way around Augusta National is to understand how a handyman tackles a leaky pipe.

“It’s kind of like he’s got a toolbox, right?” says Randy Smith, Scheffler’s swing coach since he was 7. “OK, you’re going to go fix some plumbing. You look in your toolbox and say, well, this seems to be the issue — I’m going to get a crescent wrench. That fixes that problem. There’s a new deal here — well, that looks like a Phillips screwdriver, I’ll use that.”

When Scheffler, winner of two of the last three Masters Tournaments, faces a conundrum, a simple process occurs. First, he assesses. Then he selects his instrument — the same ones everyone else has, but he uses better. Scheffler has a 7-iron, but it’s his flighted 5-yard fade that is seemingly immune to wind. He has a 60-degree wedge, but it’s the one-hop-and-stop spinny chip that can outsmart even Augusta greens. He has a caddie, but it’s the one who’s seen it all at Augusta, and if he hasn’t, is not afraid to ask for help.

“I would equate Scottie Scheffler to an incredible handyman. He’s going to show up, and he has no idea what the job is, but he’s got all the tools,” says that caddie, Ted Scott. “That’s just who he is. He’s going to be very prepared.”

As a result, Scheffler, still just 28 years old, has found significant success at the famed Alister MacKenzie design that has hosted the Masters since 1934. Win the tournament once and you’ve notched a career-defining feat. Win it twice? You’ve cracked a code. Augusta National will quickly expose even the most microscopic weakness in one’s game with its winding fairways and deceiving putting surfaces. For the best player in the world for 99 consecutive weeks, that test is welcome.

This week, Scheffler will try to become the first golfer to win back-to-back at Augusta National since Tiger Woods 23 years ago. In five appearances, Scheffler has never finished outside the top 20.

“At the end of the day, you’ve got to hit the shots. That’s what it is at Augusta,” Scheffler said. “I could talk about it all day long, about where to play it and the certain type of shot to hit. But if you don’t pull a shot off, you’re going to be punished out there.”

Most are, but Scheffler has found himself sliding two green jackets over his shoulders in three years. How and why he’s been able to execute at Augusta National so seamlessly — that’s a multiple-part answer.

Scheffler’s tendency to perform at Augusta can largely be attributed to his iron game. Scheffler is the best iron player in the world by nearly a fifth of a shot, according to Data Golf’s strokes gained approach rankings. In the last three Masters, Scheffler ranks No. 1 in greens in regulation, strokes gained approach and strokes gained tee to green.

(Source: Justin Ray / The Athletic; minimum 20 rounds played)

But it’s not just the way Scheffler strikes the ball. It’s also where his approach shots end up, and how they get there.

Scheffler’s 73-year-old swing coach sees what’s going on, even if his student wants to pretend otherwise: “It’s like he’s reading the greens from the fairway,” Smith says. Dating to his junior golf days, Scheffler picked apart golf courses by thinking one step ahead.

It’s commonplace for elite players to shape their shots, but in the era of modern golf equipment, working the ball both ways is somewhat of a lost art — much of the latest technology is built to reduce spin and keep the ball flying straight. Players are taught to build their game around a strength, and a particular shot direction is usually part of that. Do you like to draw it (right to left) or fade it (left to right)? For Scheffler, it’s never about what he prefers. It’s all about what the hole demands.

“We don’t typically play on greens that are that severe,” Scott says. “That’s the thing about Augusta. It’s such an interesting puzzle to try to solve.”

Scheffler will hit baby draws to pins on right-to-left slopes so the ball trickles toward the cup. He’ll hit a low cut to a pin atop a steep undulation, causing the ball to lose speed beneath the hole, leaving an uphill putt and an easier chance for birdie. Scheffler is always choosing conservative targets, especially at Augusta National, where the margin for error is slim. But he’s also always picking the shot shape that will react to the green optimally. Planning. Attacking. “Neutralizing the slope,” Smith says.

At last year’s Masters, Scheffler walked up to the No. 8 tee Sunday tied with three players at the top of the leaderboard: Collin Morikawa, Max Homa and Ludvig Aberg. Scheffler proceeded to go five under in his last 11 holes. The rest? They crumbled, one by one.

Scheffler won the Masters by firing at pins when he could and seeking safety when he needed to. On No. 9, where an extreme false front penalizes short misses, Scheffler spun an iron back to 3 inches for a tap-in birdie. After a wayward drive, Morikawa had to punch out from the pine straw. He left his iron shot in the front left bunker and walked away with double bogey.

Scheffler went on to make a key birdie on 10, using the severe right-to-left slope on the green to set it up. That offset his bogey on No. 11, which he played out to the right to steer clear of Amen Corner’s first water hazard. But he avoided the big number, unlike Aberg, who lost his approach out to the left and made double. Moments later, Morikawa fell for the same trap. Another double.

With a 9-iron, Scheffler put himself pin-high on the par-3 12th that has been known to swallow up some of the biggest names in golf. Up ahead, Homa had one-hopped his tee shot into the bushes beyond the very same green. Like the others, he added a double bogey to his card. Scheffler stepped off the hole with a two-putt par.

Once Scheffler had birdied the par-5 13th, it was only a matter of time. When you hit your spots with as much precision as Scheffler did that week, the task starts to look easy, even at Augusta National. With Amen Corner in the rearview, Scheffler was on autopilot. He went on to birdie 14 and 17, too, winning his second Masters by four strokes with a back-nine 33.

“Always watch Ted, because he can’t help it. If all of a sudden the smiles break out, I get real comfortable,” Smith says. “Getting through No. 13, you could see calm come over the both of them.”

If Scheffler is the best player on the planet, Scott might be the best Augusta National caddie of the modern era.

Two championships with Scheffler and two with Bubba Watson (2012, 2014) make Scott one of five caddies who have four or more Masters wins, and only the second since Augusta National began allowing players to bring their own caddies in 1983. With a fifth win, Scott would join Pappy Stokes and Willie Peterson as the all-time leaders.

But Scott rejects the narrative that he serves as some kind of secret weapon for winning the Masters. “These guys are the artists, and I just carry the brushes. I don’t want to paint too much, I just want to carry the brushes and have the color available,” Scott says.

Part of having the right paint is knowing where to look, and at ANGC that’s in the caddie barn. Scott first met Steve Kling there, on the right side of the driving range. A small team of club caddies, including Kling, is there all Masters week to fetch white jumpsuits, hats, towels — anything a tournament caddie might need. Kling and Scott were already friendly, but they became closer when Watson started traveling to PGA Tour events in an RV. Scott needed a place to stay at Augusta, so Kling and his wife kindly opened their home. It became a tradition.

As soon as the daily hole locations are released, Kling and Scott will sit down and pore over every nuance. Some of Kling’s advice will be self-explanatory: “Don’t go over the green on No. 7, ever.” Other notes could save Scheffler and Scott an entire shot. And one shot could be the tournament: “I’m not going to give an example, because I don’t want people to know what I’m talking about,” Scott says. If anyone has an Augusta National edge, it’s Kling. Scott has learned to soak up all his knowledge and pass it along to Scheffler.

“I can’t imagine Ted Scott will ever find himself in a position that he hasn’t seen before at Augusta,” says John Wood, a veteran caddie turned NBC analyst.

Ted Scott, right, brings a relentless dedication to understanding Augusta National, a factor in Scottie Scheffler’s two wins. (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 has a sixth sense for saying the right thing to Scheffler at the right time. That could mean not saying anything at all. It could also mean finding the words to inspire a major championship victory.

If the ever-so-humble Scott will acknowledge anything, this is it: The act of encouragement — “Pouring courage into someone,” he says — is Scott’s gift.

“When you work with someone as elite as Scottie, with such a huge toolbox full of very sharp tools, if you can just get a little bit out of him, he’s going to play great,” Scott says. “Then you just have to shut up and watch — watch him build.”

Scott didn’t need to say much at all to his player during their back-nine stroll that Sunday.

Those roars coming from the tens of thousands of people who walk beyond the ropes — they didn’t so much as attract a glance from the soon-to-be champion. Scheffler kept his gaze lowered, but he heard the echoes. They energized him.

“There’s a lot of fertilizers for Scottie out there,” his coach says. “You hear those roars coming from various areas of the golf course. That really gets him jacked up.”

Even the best ball strikers and the longest hitters can find themselves backing down in the face of fear. For Scheffler, that has never appeared to be an issue. The gravity of the tournament, the history that surrounds the course and all of the traditions that make the Masters what it is are stimulants for the world No. 1.

Scheffler remembers watching the tournament on TV as a boy, sitting on the couch next to his father. The patrons were still as Tiger Woods’ ball flashed its Nike swish and stalled before the edge of the cup on No. 16. One more rotation set off perhaps the greatest roar in Masters history. It’s not difficult to grasp why the moment is Scheffler’s favorite. Seven years later, he joined his high school teammates to attend the tournament in person. The group of golf-obsessed teenagers stood adjacent to the 10th green, anticipating a playoff. They had a first-row seat as Bubba Watson’s infamous hook from the pine straw rounded the corner and set up the sudden-death win in 2012.

The familiar visuals and emotions fuel Scheffler. That’s why when Morikawa, Aberg and Homa fell like dominoes around Amen Corner last spring, Scheffler surged.

“The bigger the moment, the better he is,” Smith says. “A lot of people will sit there and they get really nervous and jukey and skittish. But Scottie doesn’t really get that way. He looks forward to it. He embraces it. It’s like he runs to it.”

Is that ultra-competitiveness? Extreme focus? A concoction of the two? “If I knew how he does it, then I would do it myself,” Scott says. “It’s a superpower.”

(Illustration: Eamonn Dalton / The Athletic; graphics: Drew Jordan / The Athletic; photos: Michael Reaves, Maddie Meyer / Getty Images)