Four years ago Scottie Scheffler got the card for the Korn Ferry Tour, second division of American golf, holed two miraculous putts in the last two holes of the qualifying tournament. A season with two wins and the awards for best player and rookie of the year gave him a place on the PGA. Two months ago he consummated his first triumph, in his 71st appearance in the elite. Three weeks later the second arrived. two ago, the third, a whole World Match Play, that propelled him to the first place in the world ranking. This Sunday, early Monday morning in Spain, he opened the can of the majors: green jacket in Augusta.
A heavenly ‘Tigerian’ streak that transports this 25-year-old Texan (born in New Jersey but raised in Dallas) to golfing immortality. His triumph is that of a God-fearing man, a man of strong Christian beliefs who, he himself recounted in the press room, cried “like a baby” on Sunday morning before facing the Golgotha of his profession: leading one last round in the Masters. “I didn’t know what to do. I told my wife that I didn’t think I was ready for something like that,” he explained.. Meredith Scudder, her traveling companion, pointed out the ways of the Lord: “He told me that God is in control and that he would guide me, that if it had to be my time it would be.”
Scheffler converted his last lap to Augusta National in an act of faith and at times it seemed that his existential destiny was to put on one of the most coveted garments in the entire world of sports. Especially on the third hole, when Cameron Smith, the other ‘colt’ in the race for the first major of the season, had reduced the margin to one shot with two birdies out. Both missed the fairway to the left and executed identical recovery shots (in fact their balls did not touch by inches). But Scheffler holed his birdie chip and the Australian missed the flag by four meters. It was like an epiphany.
There is a powerful reaffirmation of the laws of golf in the American’s triumph. First of all, it is once again clear that this sport can very quickly take you from ostracism to absolute glory. At a speed directly proportional to the one that can return you to mundanity (ask Tiger). His Masters is not necessarily the herald of a new era. He may not win a tournament again in his life.
But it is the reconfirmation of another truth of this deal: that anyone can win. Scheffler doesn’t have the most orthodox swing, nor is he the most charismatic player on tour. If golf were divided into ‘Tigers’ and ‘Langers’, he would be on the team of the sober German, another devout Christian. He is closer to the prototype of a middle-class American with a chalet on the outskirts of a big city than a sports star.
And yet he is a magnificent golfer, a guy with an amazing facility for finding the flags and who explains golf with amazing simplicity. “I hit a great drive to the center of the fairway, chipped to the green and putted,” narrated one of his 21 birdies these days, seven of them on a Friday in which Augusta shook most of the contenders. That day he took command and never let go. If God exists, of course he has great plans for him.
