The American shoots sublime 65 in a show of strength to give himself a chance of a third title at Augusta
On Friday evening Scottie Scheffler was in the new player facility going back and forth over his putting game. Despite himself, he got sucked into watching what Rory McIlroy was doing on the big TVs the club have up in the training room. “It was pretty special stuff,” Scheffler admitted. And by the time McIlroy had finished Scheffler, the world’s No 1 golfer, had a different perspective on the tournament. He had scored 70 and 74 himself, and was even-par for the tournament, 12 shots off McIlroy’s lead, with 36 holes to play and nothing left to lose.
All of a sudden a tournament which has a way of making the game feel very complicated indeed had become very simple for him. Scheffler needed birdies. And he got them. He made five altogether, along with an eagle. He scored 65, seven under. It was the best round he’s ever played in the Masters. “I think that’s what great players do,” Scheffler said. “They rise to the occasion when you are at the biggest tournaments, and you’d be hard pressed to find another tournament that’s bigger than this one, especially for me.”
Things started rolling at the long downhill 2nd, where Scheffler whistled his approach straight into the heart of the green and then made a six-foot putt for eagle, and they really started to pick up speed when he got to the 7th. They say Augusta National was designed to be a second shot golf course, and when he’s in this sort of form there’s nobody better at them than Scheffler. He hit his approach at the 7th to six feet, at the 8th, it was 14ft, and at the 9th, it was four feet. That put him five under through nine.
