It's Showtime: Scottie Scheffler, Bryson DeChambeau and Pack of Challengers Will Make a Memorable Masters Weekend
AUGUSTA, Ga. — No one at the Augusta National Golf Club should be surprised that Scottie Scheffler is at the top of the leaderboard after two rounds of the 88th Masters. On a Friday afternoon that saw winds gust up to 40 mph, the 27-year-old No. 1 ranked player in the world shot an even-par 72 to finish in a share of the lead with Max Homa and Bryson DeChambeau at 6 under par after 36 holes.
Scheffler entered the week as the betting favorite to win his second green jacket after starting the 2024 season with two wins in eight starts. Over this period, he set a modern-era record with 28 consecutive rounds under par. At the beginning of this week what was less certain was who would join him on the leaderboard at the halfway point, during a season where there have been 13 different winners in 15 PGA Tour events.
In the field this week were 10 major champions from LIV Golf, including seven Masters winners. At the Champions Dinner on Tuesday night, Tom Watson expressed his satisfaction at being in the room with many of the best players in the world from both the PGA Tour and LIV Golf. Scheffler must have felt like he was the best of them, and that his talents would stand out once the tournament began on Thursday.
Come this weekend, he’ll have to stand up to a challenge put forward by DeChambeau, who is excited at the opportunity to face the best player in the world. These players are not personal enemies, but a battle between them in Amen Corner on Sunday could be the spark for the unification of the two tours, or more ammunition for the fight.
“It's different, obviously, not being able to play most of the same events and seeing how successful he's been out there,” DeChambeau said Friday. “He's obviously the best player in the world, and it's going to be a lot of fun competing and seeing what he can do compared to what the rest of the field can do, what I can do.”
Long before DeChambeau defected to the LIV Tour in 2022, injuries had derailed his rise after winning the 2020 U.S. Open at Winged Foot. His last top 10 in a major came at the 2023 PGA Championship, where he finished in a tie for fourth. At the beginning of the week, his attention was mostly on finding a solution to bring together the PGA Tour and LIV Golf, but now his focus is squarely on winning the green jacket.
“I get an opportunity to show my skill set, and hopefully it's good enough to do something special this weekend,” he said. “I feel like the game is in a great spot. Mindset is in a solid place.”
Some of the usual suspects on Masters leaderboards—Masters winners Jordan Spieth and Dustin Johnson—missed the cut. Defending champion Jon Rahm shot 76 on Friday to make the cut on the number at 5 over par. Brooks Koepka, who tied for second here last year, is on to the weekend after his second straight 73 left him 2 over par for the tournament, but he’ll need a couple of great rounds to have any chance of winning. Rory McIlroy’s quest for the career Grand Slam will likely have to wait another year after struggling with a 77 on Friday after a first-round 71. Succeeding at keeping his cut streak alive, Tiger Woods limped into the weekend after an even par 72 with perhaps not a realistic chance of winning, but with the belief that his body will hold up for 72 holes.
The path is clear for a showdown this weekend between Scheffler and DeChambeau, but Alister MacKenzie’s masterpiece doesn’t care about resumes. Max Homa has never finished better than 43rd in four previous Masters appearances, but he doesn’t fear the spotlight and pressure of being in contention on the weekend in Augusta, even as he tries to temper his expectations.
“I wrote something in my journal yesterday that said, ‘however good I am is however good I am, I don't need to try to be better than I am, and just see where that takes me,’” Homa said on Friday afternoon. “Maybe it's winning this and maybe it's not, and I'm O.K. with that. I know what I put into this game, trying to get every ounce back doesn't really work, and I've tried that part.”
For some others like Matt Fitzpatrick, Cameron Smith, Collin Morikawa and Danny Willett, who have won major championships, the taste of being around the leaderboard this weekend is an opportunity to respond to the kind of pressure and difficult weather conditions that they have overcome in past tournaments on this stage. Any one of these players could put together two great rounds on the weekend and win this tournament.
Willett, who is 1 under par for the tournament after a 3-over 75 on Friday, is the kind of unsung winner that is birthed at the Masters when the top players fall victim to the pressure of Augusta on Sunday afternoon. In 2016, Willett started the final round three shots behind Spieth. When Spieth made a quadruple bogey at the par-3 12th hole, Willett took the lead and coasted to a three-shot win.
Like Willett, Morikawa understands that anything is possible in major championship golf. “I've played in it all,” said Morikawa, two-time major champion, who is three shots back of the lead after a 2-under-par 69 on Friday. “I've played major championships. Just because I grinded through these first two days does not mean it's going to be easy. It's going to keep getting tougher, shots are going to be harder, and you've just got to stick to it.”
The weather forecast calls for milder conditions over the weekend with warmer temperatures and winds at 10-15 mph. Low scores from players back in the pack could quickly tighten an already packed leaderboard. But it’s a moment for Scheffler and DeChambeau to separate themselves from the field and give us the show that the game has been waiting for since LIV came on the scene in the summer of 2022.
