Scottie Scheffler finished one stroke behind Rory McIlroy at the Masters on Sunday, then pointed to the changing course conditions as a reason his late charge came up short. Scheffler said he was not in charge of the setup after the fourth round at Augusta National Golf Club, but made clear he would have preferred Thursday and Friday to play more evenly.
He said he was surprised by how soft things became on Friday afternoon after Thursday had featured some of the week’s toughest conditions. Scheffler said Friday morning and early Friday conditions kept him from posting an under-par round, and that hurt most when he was trying to climb from maybe 12 back to within one. His second round likely did the most damage: he shot 74 with four bogeys on April 10, then settled for five bogeys across the four rounds despite 12 birdies and two eagles.
The loss to McIlroy completed a weekend in which the margin was there for Scheffler to chase but not quite close enough to erase. He said Thursday afternoon was among the most difficult stretches of the week, and he did not see many birdies then, but on Friday the greens softened and the scoring changed fast. Scheffler said he could not take advantage early that day, while McIlroy and Cam Young were part of a barrage of birdies late in the round.
That is the friction Augusta never answered in Scheffler’s telling: the conditions changed, the scoring opened up, and the player who started the weekend far back could only get so close. For Scheffler, the Masters was decided not just by shots made or missed, but by the gap between two days that did not play alike.
