Scottie Scheffler Becomes a Two-Time Masters Champion

The World No. 1 steadied his game Sunday afternoon while the contenders fell apart at Amen Corner.

Apr 14, 2024; Augusta, Georgia, USA; Scottie Scheffler plays his shot from the 16th tee during the / Michael Madrid-USA TODAY Sports

AUGUSTA, GA. — For the second time in three years, Scottie Scheffler is the Masters champion. 

The World No. 1 shot 4-under 68 on Sunday, steadying his game midway through the final round at Augusta National while his pursuers fell apart at Amen Corner. The final score was 11-under 277, the margin of victory four shots over Ludvig Åberg and seven shots over Collin Morikawa, Max Homa and Tommy Fleetwood.

Scheffler led by one at 8 under going to the back nine Sunday at Augusta—where the Masters truly begins, the adage says. He made two bogeys over his first seven holes but birdied Nos. 8 and 9. Three holes later, standing on the 13th tee, he was still 8 under but his lead was three shots.

Åberg, who began the round three shots back and closed to within one at the turn, rinsed his approach shot to the par-4 11th and made double bogey. He got the shots back with birdies at 13 and 14 but Scheffler also birdied those, maintaining his comfortable three-shot cushion. Åberg shot 69 in his first major-championship Sunday. 

Max Homa, playing alongside Åberg in the second-to-last group, saw his hopes dashed when he went long into the bushes at the short par-3 12th, where many have seen green jacket hopes slip away. After taking an unplayable lie, he too made double bogey and would not make another birdie in a round of 73.

Collin Morikawa’s quest for a third leg of the career Grand Slam was crippled at the par-4 9th when he needed two shots to get out of a greenside bunker, leading to a double, then finished off at the 11th when like Åberg he put his approach into the pond. He shot 74. 

Scheffler birdied the par-3 16th to increase his lead to four at 11 under and was able to make a carefree walk up 18, sealing the win with a par.  

An air of inevitability surrounded Scheffler coming into the week, as he had won back-to-back starts in March at the Arnold Palmer Invitational and the Players Championship, on two meaty courses that demand the precise ballstriking that is Scheffler’s hallmark (a switch to a mallet putter helped remove shaky moments on the greens). In eight PGA Tour starts for the year prior to the year’s first major he had two wins, five other top 10s and a T17. His pre-tournament odds to win the Masters hovered around +400, an absurdly low number not seen since Tiger Woods’s prime two decades earlier. 

An opening 66 made his odds drop even more, and he shot 72 in the windswept Friday round to own the 36-hole lead by one over Morikawa. A third-round 71 maintained the margin and gave him Sunday’s final tee time, and while he was tied at the top for a while on the front nine, he never relinquished the lead. 

Scheffler is a two-time Masters winner in just five starts; only Horton Smith won two faster—two of the first three tournaments, in 1934 and ’36. And the air of inevitability will continue to hang in the air from now until the next major, the PGA Championship in May.