The Masters is approaching, the first Major of the season and the iconic tournament that the world’s best players set their sights on and focus all their efforts. A meeting that will gather at the Augusta National an exclusive list of chosen ones, including several golfers from LIV Golf, such as the defending champion, Jon Rahm. Although it is no secret that in this edition of the prestigious Georgia event, the one to beat, once again, will be Scottie Scheffler.
As if it were the awakening of spring, the player from Ridgewood, New Jersey, has found his best form in these weeks leading up to the fight for the Green Jacket. He won the Arnold Palmer Invitational on March 10th. Seven days later, he won the THE PLAYERS, known as the fifth Major. And last weekend he tied for second in the Texas Children’s Houston Open, fighting until the last moment for his particular consecutive ‘hat-trick’.
With this display of play and results, Scheffler has shot his lead as Number One in the World Golf Ranking to 4.67 points. Since the best times of Dustin Johnson on the PGA Tour, such a large difference between the leader of the OWGR ranking and the best of his pursuers had not been seen. But the world ranking expert @VC606 from the social network Twitter has offered a fact that clearly demonstrates Scottie‘s enormous power.
#OWGR No.1 watch (from far behind 🔭)
Scottie is now ~4.67 average points ahead of Rory at the top of OWGR. Rory would need to win Valero, Masters and Heritage (with Scottie not doing very much) to catch him…
— Nosferatu (@VC606) April 1, 2024
To have any chance of dethroning Scheffler from the throne of the World Ranking in the coming weeks, Rory McIlroy, the nº 2 of the OWGR, would have to win the Valero Texas Open this week, win the Augusta Masters next week and then win the Heritage again… And even then he wouldn’t have the Number One assured! He would also need Scottie not to do particularly well in Augusta or in the Heritage, if he decided to compete.
In short, everything points to the fact that there is a Number One for a while. An iron-fisted dominance of the burly player formed at the University of Texas that undoubtedly makes him the one to beat next week in the fight for the Green Jacket. A tournament that he won in 2022 and for which he will fight both with McIlroy and, surely, with the good Jon Rahm, who beyond organising the Champions Dinner, arrives in Augusta ready to prove that his move to LIV Golf has not diminished his ambition to leave a mark on golf history.
