2022 Masters: Best battle of the season for the blue jacket as Cameron Smith takes aim at the hottest Scottie Scheffler in red
AUGUST, Ga. – Rarely in sports, the two best teams or players in a given season meet to win the game’s biggest prize. Think of all the quasi-titanic clashes not yet happened for many years. The upstream played out, the teams taking the lead and the fans left theorizing about what could happen.
2022 Masters is not one of those times. By any metric and from any angle, Scottie Scheffler and Cameron Smith are already the two best golfers in the world in 2022, and on Sunday afternoon at Augusta National they’ll meet right on the trigger first ball without anyone else even as they battled each other for a green jacket.
Scheffler leads at 9 under after losing 1 under 71 on Saturday. Smith was 3 years old again at 6 years old after 68 years old Monday of the week (and Saturday is the lap of the day). The pair emerged from the cold, windy and often lifeless threes, in which the beanies stood out more than the resounding roars that regularly raced down the hills and alcoves of Augusta National on Saturday afternoon .
With just seven players below points, Scheffler and Smith – the two hottest golfers alive – set the stage for what could go down as one of the great matches in Masters finals history.
This week has been a microcosm of their years. There have been 13 non-face-to-face PGA Tour events this season, and Scheffler and Smith have won five of them, including four of the last five with at least one on the field.
As of January 1, they rank #1 and #2 in the Official World Golf Rankings by points earned, total strokes (per data golf) and PGA Tour wins.
This week, they’re number one and two in terms of strokes from tee to green, birdies on 54 holes and oh yeah, on the leaderboard.
Scheffler led Smith three and Sungjae Im five. No one else is within Scheffler’s six or Smith’s three. At the last 31 Masters, 26 champions have come from the last pair, and while a magic round from Im – in other words from golfers 2 under or 1 under – is certainly possibleAt this point, it would take something unthinkable to get ahead of both of them.
Going into Saturday’s third round, I’m curious as to who will come out on top to challenge Scheffler in the toughest conditions of the week (technically, the second round average is higher than the third, but the third round is not bloated with scores of amateurs and past champions). Smith turned out to be that guy. He went out at 34 and returned home on Saturday. That symmetry proves his yo-yo rings. On Thursday, he made eight birdies and two doubles at 68. In the final round of The Players Championship in March, an event he won, Smith made 10 birdies and only four parses.
If you’re looking for a Jordan Spieth Sunday Roller Coaster fax to get on board, Smith is your guy.
“[Winning The Players] just means I can finish it, I guess against the best boys in the world,” Smith said on Saturday. It’s a good feeling to have. It was earned. It is not given to you. So I’m going to have to go out there tomorrow and play good golf again, maybe like today. Hopefully, everything just falls into its place. I can’t control what other people will do tomorrow. So yeah, just get out there and really focus on yourself. “
This Sunday’s battle is reminiscent of 2018 when Patrick Reed led Rory McIlroy by three to advance to the final round with no one else in sight. McIlroy pulled in in round one on the second hole, but Reed vaporized him the rest of the way. Smith needed to put pressure on Scheffler that McIlroy couldn’t apply to Reed in the first nine seasons and then let things play out in the second nine.
After winning the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play at the end of March, Scheffler choked up how he loved competing. It’s instructive because his swing and game don’t have “world number 1” written on it like Justin Thomas, Rory McIlroy or Adam Scott’s games. On Saturday night, he reiterated how much he longed for the moment.
“Tomorrow will be a great battle,” said Scheffler. “Obviously, Cam is a great player, and he’s having a great short game, and he’s winning big at The Players. We’re both in good form, so I’m sure. Definitely looking forward to the challenge of playing with him tomorrow. …Playing in the last group is always fun, so I’m looking forward to it.”
What we get on Sunday at masters is very rare, especially in golf. Because there are so many swaps at events with so many golfers on the course, it almost never goes wrong, so the two best are also the last two in range on Sunday afternoon.
It’s even better in terms of style. The clean-looking Texan looked like he was about to enter middle age compared to a sassy Australian who had to keep his hair down to his chin to look old enough to buy a drink.
Scheffler finished it right away. Smith has the best short game in the world. Both are hit straight from the fairway. It wasn’t a fair fight as Scheffler lost the first three innings, and Smith needed a healthy comeback on Sunday to claim the belt. It’s almost better that way, though, with Scheffler trying to get to the house and Smith trying to keep him on the road until he can knock him down.
The golf course in 2022 was built in this direction. Two iconic figures of the year clash for the most coveted canvas in all of sports. They’ve delivered a lot of great moments so far, and at least one of them has won the tournament in each of the first three months. That will almost certainly stretch to four on Sunday, though we still don’t know who will do it.
However, what we do know, based on the evidence we have this year, is that no matter who wins or how it plays out or the final scoreline, Scottie Scheffler and Cam Smith will do what they did. do at every turn so far in this season. . When they tee off late on a Georgia afternoon as the weather tries to get warm again, they’ll go out and give us another gig.
Watch the 2022 Masters live on Sunday with Master Live as we follow the best golfers in the world during Augusta National with Featured groupsRegister at famous Angle Amen and watch the leaders turn on one by one hole 15 & 16. Watch live on CBSSports.comthe CBS Sports App and Supreme +.
