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What a day of golf. The best part? We get to do it for three more days …

Scottie vs. Rory?

AUGUSTA, Ga. – It’s time.

The two dominant forces of the last four years of pro golf have seldom been able to line up their best golf at the same time. We’ve had Scottie Scheffler tournaments and Rory McIlroy tournaments, but very rarely both. It’s just one round at the Masters, but we might be in store for our best chance yet for a duel between the two best players of this generation. McIlroy shot 5-under 67 to share the first-round lead with Sam Burns; Scheffler shot 2-under 70 in the afternoon as conditions firmed up.

Remember the last time we had a true Rory vs. Scottie faceoff? It’s only happened twice: the 2022 TOUR Championship and Sunday Singles at last year’s Ryder Cup. McIlroy overcame a six-shot deficit in the final round to unseat Scheffler and claim the FedExCup, but that was before Scheffler truly evolved into this version of himself. The Ryder Cup was a notable victory for Scheffler, though neither played particularly well that final day. Really, the two have only played together in the final round with real stakes one other time – the 2023 U.S. Open – and both players left unhappy that day, with Wyndham Clark holding the trophy.

Despite all the wins and close calls from each independently, you can count their face-offs on one hand, and with room to spare. We will have plenty more time to dissect Scheffler and McIlroy over the next few days, so let’s highlight a couple of stats to watch over the next few days.

McIlroy ranked 13th in Strokes Gained: Putting on Thursday and is likely bound for some negative regression. On the flip side, he ranked just 19th in SG: Off-the-Tee, which is ripe for positive regression. He hit only one fairway on the first nine.

Scheffler ranked second in SG: Off-the-Tee, notable given his dalliances with various drivers over the last two months. He’s due for some positive regression on the greens. He was 44th in putting.

Playing through

• ↪️ Round 1 review: Full breakdown of Thursday at Augusta National ...
• 🗣️ Hardest Masters since? Players think things could get insanely difficult this weekend …
• 🤕 “Toughest round I’ve ever played": Collin Morikawa battles mental demons …

Old man mastery

The old man walked with purpose, driver in hand. He still might need it after all.

There was an ease to his strut, knifing through the center of the fairway. Efficient. Weightless. As if every passing step shed a year off his 60-year-old body. His younger playing partners, nearly 40 years his junior, lagged behind with their heads hung. Augusta National was doling out all they could handle. It has a way of doing that to the uninitiated, to those who don’t know when to be aggressive and where to miss.

For those who do, time can stand still at Augusta National, and I wanted a glimpse.

I caught José María Olazábal on the eighth fairway, which was an easy task because Aldrich Potgieter and Rasmus Neergaard-Petersen were holding him up. As Potgieter searched for his ball way left in the trees, Olazábal opted against another hefty thwack with the driver. He wasn’t going to get to the par-5 green anyway. His fairway metal set him up with a 90-yard wedge, which he played to about 45 feet and two-putted. Not flashy nor excellent. But in his 37th start at the Masters, it was enough to keep him unscathed and moving forward. You couldn’t say the same for Potgieter, who tapped in for double-bogey, already his third of the day. At the next, Olazábal hit a squirrely drive, but pitched his ball up short of the green, then displayed the hands that made him a Masters winner, spinning a shot up onto the correct tier and within a few feet of the hole.

It was at this moment that I thought of Gary Player’s line from the day before, when he plucked a kid out of the crowd and carried him around the green.

“One day, when I'm an old man, we'll go play a round together,” the 90-year-old Player said to the kid.

Maybe Olazábal should hit Potgieter with this line as they walked to the 10th tee, 10 strokes apart. The two played completely different sports on Thursday morning. Olazábal was 2-under par, in sole possession of the lead. Potgieter was last at 8 over. Another win for the time-tested narrative that experience wins out at Augusta National.

“Everybody was in shock,” Olazábal would later say of his time atop the leaderboard.

Watching Olazábal navigate his way around the first nine made me envious that I wasn’t around for his prime. His deft touch had not aged, and his shot into the 10th, a carved long iron from 189 yards that perfectly fit the shot shape of the hole and settled pin high, made me think his prime wasn’t far off from what I was watching. After his up and down at No. 12, Olazábal had gained about 4.5 strokes around the green, which backed what I saw with my eyes. It ended up over five strokes, an unheard-of short game performance. It also portended what I would watch on my laptop as I retreated to the Press Building, ready to write about everything I had seen. Eventually, the magic runs out if the only thing you have going for you is your chipping. Olazábal shot 4-over par on the second nine, doomed by a double at the par-5 15th. But Thursday served up an early reminder of what makes the Masters great, when a 60-year-old Masters champion can turn back the clock, lead after nine holes and tell the whole field, “One day, when I'm an old man, we'll go play a round together.”

Parting shots

• 7️⃣ The par-4 seventh was the hardest hole on the course on Thursday, which came as a mild surprise to me. Turns out it was the highest single-round scoring average ever on the seventh hole (4.417).
• ☀️ Augusta National is exactly where we want it to be. Jason Day said he can already see some purple developing in the first fairway. Shane Lowry said it has the makings of the “toughest” Masters in a long time. Evidence of that: Skill is separating itself from an average TOUR event and from an average Masters round, per our friends at Data Golf. So it’s no surprise the leaderboard looks how it does.
• 😬 Collin Morikawa shot 2-over par in his first competitive round since withdrawing from THE PLAYERS with back spasms. Going back through his swings, you can tell he’s lacking some freedom to attack the ball off the tee. That said, 74 isn’t that bad given his lack of reps. Wrote about his concerning comments after the round here.
• ⬆️⬇️ One more Olazábal note: He led the field in SG: Around-the-Green and was third-to-last in SG: Approach. Or, in other words, the reverse Kurt Kitayama, who led the field in SG: Approach and was fourth-worst in SG: Around-the-Green.
• 1️⃣0️⃣ Here’s the stat everyone loves: 18 of the last 20 Masters winners have been T10 or better after Round 1. The two outliers were McIlroy last year and Tiger Woods in 2019. So, if we believe in the trend, take a look at the leaderboard below. Your winner is one of them.

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