AUGUSTA, Ga. — Twenty years from now, a curious golf fan might look back at the 2022 Masters leaderboard with wonder.

Wait, Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy dueled down the stretch at Augusta National?

They’d be applauded for their effort, but they’d be misguided and wrong. Yes, Scheffler won his first green jacket that year with McIlroy the closest challenger, but those facts muddy an affair that was much closer than it seemed. McIlroy finished hours before Scheffler, shooting a wild 8-under 64 that had little chance of holding up when he finished. Scheffler won by three strokes, and that was with a double bogey on the last hole with the tournament already on ice.

What we’re really getting at here is this: Scheffler and McIlroy have never had a true duel at Augusta National. Heck, they’ve only actually had two meaningful Sunday duels over their entire career. McIlroy came back from six strokes to unseat Scheffler at the 2022 TOUR Championship, and Scheffler edged out McIlroy 1-up in Sunday Singles at the 2025 Ryder Cup as the U.S. attempted a late, ultimately unsuccessful, comeback.

That’s it. Despite all the wins and close calls from each independently, you can count their face-offs on one hand, and with room to spare.

Simply: It’s time.

It’s time that the two best players of the last four years went head-to-head down the stretch. We’ve had Scheffler tournaments and McIlroy tournaments and very rarely both, despite how consistent each has been. We’re through just one round at the Masters, but we might be in store for our best chance yet for a duel between the two top golfers of this generation.

McIlroy shot 5-under 67, making the most of a round that started squirrely. “Honestly, I couldn't have got a lot more out of my round,” he said.

Scheffler shot 2-under and began as well as you could, eagling the second and settling for birdie after a near-eagle miss at the third. “There were a few putts I felt like I made that lipped out or stayed right on the edge. But other than that, really, really a lot of good stuff,” Scheffler said.

Ironically, this showdown may come this year and this week, given that much of the pre-tournament discussion centered on Scheffler’s lack of form and McIlroy’s lack of starts. That left big question marks around both, with most prognosticators going outside the top two players in the world when predicting who would don the green jacket. All that analysis seemed silly by about 2 p.m. on Thursday. At that point, McIlroy had weathered a shaky start that included just one fairway hit on the first nine. He birdied the eighth and ninth holes, then turned around and birdied Nos. 13, 14 and 15 with two lengthy putts that bookended the sequence. As that was going on, Scheffler was making hay on the other side of the course. He holed an 18-footer for eagle at the second hole, then drove the par-4 third green. Scheffler scared the hole from 35 feet and tapped in for birdie.

Scheffler’s round cooled from there. He three-putted the eighth green for a disappointing par and dropped a shot at the 11th. He made seven pars from there to card a 2-under round that he felt he could have gotten more from.

It’s a promising start to what has the potential to be an all-time Masters. Just Scheffler and McIlroy playing together on the weekend would be notable. The two have played together 20 times in their careers, but only three times in a final round, and only twice did they begin those Sundays with a legitimate chance to win for both. Never mind being paired together; there have only been five instances in the past three years in which both players began the final round in the top five. Go back a fourth year, and you hit the 2022 TOUR Championship, but even that was more of a Scheffler collapse than an all-out brawl. McIlroy and Scheffler 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.

There have been other opportunities. McIlroy was tied for fourth, six strokes back of Scheffler, to begin the final round of The Open Championship last year. Scheffler never stumbled and ran away with the tournament. Last year’s Masters seemed to have the makings, but Scheffler stalled on Saturday and was seven shots back of McIlroy entering the final round. Scheffler finished only three shots back of McIlroy, but that makes it seem closer than how it played out in that wild, historic Sunday at Augusta National. Going even further back, Scheffler and McIlroy were both four back of Jon Rahm at the 2024 Olympics. Each made Sunday charges, but only Scheffler sustained. A costly double bogey on the 15th hole sunk McIlroy, while Scheffler made birdie, the second of four consecutive, to win Gold in Paris.

Despite their lack of head-to-head battles, the golf world has been spoiled by their greatness. That doesn’t mean we can’t ask, or dream, for more.

Our dreams may become reality this weekend.