Scottie Scheffler, the world’s number one golfer, was crying and stressed out hours before Sunday’s final round of the Masters, feeling overwhelmed and convinced he wasn’t ready to win the green jacket. The 25-year-old American, the poster of keeping calm and carrying on while upon the course, shook off his anxiety to win his first major title on Sunday at Augusta National.
But it didn’t happen until Scheffler listened to his wife Meredith, examined his issues, collected himself and trusted in his shotmaking skills. “I cried like a baby this morning,” Scheffler said. “I was so stressed out. I didn’t know what to do. I was sitting there telling Meredith, ‘I don’t think I’m ready for this. I’m not ready, I don’t feel like I’m ready for this kind of stuff,’ and I just felt overwhelmed.”
Meredith fixed him breakfast and he relaxed. She gave him verbal nutrition for his confidence as well. “She told me, ‘Who are you to say that you’re not ready?’” Scheffler said. “And so what we talked about is that God is in control and that the Lord is leading me and if today is my time, it’s my time .”
Scheffler fired a final-round one-under-par 71 to finish 72 holes on 10-under 278 and defeat four-time major winner Rory McIlroy by three strokes with Australian Cameron Smith and Ireland’s Shane Lowry sharing third on 283.  
Scheffler said he relaxed when he arrived at Augusta National and felt on his game after chipped 26 yards at the first hole to set up a three-foot par putt. “I calmed down when I got to the course. Right when I got to the training room,” he said. “Pretty much after parring the first hole I felt good.”
Scheffler, who won his first US PGA title only eight weeks ago and took his fourth on Sunday, said he had never endured such angst before a final round, especially carrying a three-stroke advantage into the last round of the event he most dreamed about winning since boyhood. “I think because it’s the Masters,” he said. 
“I dreamed of having a chance to play in this golf tournament. I teared up the first time I got my invitation in the mail. I love this golf course. This would be the tournament I would want to win. You don’t know how many chances you’re going to get. I don’t know if you get better opportunities than that. You don’t want to waste them.”
Just before 2021 champion Hideki Matsuyama of Japan slipped the green jacket symbolic of Masters supremacy on his shoulders, Scheffler said he was glad for needing three tries from inside five feet on the 18th green to hole his last putt. “I’m kind of glad I had a little hiccup there on the last hole,” he said. “It made me a little less emotional.”
Low-key Scheffler said he might not be recalled with more flamboyant Masters winners such as Tiger Woods, who attracted bigger crowds most of the week with his amazing comeback from severe leg injuries suffered in a car crash 14 months ago. “The human condition is to make things bigger than they really are,” Scheffler said. “And years from now I would say people may not remember me as a champion and that’s fine. But in the moment, you think it’s a lot bigger deal than it really is.”
Scheffler, who tightened his grip on world number one with a breakthrough major triumph in a week where five rivals could have dethroned him, said he never imagined he would be regarded as the world’s top golfer. “I never expected to be sitting where I am now,” Scheffler said. “You don’t expect things to come to you in this life. You just do the best that you can with the hand you’re dealt and just go from there. I never really thought I was that good at golf, so I just kept practising and kept working hard and that’s just what I’m going to keep doing.”
Scheffler, who only won his first PGA title in February, holed a spectacular chip-in birdie from 87 feet at the par-4 third to blunt an early charge by Smith, last month’s Players Championship winner. He also birdied the 14th and sank a 14-foot birdie putt at the par-5 15th to signal there would be no collapse to open a door for McIlroy, chasing an Augusta National win to complete a career Grand Slam.
Scheffler endured an agonising double bogey at the 18th hole, needing three putts from inside five feet before finally sinking the putt to secure his breakthrough major triumph. The 25-year-old American took a $2.7 million top prize from a $15 million purse and joined 1991 Masters champion Ian Woosnam as the only players to win majors in their debut events as world number one. Scheffler is only the fifth player to win the Masters while atop the rankings, joining Welshman Woosnam and Americans Fred Couples, Dustin Johnson and Woods, whose epic injury fightback dominated attention all week.