In an era dominated by YouTube golfers, it turns out the best content is created by a “traditional” golf brand nearly a century old.
Augusta National.
A modest 407,000 people subscribe to the Masters YouTube page, partly because it posts just one video per week most of the year. But March is when things ramp up for the Masters content team. March might actually be its best month, as evidenced by what we received last week: Scottie Scheffler explaining every hole of the golf course in exacting detail.
You’ve seen aerial footage of the course before. Intros and outros from the CBS broadcast send drones swerving through the tall loblolly pines. It serves as just enough of a tease to think we know the place, from 1 to 2, all the way through 18 green. But we’ll never really know it. Not from the back tees during a tournament in early April. That is part of its allure. Augusta National is a major mystery to us because it remains a serious mystery for the best golfers in the world.
That’s where only only a short list of people can actually help us, and Scheffler sits atop the list.
It’s possible veteran pros know Augusta National better than Scottie, but their game is either irrelevant or unavailable. Tiger Woods hasn’t contended at Augusta since he won six years ago, and he’s not sitting down in his green jacket to talk about his approach anytime soon. Scheffler has climbed the mountain twice in the last three years, in largely dominant fashion each time, his surname rising inevitably up those big white scoreboards the same way the name Woods used to. That’s because he plays the course in a way Woods used to: limiting disaster and knowing when to switch into fifth gear versus throttle down to neutral.
And what are those spots where Scheffler is switching gears?
The aiming point on 2? Just inside those trees up the left.
On that 5th hole — par is “a really, really good score,” and bogey really isn’t bad.
The 6th green, well, you’re really just focusing on two-putting up the hill to its back right hole locations.
The expected score difference missing the 7th fairway? At least half a shot.
Folks, that’s just part of the front nine. But as you watch and learn for about a half hour, take note of how rare this piece of content is. For zero dollars, you can attend a Masters masterclass unlike the kind anyone else could (or would be willing to) give you. It is Scheffler in his greatest form: knowing ball, as the kids say, and sharing it.
The greatest golfer on earth has earned a critical eye from media the last two years, which is what happens when you play the kind of golf he’s played. He’s made more media appearances than anyone not named Rory McIlroy, and with that comes a natural level of fatigue Scheffler showed late in the summer. Rather than lean in to specific storylines, Scheffler prefers to remain in Simpletown. He says he doesn’t care much about the records like golf media and fans do. He doesn’t get caught up looking for momentum or attaching one result to whatever is next. He forces himself to detach his golf from his private life, which, again, he prefers to keep as simple as possible. If you need proof, there’s some on Netflix’s Full Swing, which captured just how plain a life he wants to live.
A perfect motto for his last 24 months of golfing brilliance? If it ain’t broke, don’t ask me to fix it. But we’re not asking him to make the car go any faster — we just want to know what it feels like driving it.
His public approach will almost always result in fans, viewers, media, etc. wanting more from the game’s best player, and for better or worse, that’s the cross he’ll have to bear. But that doesn’t mean we can’t take note of what he’s best at, which is answering really good, specific questions with really great, hyper-specific information. His greatest skill in front of the microphone isn’t playing hype man or being vulnerable or sharing every ounce of information about his life. It’s diving into the minutiae.
Scheffler remembers some things and seems to purposefully forget others. His first time playing the 1st hole in competition? No recollection. But listen in as he paints a vivid picture of an important par on the 12th hole during his 2022 Masters win. Take note of how simply he decides whether or not to go for the 13th green. You’ll look at the 4th hole differently next week, now that you know where Scheffler’s preferred miss is.
Scheffler is remarkably aware of which holes have low-hanging trees up a particular side, which you might expect of a two-time Masters champ. But on our side of the Masters broadcast, that information isn’t always delivered with the same sense of importance. To the golf fan at home, tee shots can feel like fairway, first cut, or bust. Obviously, it’s way more than that.
Throughout the video, Scheffler is teed up in ways no press conference ever could. And for anyone who has sat down with Scheffler, myself included, the difference in what that delivers should make sense. The calculus for getting the most out of him is to sequence the questions in smart order, drilling a little bit deeper each time, and when you’ve struck gold it’s okay to move on. There’s more to find elsewhere.
Scheffler becomes so clearly invested in the act of baring his Masters truths that, when shown video of his first win, he cracks and begins tearing up. Nearly three years removed from that triumph, we get to watch him watch his younger version walk arm in arm with his high school sweetheart. He sees his 25-year-old, clean-shaven, ebullient self, before he was a father, before he was an Olympian, before he knew he was capable of winning nine times in a season … and before becoming the kind of golfer we demand answers of constantly. Let this content masterpiece be a reminder of just how many answers there are.
