AUGUSTA, Ga. — The statistical models had it all mapped out. The narrative told in his recent form was the world’s most obvious foreshadowing. His pre-tournament news conference — in which he once again spoke of golf as something that he “does” and not as something that defines his life — practically solidified it.

Scottie Scheffler was always going to win the 88th Masters Tournament. And Sunday, he simply made it happen.

“It’s really impressive,” Max Homa said after losing to Scheffler by seven shots. “You just know that he’s going to be there, and he’s going to play well.”

By slipping on his second green jacket in two years Sunday afternoon, Scheffler became the second player to win the Masters and The Players Championship in the same season, joining Tiger Woods. Scheffler was already frequenting the same sentences as the 15-time major champion, but now it’s clear that will become a weekly ritual, perhaps for many years.

We are witnessing a display of greatness we haven’t seen in some time from anyone, and we should cherish the gift. Scheffler is the type of player who has that rare gravitational pull. When he expertly plots his way around a golf course and leaves his peers in the dust, it’s difficult to look away. It doesn’t look like we’ll need to anytime soon.

Scheffler’s dominance emanates from his 6-3 build. He swings with a freedom and flexibility that defies physics. Randy Smith, Scheffler’s coach since he was 7 years old, says the Texan has “the best pair of hands I’ve ever seen in my life.” His athletic figure allows him to harness immense power, and his unwavering fundamentals keep the ball in the fairway. Though it might disappear from time to time, he proved that his touch and eye for Augusta National’s undulating greens are unmatched.

A champion once again. #themasters pic.twitter.com/iQtyCyNekc

— The Masters (@TheMasters) April 14, 2024

But the true source of Scheffler’s dominance rests between his ears.

In his green jacket ceremony, Scheffler apologized to the patrons of Augusta National for walking with his head down throughout Sunday’s round.

Scheffler heard the warm applause on every tee box and every green. He felt the roars. He saw the outstretched hands protruding past the gallery ropes. Out of the corners of his eyes, he sensed the presence of hundreds of young golfers looking to contribute to their role model’s final-round push in any way they could, to somehow claim a stake in his second Masters victory.

But Scheffler kept his gaze pointed downward. He didn’t like it, but there wasn’t time for any of that Sunday. There never is — just like there isn’t time for scouring over unnecessary TrackMan data or sitting through long-winded interviews that delve into his personal life. Scheffler doesn’t have a single social media platform downloaded on his phone. He has all the digital golf publications on the internet blocked from his newsfeed so he can stay informed but simultaneously above the fray.

“Nothing,” says Rory McIlroy when asked what’s going on in Scheffler’s head right now. “Nothing. Not a lot of clutter. The game feels pretty easy when you’re in stretches like this. That’s the hard thing whenever you’re not quite in form. You are searching and you’re thinking about it so much, but then when you are in form, you don’t think about it at all.”

The scariest part of Scheffler’s greatness is that it’s starting to come easily.

Until the final putt dropped and he launched into a long embrace with his caddie, Ted Scott, Scheffler’s four-shot victory at the Masters looked emotionless. That was never the case. Scheffler’s performance coach, Troy Van Biezen, says Scheffler’s superpower rests in the fact you can never tell if he’s 5 over par or 5 under par.

Scheffler wanted to win this tournament, badly. He told his friends Sunday morning that he wished he didn’t have such an intense competitive hunger. “I told them, I wish I didn’t want to win as badly as I did or as badly as I do. I think it would make the mornings easier,” Scheffler said.

Scottie Scheffler celebrated with his family after his second Masters win. (Adam Cairns / USA Today)

Scheffler has the ultimate want and the will — he always has. As a teenager, Scheffler would show up to Royal Oaks, his home course in Dallas, wearing pants rather than golf shorts to mirror his PGA Tour idols. He stayed patient through a yearslong growth spurt that derailed his swing into his early 20s. He’s played one season on the Korn Ferry Tour and four years on the PGA Tour, and Scheffler has not once thrown in the towel when things did not seem to be going his way.

Scheffler has the drive, but he also has the separation. The 27-year-old devout Christian — who will become a father when his wife, Meredith, gives birth to their first child soon — knows that golf isn’t everything. Scheffler was prepared to withdraw from the Masters if he got the call from Meredith, and now, all he wants to do is go home to her.

“My identity is secure already,” Scheffler said Sunday evening. “I get to come out here and compete, have fun, enjoy it; and then at the end of the day, win or lose, my identity is secure.”

GO DEEPER

Ten notes to know on Scottie Scheffler’s Masters win and the final round

Scheffler’s unique concoction of mental and physical traits has led him to become a generational talent. Sunday, as he found Augusta’s table-top-sized landing areas with ease and continued to pour in birdie putts when the tournament was already his, Scheffler proved that.

His disposition isn’t changing, and he’s not going anywhere.

This is only the beginning, and we’ll want to remember it.

(Top photo: Andrew Redington / Getty Images)

A Moto3 GP rider had an unfortunate mishap during a race on Monday at the Circuit of the Americas in Texas.

Ivan Ortola and Stefano Nepa collided in Turn 15 and both fell to the ground. Nepa’s bike kept running without anyone on it, and it crashed into the barrier. 

However, video showed Ortola going after the renegade bike with Nepa yelling at him as he trailed behind. Ortola appeared to try to get on the wrong bike. Nepa yelled at Ortola to get back onto his own bike.

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Ortola was forced to retire from the race, but Nepa was able to finish in 18th. Ortola, from Spain, is fourth in the championship standings behind Joel Kelso. He had two career victories in Moto3.

SAM MAYER EDGES RYAN SIEG BY .002 SECONDS TO WIN XFINITY SERIES RACE IN TEXAS: ‘THAT’S UNREAL’

Nepa is back in 10th place behind Joel Esteban and ahead of Jacob Roulstone. He has yet to secure a victory in 100 races.

Stefano Nepa, #82 of Italy and Levelup – Mta KTM, during the free practice of the Grande Premio Tissot de Portugal at Autodromo do Algarve on March 22, 2024 in Lagoa, Algarve, Portugal. (Jose Breton/Pics Action/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

David Alonso, who took the pole position after setting a lap-record in practice, won the race. He also shortened the gap in the championship points to just two behind Daniel Holgado.

Holgado narrowly finished ahead of Angel Piqueras by 0.013 seconds.

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Bayer Leverkusen’s long-suffering fans had waited 120 years for their team to win a league title. On Sunday, with their first Bundesliga crown just seven minutes away, their patience finally ran out.

When Florian Wirtz’s second goal gave Leverkusen a 4-0 lead over Werder Bremen in the 83rd minute of a game it had to win to clinch the championship, supporters began poring out of the stands and onto the pitch. On the bench, players danced and hugged one another.

When Wirtz scored again moments later, the stands again emptied and referee Harm Osmers abandoned the match. What more did anyone need to see?

Not only had Leverkusen at long last shed its Anglicized nickname “Neverkusen,” but it had done so in dramatic fashion, running its German-record unbeaten streak to 43 games in all competition to secure the title with five weeks left in the season.

“Finally, we can say Bayer Leverkusen is German champion,” said coach Xabi Alonso, who took over early last season when the team was facing relegation. “The first title is always special for everyone. So to be part of this history feels incredible.”

With Sunday’s win, Leverkusen ended Bayern Munich’s 11-season reign as Bundesliga champion — a run Alonso helped start by leading Bayern to three straight championships as a player a decade ago. And there may be more history to come since Leverkusen (25-0-4) is bidding to become the first team to finish a Bundesliga season unbeaten.

With 13 points in its final five games, Leverkusen would break Munich’s record of 91 points in a season, set in 2013, and it also has a chance at a treble since it leads West Ham 2-0 after the first leg of the Europa League quarterfinal and will face second-division Kaiserslautern in the German Cup final in Berlin on May 25.

“We are not focusing on record numbers,” said Simon Rolfes, a former Leverkusen player and academy manager who, as managing director of sport, was the architect of the championship roster. “We are focusing on the [two] running competitions. The season is not over. Jobs have to be done still.”

The title didn’t come cheaply, with Rolfes spending more than $96 million on six players in last summer’s transfer window. But he got what he paid for with the newly acquired pair of Victor Boniface and Alex Grimaldo combining for 20 goals and 20 assists while longtime goalkeeper Lukas Hradecky led the league in shutouts (14) and save percentage (78.7%).

Yet Leverkusen’s payroll, estimated at $70 million a year, remains just a quarter of what Bayern Munich is spending. Leverkusen wins because it is more a team than a collection of stars, with four players — led by Boniface and the 20-year-old Wirtz, a product of Leverkusen’s development system — contributing at least eight goals and seven assists each.

“We’re proud of the style of play we’ve shown on the field this year,” Rolfes said in an email interview. “Balance and depth is crucial. When Boniface went down with an injury, others were there to secure our results. There are many players in the team that have strong offensive skills — but they put the group in front, not themselves.”

Bayern Leverkusen players celebrate after winning the Bundesliga title on Sunday.

(Martin Meissner / Associated Press)

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Vanquishing Bayern Munich, the richest club in Germany and the sixth-richest in the world, is a major achievement, not just for Leverkusen but for the Bundesliga and all of club soccer.

Europe’s top five leagues have long been dominated by super clubs, meaning most teams — and their supporters — had little reason to aspire to a championship when the season began. That power structure may be crumbling, however. Juventus, which won nine consecutive titles in Italy’s Serie A, will finish short of the summit for a fourth straight season this year. And Spain’s La Liga hasn’t had a repeat winner in five years.

“Perhaps it’s healthy for the Bundesliga, also for German football, for another team to win,” Alonso said.

But doing that takes more than just the team on the field, said Fernando Carro, the team’s Barcelona-born CEO.

“Of course, the squad mainly constructed by Simon Rolfes is excellent. Xabi Alonso’s work as a head coach is outstanding. That is apparent,” said Carro, who joined Leverkusen in 2018. “But the truth is you need many parts of the organization delivering up to 100%; efforts that might be invisible to the outside, but [are] important factors for sustainable growth and success.

“Last you need, very simply, a bit of luck — because sports will never be predictable.”

Bayern Leverkusen fans hold up a banner depicting coach Xabi Alonso during a match against Werder Bremen on Sunday.

(Martin Meissner / Associated Press)

The challenge now is for Rolfes and Carro to take advantage of the opportunities Leverkusen’s historic season present. Even if the team falls short in its two remaining competitions, it is the German champion and the only unbeaten team in a major European league. That will mean millions of dollars in additional sponsorships, money that can be spent to pay the many players who are now likely to listen to the team’s offers.

“Naturally having an attractive squad on the field and historic results benefits the business side of the organization,” Carro said. “We need to take advantage of the momentum.

“Coming from a business background, I found it important from the beginning back in 2018, to look at the organizational and personnel tasks in order to professionalize Bayer. We invested in brand building and digital projects in tailored international content for our core markets. We played two games in the USA and Mexico in 2022 and plan on diverse projects globally for the near future.”

But Carro cautioned against making Leverkusen’s success solely about the bottom line.

“Nobody working in sports should take decisions just because of possible revenues,” he said. “I love my job. I love to help lift an organization and its people to another level.

“Success on the field and rising attention then almost automatically will make it easier to increase your resources.”

Whether that will make Leverkusen perennial contenders or a one-season flash in the pan remains to be seen. After all, the team has won just one title in 120 years. Bayern Munich has won the Bundesliga 17 times this century alone.

“Bayern has resources that other clubs in our league do not have and they can keep their team together while others in the Bundesliga need to transfer their players for revenue generation,” Carro said. “But we’ve always known that we could put a team together to challenge and possibly even overtake them.

“Myself, I always want to win, no matter how good the chances might be. You have to believe that you can do it.”

On Sunday they did.

⚽ You have read the latest installment of On Soccer with Kevin Baxter. The weekly column takes you behind the scenes and shines a spotlight on unique stories. Listen to Baxter on this week’s episode of the Corner of the Galaxy podcast.