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Scottie Scheffler's second Masters win is what greatness looks like

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Scottie Scheffler's second Masters win is what greatness looks like

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.

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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.

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.

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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.

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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.”

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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)

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Trump admin says SJSU now faces ‘impending enforcement’ for transgender volleyball scandal conflict

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Trump admin says SJSU now faces ‘impending enforcement’ for transgender volleyball scandal conflict

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FIRST ON FOX: President Donald Trump’s Department of Education said it has notified San Jose State University (SJSU) that it faces “impending enforcement action” for its “refusal to comply with Title IX.” 

SJSU and the California State University (CSU) system filed a lawsuit earlier in March to challenge an Education Department investigation that determined the university violated Title IX in its handling of a biological male transgender volleyball player on a women’s team from 2022-24. 

Now, the administration is cracking down against that resistance. 

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“We have provided SJSU with multiple opportunities to resolve its Title IX violations with common sense actions: separating male and female athletes based on their biological sex, keeping men out of women’s locker rooms and bathrooms, restoring rightfully-earned titles and accolades to female athletes, and apologizing to the women forced to forfeit competitions to protect themselves,” Kimberly Richey, the department’s assistant secretary for civil rights, said in an announcement. 

“Yet, SJSU remains obstinate, choosing a radical ideology over safety, dignity, and fairness for its own students. With today’s action, the Department is putting the university on notice: comply with the law or risk losing its federal funding.”

Fox News Digital has reached out to SJSU and CSU for a response.

Brooke Slusser and Blaire Fleming of the San Jose State Spartans call a play against the Air Force Falcons on Oct. 19, 2024, in Colorado Springs, Colorado. (Andrew Wevers/Getty Images)

The conflict between Trump’s administration and the school stems back to the 2024 season, when a national controversy involving transgender player Blaire Fleming triggered an election-cycle media firestorm, all during Trump’s third White House campaign. 

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The Education Department’s investigation has claimed, “SJSU actively recruited and allowed a male to compete on the women’s indoor and beach volleyball teams and reportedly instructed members of the coaching staff not to tell the female players that the athlete was a male.” 

The investigation added that “on multiple occasions, the male athlete spiked the ball so forcefully that it knocked females on the opposing team to the ground.” 

One of the standout details of the investigation’s findings was that a female SJSU player “discovered that the male student had conspired to have a member of the opposing team spike her in the face during an upcoming match. SJSU did not investigate the conspiracy, but later subjected this female athlete to a Title IX complaint for reportedly ‘misgendering’ the male athlete when discussing this incident in online videos and interviews.” 

Former SJSU co-captain Brooke Slusser has included those allegations in her ongoing lawsuit against representatives of SJSU and CSU. 

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After SJSU and CSU announced they were suing the Trump administration to challenge the findings, Slusser, and other former NCAA players, came forward about their alleged experience during the scandal, and how it affected them, in recent interviews with Fox News Digital. 

Slusser, who shared an apartment with Fleming at SJSU without knowing the athlete’s birth sex, became the subject of viral debate after her interview reflecting on the experience sharing spaces with Fleming. 

“You find out you’re just chilling in a bed with a man that you have no idea about… I [was] unknowingly sharing a bed at that time with a man,” Slusser said, also alleging SJSU volleyball coach Todd Kress encouraged her to live in the same apartment as the trans teammate when another group of players was also looking for a final tenant. 

Former Utah State volleyball star Kaylie Ray told Fox News Digital that during matches against SJSU and Fleming in 2022 and ’23, before Fleming’s birth sex was known, she had teammates suffer finger injuries from the trans athlete’s spikes. 

“I had teammates who had seriously jammed their fingers, luckily not broken, but a handful of girls who had sustained minor injuries from the male player,” Ray said, adding, “We knew that if the male athlete had a phenomenal game, there was nothing we could do to stop that person.” 

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Ray’s Utah State team became one of five teams to forfeit at least one game to SJSU in 2024, seemingly in protest of Fleming. She says the forfeit impacted her team’s hopes of winning their fourth straight Mountain West championship. 

Meanwhile, the University of Wyoming forfeited two matches to SJSU in 2024. Former Cowgirls player Macey Boggs told Fox News Digital that the decisions to forfeit the games “permanently ruined” friendships among her teammates. 

“There were some of the girls who I really enjoyed, and we got along great, and then this situation came up, some conflict came up, and ultimately we went in separate directions because of that… as soon as we played in our last game, we all went in separate directions… it was hard to maintain those relationships,” Boggs said. 

SJSU was plagued by a separate Title IX violation in sports that it had to resolve with the Biden administration in 2021. The university ultimately came to a $1.6 million resolution with the Department of Justice in 2021. 

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The DOJ found that SJSU failed for more than a decade to respond adequately to reports of sexual harassment, including sexual assault, of female student-athletes by an athletic trainer then working at SJSU, beginning in 2009 when female student-athletes reported that the trainer subjected them to repeated, unwelcome sexual touching.

The department and SJSU entered into a comprehensive agreement to address the findings of the investigation, which began in June 2020 during Trump’s first term. 

Now, Trump’s current administration is giving the school 10 more days to comply with a series of resolution agreements to resolve the volleyball situation, or face enforcement action, including referral to the DOJ and termination of SJSU’s federal funding.

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‘I’m back’: Tiger Woods to play in TGL championship match with Masters status still unclear

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‘I’m back’: Tiger Woods to play in TGL championship match with Masters status still unclear

Some major Tiger Woods news broke Monday night.

It had nothing to do with the Masters — not directly anyway.

The 50-year-old golfing legend will be playing competitively for the first time in more than a year as his Jupiter Links team competes against Los Angeles in the second match of the best-of-three TGL finals Tuesday night in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.

TGL is a high-tech, indoor golf league that uses simulators and real surfaces, founded by Woods, Rory McIlroy and Mike McCarley in 2022. While a TGL match doesn’t present the same physical challenge as a PGA Tour event, the team event could serve as Woods’ first step toward playing at Augusta National on April 9-12.

Woods last played competitively March 4, 2025, in Jupiter’s final TGL match of that season. He missed all of the PGA season last year as he recovered from a 2024 back surgery and surgery in March 2025 for a ruptured Achilles tendon. Last fall, he underwent disk replacement surgery in his lower back.

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A five-time Masters winner, most recently in 2019, Woods is listed as a 2026 invitee on the tournament website but has yet to confirm his participation.

Last month at the Genesis Invitational, a reporter asked Woods if the Masters was “off the table” for him this year. Woods answered simply, “No.”

In the opening match of the TGL finals Monday night, Jupiter lost 6-5, with Kevin Kisner narrowly missing a birdie chip from 20 feet that would have won the match. Woods was on hand as a team captain and supporter, roles he has served all season.

After the match, Woods told reporters he felt bad for his players — Tom Kim, Max Homa and Kisner — but expressed optimism that Jupiter could still come back and claim the title. If Jupiter wins Match 2, a third match will take place immediately afterward to determine the TGL champion.

“We have possibly two more matches,” Woods said. “We’re not out of this.”

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Woods didn’t mention the possibility of placing himself in the next day’s lineup. After the news conference, however, TGL posted a graphic on X that showed what appears to be Woods’ torso and the words “He’s back,” along with the viewing information for Tuesday’s match.

Moments later, Jupiter Links posted a graphic on X that featured a photo of Woods and the quote, “I’m back.”

Woods will be replacing Kisner in the lineup for at least Match 2. It is unclear if Woods would take part in a possible third match.

Last week, after Jupiter clinched a spot in the finals, Woods told reporters he has been trying to play all season “but it just hasn’t worked out that way.” He added that the players had done well without him and implied that he didn’t foresee any changes ahead of the finals.

“I really don’t want to screw up the lineup,” Woods added. “I just want these guys to keep playing.”

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The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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John Daly calls himself a ‘jacka–‘ after falling down desert hill during tournament

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John Daly calls himself a ‘jacka–‘ after falling down desert hill during tournament

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Golf great John Daly shared a hilarious moment that may have been more serious after watching a video he posted on social media, calling himself a “jacka–” in the process. 

Daly was in desert terrain at the La Paloma Country Club for the Cologuard Classic, when he was trying to hit a shot onto a green when he lost his footing.

As he tried to gain traction in the sand, Daly’s feet fell from under him, and he slid down a long desert hill. Multiple people got involved, voluntarily jumping down the hill to see if Daly was all right. 

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John Daly of the United States plays a tee shot on the first hole during the second round of the Cologuard Classic 2026 at La Paloma Country Club on March 21, 2026, in Tucson, Arizona. (Christian Petersen/Getty Images)

Daly left unscathed, but he did enjoy putting the theme music to the “Jackass” franchise over the video to share to the masses. 

“Bellyfloppin’ in the desert,” Daly captioned the video, while shouting out his caddie, Joel Cooley, who sprang to action to see if his partner was doing fine at the bottom of the hill. 

“On today’s episode of ‘jacka**’” was also seen on top of the video. 

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While he doesn’t usually show off his bellyflopping, Daly remains a key figure in golf.

John Daly of the United States plays his second shot on the ninth hole during the first round of the Cologuard Classic 2026 at La Paloma Country Club on March 20, 2026, in Tucson, Arizona. (Christian Petersen/Getty Images)

He spends most of his time on the course for the Champions Tour, which is former PGA Tour players 50 years and older. His most recent round came on Sunday, where he finished tied for 29th with a 6-under tournament in the Cologuard Classic. 

Daly was just named the 2026 Ambassador of Golf Award honoree ahead of the Kaulig Companies Championship at the signature Firestone Country Club in Akron, Ohio. The award recognizes those making an impact on the course as well as in their communities off the course. 

“I’ve always loved this game and what it’s given me,” he said in a press release for the award. “Golf has taken me places I never imagined and introduced me to incredible people along the way. To be recognized with the Ambassador of Golf Award is truly an honor, and I’m proud to support the meaningful work being done here in Northeast Ohio.”

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John Daly hits his tee shot on the second hole during the final round of the PNC Championship 2025 at Ritz-Carlton Golf Club on Dec. 21, 2025 in Orlando, Florida. (Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images)

Daly’s impact on the sport is quite iconic, whether it’s his monstrous drives from the tee box, winning the 1991 PGA Championship as the ninth alternate in the field, or taking home The Open Championship in 1995 at St. Andrews, forever marking himself as a multi-time major winner. 

His larger-than-life personality has always been on display, even today in silly moments like these on and off the course. 

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