It is Scheffler’s second green jacket in three years. They are his only two major championships, but if he keeps playing carefree, expect him to be the favorite at the PGA Championship next month at the Valhalla, the U.S. Open at Pinehurst in June, and the British Open at Troon in July.

And everywhere in between. He’s won three of his last four starts, and he lost the fourth in a playoff. He’s playing with a clarity seldom seen. McIlroy achieved it in streaks, like winning his four majors in three years between 2011-14, but never with the dogged consistency of Scheffler.

It’s been almost 20 years, in fact; Tiger Woods’ second era of dominance, when he won six majors and 25 tournaments in a four-year span. Whereas Tiger competed with stone-faced stoicism, Scottie plays like a guy getting a freebie at his father-in-law’s club.

Most golfers agonize over every unlucky wind gust, every bad bounce, and every weird break on the greens. Scheffler accepts the game’s annoyances the way a long-haul trucker ignores people who text-and-drive. He swings, he walks, he swings again.

What’s in his mind?

“Not a lot of clutter,” McIlroy explained. “The game feels pretty easy when you’re in stretches like this.”

DeChambeau tied for sixth. Like McIlroy, whose 4-over score left him 22nd and still without a Masters title to complete his career grand slam, they left Augusta to wrestle with their demons.

“That’s the hard thing, whenever you’re not quite in form. You are searching and you are thinking about it so much,” McIlroy said. “But then, when you are in form, you don’t think about it at all.”

Scheffler swings a golf club like a 12-year-old boy determined on hitting the range cart 400 yards away. As he shifts his weight from back to front his foot slides backward on his big toe, then he lifts it off the ground. His left foot turns over, his ankle almost touches the ground, and his left toe raises.

It is long and free and powerful and beautiful and ugly and perfect for him. It is a lesson in teaching athletic form: No jump shot or golf swing or pitching motion is perfect, so the best coaches should conform their coaching to what’s best for each pupil.

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