The first major of the season is on the horizon and the biggest stars in golf are getting into top form for The Masters.

Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy are stamped as the top two players in the game at the moment and will head to Augusta National as the favorites to wear the Green Jacket on Sunday evening. However, the two could not have more different track records in the heart of Georgia.

Scheffler is the current king of Augusta National after taking home the Green Jacket in both 2022 and 2024. He has never finished outside of the top 20 in five starts at Augusta and is always a threat to win there.

Recent form hasn’t been quite as kind to Scheffler. He has yet to win a tournament in six starts, but a strong week leading to a T-2 finish in Houston should give him plenty of momentum heading into The Masters.

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ESPN’s Andy North, a two-time U.S. Open Champion, doesn’t expect that lack of winning to affect Scheffler at his most successful major.

“I would think this is going to be a really big week for him,” North said during a pre-tournament press conference with the media. “He needs to win [this season]. In his mind, he needs to win here pretty soon. I think he was really hoping it could have been last week. But he’s playing well.

“I’m not worried about Scottie at all. I think he’ll be right there at the end. I think it’s going to be really fun to see how he handles it, and obviously, he knows how to get it around that place pretty well.”

On the other hand, Augusta National is McIlroy’s biggest hurdle that he has yet to clear in his career. The four-time major champion will be back at Augusta for his 11th go at the career grand slam, but land of the Azaleas has been a house of horrors at times for the Northern Irishman.

McIlroy’s final-round 80 in 2011, and the four-stroke lead that quickly disappeared in the process, will live on in infamy for as long as he is unable to get into the winners circle at The Masters. Recent years haven’t been very kind to the World No. 2 either. He has missed two cuts in his last four starts at Augusta.

“You know, what do you say to a guy — what will we all say to a guy who has more talent in his little finger and just hasn’t performed at one tournament that he desperately wants to win? It doesn’t make him a failure,” ESPN’s Curtis Strange, a two-time major champion in his own right, said.

“That doesn’t make him an underachiever by any stretch. It’s just he hasn’t come through at this one particular week of the year.”

McIlroy doesn’t have the same dilemma that Scheffler does coming into this Masters. He has picked up a pair of wins in 2025, the most recent of which came in a dramatic Monday playoff victory over JJ Spaun at The PLAYERS Championship.

That victory could be a springboard to his first Masters title, according to North.

“I thought it was really important,” North said. “We’ve seen him not finish out some of those type of events. You look at the run he had in majors, playing so well over the last six, seven, eight years, but hasn’t won. I think coming back Monday morning and winning, that was really important.”

One thing that golf fans haven’t gotten to see is a true back-nine battle between Scheffler and McIlroy on Sunday at a major.

It nearly happened once before, at the 2023 U.S Open at Los Angeles Country Club, but Scheffler was never able to close the gap enough on Sunday to threaten McIlroy and eventual champion Wyndham Clark.

The two stars also finished first and second alone at the 2022 Masters, but that was more thanks to a furious rally from McIlroy that never approached Scheffler’s massive lead.

All of that can be thrown in the trash for the 2025 edition of The Masters. Between Scheffler’s dominance at Augusta and McIlroy’s form coming in, we could be in for a classic between the two biggest stars in golf.

“I’m looking forward to the Rory-Scottie show. Okay, that’s the end of conversation. Let’s leave now,” Strange joked.

A few minutes later, he got more serious.

“You go on hunches, and you go on feelings, and I spoke about Rory and Scottie this year,” Strange said. “I really think both of them will be there at the stretch, at the end.”

Golf fans everywhere can only hope.

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