Masters analysis: 10 notes to know on Scottie Scheffler, Bryson DeChambeau after Day 1

Rain may have delayed the beginning of the 88th Masters by a couple of hours, but it certainly didn’t extinguish the fireworks.

A major champion with a mixed history at Augusta National had the best Masters round of his career Thursday. Meanwhile, golf’s unrelenting top performer continued his run of dominant play.

Here are the top numbers and notes to know from Day 1 of the Masters.

1. Brazen and boundary-pushing, Bryson DeChambeau once made a comment that wrinkled green jackets all over Georgia, saying that Augusta National “played like a par 67” for him thanks to his massive distance. That ensuing Sunday, DeChambeau found himself humbled, 13 shots behind leader Dustin Johnson, and according to his self-imposed standard of par, 12 over.

He was grouped in that final round with then-63-year-old Bernhard Langer, then the oldest man to make a Masters cut. DeChambeau outdrove Langer that week by an average of 64 yards, but the two-time Masters champ got the final upper hand, beating him that Sunday (71 to 73) and on the leaderboard (by one shot).

That DeChambeau looked little like the one who shot 65 at Augusta National on Thursday, the lowest round he has carded here in 25 tries. DeChambeau had been flummoxed by the greens here previously, losing nearly half a stroke putting per round. Thursday, he gained 3.71 strokes with his putter, most of any player. His 15 greens in regulation today were also four more than his career average heading into the week.

2. Barring a Friday morning charge by someone, DeChambeau will hold the outright lead following a Masters round for the first time. He shared the first-round lead in 2019 with rival Brooks Koepka after an opening 66, but a second-round 75 rendered him an afterthought by the time Tiger Woods surged to a historic victory that Sunday.

Can he keep his momentum churning into Round 2? This is the fourth time DeChambeau has opened a major with a round in the 60s since winning the U.S. Open at Winged Foot in 2020. In those subsequent second rounds, he shot a combined score of 5 over par.

3. Just one shot back is smiling golf ball-killing machine Scottie Scheffler, who dissected Augusta National with a bogey-free 66 on Thursday. Since the ranking began in 1986, Scheffler is the third reigning world No. 1 to start a Masters with a round of 66 or lower. The previous two both had historic finishes to their weeks: In 2020, Dustin Johnson went on to set the Masters Tournament scoring record (-20). In 1996, Greg Norman blew the largest 54-hole lead in men’s major history (six shots).

Scheffler’s short-game touch is arguably his most underrated trait. He entered the week ranked fifth on the PGA Tour this season in strokes gained around the green per round, at well over half a stroke per 18 holes. He was even better than that Thursday, gaining a field-best 2.8 shots in that metric. Entering the week, Scheffler scrambled at a rate of 62.7 percent in his young Masters career. Thursday, he was 5-of-5.

4. There’s a more troubling trend, though, for everyone in the field not named Scheffler. He’s statistically been the best ball striker at the Masters since making his debut in 2020 — and he’s getting better. In his first appearance at Augusta National, Scheffler lost 0.72 strokes with his approaches per round. Every year, that’s gone up, leading to a career-best 1.71 per round in 2023. Thursday, he gained 2.09 strokes with his approach shots.

Thursday was Scheffler’s first career bogey-free round at the Masters. He has beaten the field scoring average in 20 of his last 21 PGA Tour rounds and has not turned in a score over par since Aug. 26. He is now 68 under par in the major championships since the beginning of 2020, eight shots clear of anyone else in that span.

5. Entering the week, two particularly accomplished Masters rookies — both of whom played in last year’s Ryder Cup — were getting a deserved amount of attention as potential contenders. Wyndham Clark is the first player to make his Masters debut as the reigning U.S. Open champion since 1970. Ludvig Åberg has rocketed into the world’s top 10 and is the only man to compete in a Ryder Cup before playing his first major. The hype was justified.

But another member of that winning European team — a phenom in his own right, who won the DP World Tour Championship last fall — didn’t get his name on the pre-tournament debutant marquee. Nicolai Højgaard, 23, played his way onto it Thursday. When play was suspended (darkness), Højgaard was 5 under with three holes to play. Despite not yet finishing his round, Højgaard ranked in the top 10 Thursday in both strokes gained approach and around the green.

Højgaard is a three-time winner on the DP World Tour, with some stout names in his rearview mirror in those victories. Tommy Fleetwood and Viktor Hovland were among the runners-up last fall in Dubai. Fleetwood and Adrian Meronk finished T-2 to him at the 2021 Italian Open. His best finish so far in 2024 was a second-place result at Torrey Pines in January.

6. Danny Willett wasn’t supposed to be playing in this year’s Masters. Doctors told him he would be out of action for 12 to 18 months after undergoing surgery on his left shoulder last year. But Willett wasn’t supposed to win a green jacket in 2016, either. He wasn’t supposed to topple Jordan Spieth, a player gunning for back-to-back, wire-to-wire green jackets.

Willett is making a habit of exceeding expectations at this place. In his first competitive round in 207 days, Willett shot 68, one of the more remarkable opening rounds in recent Masters memory. Last year, the Englishman lost more than 3.3 strokes putting in Rounds 1 and 2 combined. Today, he gained 2.67, sixth-most in the field.

Since his improbable win here in 2016, Willett’s best major finish is a tie for sixth at the 2019 Open.

7. Max Homa is 4 under through 13 holes, easily the best start he’s ever enjoyed at the Masters. Before Thursday, Homa had never broken par on the first nine at Augusta National in any tournament round. In Round 1, he was a bogey-free 4 under at the turn, within striking distance of the top of the board.

One of the game’s more popular characters, Homa has steadily climbed the ladder of professional golf over the past decade. The 2013 NCAA Division I champ won on the Korn Ferry Tour in 2014 and 2016. After winning once in his first 109 career PGA Tour starts, he’s rattled off five victories since 2021. At the 2023 Open Championship, he picked up his first career top-10 finish in a major. He backed that up with his first appearance for the United States in a Ryder Cup a few weeks later.

His ascent has been earned on the course, as he’s improved dramatically in almost every key statistic over the last five years. His next logical step? Contending on Sunday in a major championship. Will it be this week?

8. Defending champ Jon Rahm stumbled out of the gates, as many reigning Masters winners have in recent years. Rahm makes it six of the last eight players defending their title here to shoot over par in Round 1. The Spaniard wasn’t himself with the driver Thursday: From his debut in 2017 through 2023, he led all qualified players in strokes gained off the tee per round at the Masters. In Round 1, he lost nearly a stroke and a half in that category.

Only three men have won back-to-back Masters titles: Jack Nicklaus (1965-66), Nick Faldo (1989-90) and Tiger Woods (2001-02). All three of them started their back-to-back win with a first-round score under par. Rahm is eight behind DeChambeau — nobody has trailed by more than seven after 18 holes and gone on to win the Masters.

9. Rory McIlroy opened with 71, his best first-round score at the Masters in six years. In the five Tournaments between, McIlroy had a Round 1 scoring average of 73.8 at Augusta National, playing the par 4s in a combined 15 over. McIlroy posted a red number despite playing the par 5s in even par, the first time he failed to break par on that quartet of holes in 15 tries.

Woods was 1 under through 13 holes when play was suspended, a promising start for the five-time champion. Woods made birdie at No. 1, a famously calamitous hole for him during his career. It was the first time Tiger birdied that hole to begin a Masters since 1998. If he finishes his opening round under par, it will be the 52nd round in the red in Woods’ Masters career, breaking a tie with Gary Player for sixth all time.

10. Patrick Cantlay made eagle on the 17th hole Thursday, the first time that has happened at the Masters since Davis Love III did it in 1998, and just the fourth instance in tournament history. The hole was played more than 7,200 times in Masters Tournament play between players signing for a two.

Since 2000, 90.5 percent of men’s major champions have been at or within five of the lead after Round 1. Twenty-six of the last 30 Masters winners have been at or within five shots entering the second round.

(Top photo of Scottie Scheffler, left, and Ted Scott: Jamie Squire / Getty Images)