The story at the 2025 Masters starts with Scottie and Rory

The last three years, the Masters Tournament has required little digging on the part of the golf fan looking to identify the winner. 

Sure, there have been sub-plots unlike any other, but the fact is Scottie Scheffler has prevailed in two of the three (2022, 2024), with Jon Rahm (2023) sandwiched between. They were arguably the world's best player at the time, playing some great golf prior to arriving in Augusta. 

Last year, Scheffler came through the gates ranked #1 in the world off two weeks in his three previous PGA Tour events, with a T2 the only blemish. In 2022, Scheffler also arrived with two wins in his previous three outings. 

In 2023, Rahm had the same kind of heater going. He came to Augusta National ranked No. 3 in the world but had been #1 for three weeks two months prior, and had won three times already that year (seven starts). 

Off that evidence, it might just be a waste of time to do anything more than flip a coin between Scottie Scheffler or Rory McIlroy as the pick to win at Augusta National in 2025. 

Scheffler, who has been ranked the No. 1 player in the world, according to the Official World Golf Rankings, going on two years now, has yet to bring his game to the heights he reached in 2024 when he won nine times, including his second Masters an Olympic Golf Medal. He arrives at Augusta off a T2 finish in Houston two weeks ago that he felt still left room for improvement.  

"I feel like I can still clean up a few things in my swing. You know, my ball-striking wasn't as sharp as I would have liked for it to have been this week, but overall I mean, yesterday and today I felt like we're improving in the ball-striking," said Scheffler. "Yesterday the score I don't think showed it, but today the way I struck it, especially down the stretch when I really needed to, hit some really nice shots. 

"Good iron shot into 15, good iron shot into 16, good one into 17. I did some things that I really liked under the gun. Good pitch shot on 18 as well to still give myself a chance. Did some things that I'll reflect on that were good and did some things that I can sharpen up a little bit."

Scheffler was four shots better than everybody else last year at Augusta National, but maybe more importantly he was seven shots better than everybody not named Ludvig Aberg. That effort came after winning two of his three previous events, including The Players, the calendar's biggest tournament leading up to the Masters. 

This year it's been a slow climb back from a holiday accident where he injured his hand. This year, he comes to August with three top-10 finishes in six starts, with a T3 at the Genesis in February his best effort prior to Houston, an effort he considered another step in the right direction. 

"I liked the way my swing started to feel over the weekend," Scheffler said. "I felt like I holed a good amount of putts this week, especially under pressure on the back nine today. Felt like I hit my lines really well and did some good things out there. So definitely some positive momentum going into (the Masters)."

McIlroy, meanwhile has been the world's best player in 2025, winning The Players and the Signature event at Pebble Beach. He finished T5 in Houston, his final Masters prep, closing with rounds of 66, 65 and 64.   

"It was a solid week," McIlroy said afterwards. "I definitely got better today, which was great to see. 

"I made a little tweak to my driver yesterday on the range after I played (on Saturday). That worked out pretty well. Yeah, no, it was a pretty decent score. A little disappointing with how I finished, but overall, overall pretty happy with how the week went."

Question: "What was that tweak to the driver?" 

"I just took a little bit of loft off it. So I felt like it was getting a little bit spinny, especially if I wanted to hit cuts off the tee, so I took a little bit of loft off it. Yeah, definitely went through the wind better today and felt a little more comfortable."

Question: "Leaving here and going toward Augusta, how much confidence do you kind of carry especially from this last round? 

"Still feel like I've got some stuff to work on," McIlroy said. "Still don't think like my game is absolutely 100 percent under the control I would want, but it's nice to have a week to work on some things. I've got my coach, Michael Bannon, coming in tomorrow, so we'll be working at home and making sure game feels good going into the Masters."

McIlroy is always an interesting story at the Masters, where in 2011 he led by four shots going into the final round, only to shoot 80, collapsing to a T15 finish. In his last 11 trips to Augusta, McIlroy has posted seven top-10s, four top-5s, and finished runner-up to Scheffler in 2022. 

Asked what has been the key to his recent success, McIlroy said. "How I manage my game, how I manage my misses. I think my short game's been very good and I've been able to scramble well when I've needed to. And my ability to sort of hit little knockdown shots. I feel like it's been quite a windy year, I feel like there's been quite a lot of wind when we've played, so my ability to hit those little three-quarter shots is definitely better than it has been and that's been a big factor to why  I've performed pretty consistently."

And that consistency is what McIlroy hopes will make the difference this year as he seeks to win his first Green Jacket, which would make him and enable him to become the sixth golfer ever - Tiger Woods, Jack Nicklaus, Ben Hogan, Gary Player and Gene Sarazen are the only five - to win each of the four majors and achieve golf's career grand slam. 

"Because you know what's going on, you know what your misses are, you know what your feelings are like over the ball," McIlroy said at Houston. "So this week, going forward, it's just about feeling as comfortable as I can be with the things I've been working on, which is sort of iron play, wedges. 

"Obviously short game's really, really important around Augusta as well. You know, work on those things over the next few days and hopefully I'm feeling good going in there.