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The 2025 Masters is headlined by the two top-ranked golfers in the world chasing history. Rory McIlroy will make his 11th attempt at capturing the career grand slam, but this year's try brings renewed optimism amid the best start to a season of his career with two wins already in his bag ahead of his annual visit to Augusta National Golf Club. Scottie Scheffler, meanwhile, has an opportunity to declare himself one as of the all-time greats at the Masters by collecting back-to-back green jackets and a third in four years.

Only Jack Nicklaus, Nick Faldo and Tiger Woods have gone back-to-back at Augusta National, while only Nicklaus has won three green jackets in a four-year span.

While McIlroy and Scheffler are seeking to join exclusive clubs in golf history, they will approach this week in Augusta, Georgia, in extremely different ways.

Rory is looking to bury the past. His seven top 10s in those last 11 trips to ANGC don't tell the complete story as he's rarely been in the mix late Sunday afternoon (many of those top 10s have come through the backdoor), and his 2011 implosion continues to haunt him 14 years later. 

Scottie, conversely, is trying to find the form of a year ago that made him golf's most dominant force since Tiger.

Entering the 2024 Masters, Scheffler had won two of his prior three events (T2 in the other) and continued that hot streak by winning his second green jacket. Then he turned around and won the RBC Heritage the week after. It was the kind of run we hadn't seen since Woods' prime, and it made everyone wonder whether the more recent run of parity at the top of the sport was coming to an end with an era of Scheffler dominance beginning. 

However, a holiday ravioli-making disaster delayed the start of Scheffler's 2025 campaign, and while he's been consistently excellent statistically, he's yet to get into the winner's circle this season. Scheffler has six top 25 finishes in as many starts, but it's the first time since 2021 that Scheffler will tee off at the Masters without a win already in his pocket. He is still the best ball-striker in the world, but it's clear he is at least a hair away from playing as he had a year ago.

At times, we've seen the typically stoic Scheffler show frustration with his game. There isn't anything dramatically different about the way he's playing; however, a handful more errors over the course of the week -- little blips that didn't exist at his peak last year -- have cost him wins. 

What makes golf such a compelling sport -- to watch and to play -- is that it exists as a riddle that lacks a singular answer. There are times where a player seemingly has it all figured out, yet those moments of clarity as a golfer are fleeting. In 2024, Scheffler had that puzzle solved longer and to greater success than most dream. It was a months-long run of exquisite golf that led him to four wins in five starts early in the season coupled with an Olympic gold medal and Tour Championship to conclude the campaign.

But every hot run comes to an end -- unless you're Jack or Tiger -- and the search for answers to new questions begins anew. 

The depth of talent at the top of the golf world right now makes it extremely difficult for one player to have total dominance of the sport for an extended stretch. There are a number of players who possess an A-game that can challenge Scheffler on any given week, and so far this season, he's found out just how thin the margins are between dominance and falling short.

What was once a feeling of assured victory once Scheffler reached the top of the leaderboard has proven to not be an iron-clad guarantee this season. His performance at the Houston Open two weeks ago drove that point home as Scheffler took a 36-hole lead only to promptly see Min Woo Lee rip it away from him and sprint toward the final group. 

Scheffler's rounds of 62 and 63 on Friday and Saturday in Houston were proof that he's still got the gears needed to win, but his Sunday stuck in first gear while Lee blew past him was the most concrete evidence that this isn't quite the same player we saw run roughshod over the PGA Tour last year. 

Scheffler now returns to the home of his greatest triumphs. The Masters -- the only major that returns to the same course every year -- lends itself to dominance (or recurring trauma, for the likes of McIlroy and others). A player who finds success at Augusta National tends to achieve similar levels of comfort each time he makes the drive down Magnolia Lane, and a player who stacks failures are haunted by those ghosts while riding through that short road to the clubhouse.

Scheffler surely felt the former as he arrived on property, and if he's going to return to that rarified air this week, he will have to find a way to tap back into the player he was a year ago. 

Like the sliders on his Champions Dinner menu Tuesday night, Scheffler needs to find that classic "Scottie style" again. If he does, he'll cement his spot as one of the greatest to ever play at the Masters -- and he'll do it before even turning 30.