Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy are study in contrasts. That’s a good thing

Finally, we are back to golf.

After some long and tiresome period where the two most prominent golf people were a Saudi investor (Yasir Al-Rumayyan) and a PGA Tour executive (Jay Monahan), golf has been returned to golfers, to (most prominently) Rory McIlroy, newest member of the career Grand Slam club, and Scottie Scheffler, the golfing philosopher and newest Claret Jug handler.

These two golfers are, each in his own way, both dynamic figures, revealing themselves in their play, their interviews, their Sunday-night I’m-a-winner dance parties — and their Jimmy Fallon appearances. 

Maybe we will see them face one another in the Sunday singles at the Ryder Cup on Long Island in September. They could make a joint appearance on Fallon’s late-night show the next day. It’s only 40 miles, not even, from Bethpage Black to the NBC Studios in Rockefeller Center, but the Long Island Expressway into town is always a crapshoot. What isn’t?

Would you have bet that Rory McIlroy would ever win the Masters, given his history at Augusta National, starting with rules weirdness in his first appearance and various missed chances in the years to come? Plus, all that recent live-at-the-majors heartache? (See: Wyndham Clark in celebration, Cameron Smith, Bryson DeChambeau.) Mick will tell you, and so will Phil, Snead, Arnold, T. Watson and other golfing legends: You can’t always get what you want. Sunday afternoon at Augusta, Rory looked like he was having another meltdown. Live sport. Live theatre. Nothing like it.

And there he was, in the late light of that Sunday afternoon, making a short putt others have missed, to win in a playoff over Justin Rose. McIlroy, a month short of 36, fell to his hands and elbows for 20 long seconds, his hands in his face, his chest heaving. The emotion running through him, he said later, was . . . relief. Millions of people, McIlroy among them, have been anticipating this moment for close a decade. Not even AI can measure mental weight, but it had to be a heavy load.

Two weeks later, McIlroy, wearing a new sport coat and a thick tie, sat beside Fallon for an entertaining 10-minute interview. He looked at a still photo of himself on the 18th green and Fallon asked the Masters champ to reveal his thought bubble. “I’m just thinking, ‘Thank goodness that is over,’” McIlroy said.

Scheffler, the bearded 29-year-old, won the British Open at Royal Portrush by four shots on a dank Sunday night. His golf wasn’t regal but it was unrelenting. His wait wasn’t long, by golf’s standards, to get there. This Open was only his fifth. He tapped in an 18-incher to win, he pulled his ball out of the hole, he hugged his caddie, his bro-shaked with his playing partner, he wiped his brow. His arms went above his head in ecstasy only after seeing his wife and their young son.

When Scheffler appeared with Fallon, it wasn’t an interview at all. It was a bit. Fallon, in his opening monologue, asked to see Scheffler with the Claret Jug. (It’s the name of a trophy you get for winning the British Open. Why would anyone deny this proper noun the capital C and a capital J she deserves?) A photo of Scheffler went up, no jug. A photo of the jug went up, no Scheffler. Then, from behind the blue curtain, was the big reveal: Scheffler with the Claret Jug, wearing a shirt he borrowed from Monday-night bowling league team. Fallon, a golf nut himself, snapped a selfie.

McIlroy, in victory at Augusta, looked inward. Scheffler, in victory at Portrush, looked to his family. You might be drawn to one over the other, but the fact is each won at a very different moment in his career. McIlroy comes out of a rich tradition, the exuberant golfer. Arnold Palmer, Greg Norman, Seve Ballesteros, Phil Mickelson were all out of that tradition, too. Scheffler is contemplative and quiet, in the tradition of Byron Nelson, Ben Hogan, Jack Nicklaus, Tom Watson. (Hard to put Tiger Woods in one category or the other.) It takes all kinds, to make this world the interesting place it is.

Golf is in a good place, with Scheffler and McIlroy batting first and second. On a July day in 1977, Jack Nicklaus and Tom Watson walked off the final hole of the Open at Turnberry, each with one arm around the other. Looking at a still of that photo, you might not have known who had won. Golf is about a million things, its playfields, its rule book, its strange equipment. The technical requirements of the swing. But most especially, it’s about the people who play it and how they express themselves through their golf. Rory in early spring at the Masters, Scheffler in mid-summer at the Open — so good. So good!

Michael Bamberger welcomes your comments at Michael.Bamberger@Golf.com