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

Finally, we are in Golf again.

After a long and tedious period where the two most prominent golf people were a Saudi investor (Yasir al-rumayyan) and an executive PGA Tour (Jay Monahan), Golf has returned to players, to (more apparently) Rory Mcilroy, the newest member of the Grand Slam Club career, and Scottie Scheffler, the philosopher of golf and the newest Claret South.

These two players are, each in his own way, both dynamic figures, revealing themselves in their game, their interviews, their Sunday holidays on Sunday I am the winner of their dance-and their Jimmy Fallon’s appearances.

Maybe we will see them confront each other in Sunday bachelors at the Ryder Cup at Long Island in September. They could make a common appearance at the late night showing the next day. Only is only 40 miles, not even by Bethpage Black In the NBC studios at Rockefeller Center, but the Long Island highway in the city is always a lid. What is it not?

Would you bet Rory Mcilroy would ever win the masters, given his story in Augusta NationalStarting with the strange rules in his first appearance and various chances lost in the years ahead? Plus, all that recent pain live-at-the-mans? (See: Wynham Clark at the celebration, Cameron Smith, Bryson Dechambeau.) Mick will show you, and so will Phil, Snead, Arnold, T. Watson and other golf legends: you can’t always get what you want. Sunday afternoon in Augusta, Rory seemed as if there was another melting. Direct sport. Vibrant theater Nothing like her.

And there he was, in the late light of that Sunday afternoon, making a short blow that others have lost, to win in a play off on Justin Rose. Mcilroy, a month less than 36 years old, fell in his hands and elbows for 20 seconds long, his hands on his face, his chest rising. The emotion passing through him, he said later, was. . . EASE Millions of people, Mcilroy among them, have predicted this moment for nearly a decade. Neither can he pendure mental weight, but it had to be a heavy load.

Two weeks later, Mcilroy, dressed in a new sports coat and a thick tie, sat next to Fallon for a 10-minute entertainment interview. He looked at a quiet photo of himself on the 18th Green and Fallon asked the master champion to reveal his thought bubble. “I’m just thinking,” Thank you kindness that it’s over, “Mcilroy said.

Scheffler, 29-year-old bearded, won British Open In Royal Portrush with four shots on a Sunday evening. His golf was not regular, but he was unclear. His reception was not long, according to golf standards, to get there. This open was only his fifth. He folded at an 18-inch to win, he pulled the ball out of the hole, he hugged his cadet, his brothery with his play partner, he wiped his forehead. His wings went on his head only after seeing his wife and their young son.

When Scheffler appeared with Fallon, it was not an interview at all. It was little. Fallon, in his first monologue, sought to see Scheffler with Claret South. (Then the name of a trophy you get to win British Open. Why would anyone deny this right name Capital C and a capital J.) A photo of Scheffler rose, without container. A photo of the dishes rose, without Scheffler. Then, from behind the blue curtain, was the big discovery: Scheffler with South Claret, dressed in a shirt that borrowed it from the League League League of Monday Bowling. Fallon, a golf nut itself, grabbed a selfie.

Mcilroy, in the victory in Augusta, looked inner. Scheffler, in victory in Portrush, looked at his family. You can draw from one another, but the fact is each won at a very different moment in their career. Mcilroy comes out of a rich tradition, wild golf. Arnold Palmer, Greg Norman, Seve Ballesteros, Phil Mickelson were all of that tradition, too. Scheffler is contemporary and quiet, in the tradition of Byron Nelson, Ben Hogan, Jack Nicklaus, Tom Watson. (Hard to put Tiger Woods in one category or another.) You need all kinds, to make this world interesting place that is.

Golf is in a good place, with Scheffler and Mcilroy first and second. On a July 1977 day, Jack Nicklaus and Tom Watson left Open’s last hole in turnberry, each with one side around the other. Seeing a photo from that moment on, you may not know who had won. Golf is about a million things, his playgrounds, his book of rules, his strange equipment. The technical requirements of the oscillation. But in particular, it is about people who play it and how they say through their golf. Rory early spring in masters, scheffler in the middle of summer to open-good. So good!

Michael Bamberger welcomes your comments in Michael.bamberger@golf.com