AUGUSTA, Ga. — Just a couple of weeks ago, Scottie Scheffler thought his game was not quite as sharp as he would have wanted it.

“Sharp” might be a poor word choice given what happened in December.

In any case, Scheffler’s game looked — How should we say it? — nicely honed in the opening round of the Masters on Thursday, when the defending champion shot a bogey-free 68 and is tied second with Canada’s Corey Conners and Sweden’s Ludvig Aberg. Sheffler made two long birdie putts and a couple of nice saves from bunkers on an Augusta National course that was ripe for some red numbers.

“I don’t really care what happened in the last few tournaments,” said Scheffler, who arrived this week winless for the first time since 2021. “Any time you get close to the lead, it’s going to be easier for you to win the golf tournament. That’s a simple fact. You get off to a good start, statistically you’re going to have a better chance to win.”

Two-time runner-up Justin Rose shot a 65 to hold the lead. In his 20th Masters start, the 44-year-old former U.S. Open champ had eight birdies and then a bogey at the last hole.

Scheffler’s good start began at the par-5 second, when Scheffler got up-and-down for birdie from 40 yards out. But it really brightened at the par-3 fourth, when he rolled in a putt from 62 feet across a green that slopes dramatically from back to front.

Scheffler added another birdie at the par-5 eighth, then rolled in a 42-footer for birdie at No. 16. Throw in a pretty sand save at the next hole, when Scheffler managed to carry his bunker shot all the way to the top-shelf hole location at the back of the green, and the world’s top-ranked player was happy to sign for a 4-under round to start his tournament.

He’s only the fourth defending Masters champion to open with a bogey-free round in the last three decades.

“Any time you can keep a card clean out here,” Scheffler said, “it’s a really good thing.”

Even though he has yet to win this season, Scheffler believes things have been trending in the right direction. He shot a final-round 63 to finish second to Min Woo Lee at the Houston Open, and he was able to get some solid work in this past week, when he skipped the Texas Open in favor of a little extra preparation for the Masters.

He hasn’t had any problem with his hand, either. Scheffler cut it badly in December, when he was trying to make ravioli using a wine glass during the holidays and it broke. The injury forced Scheffler to delay the start of his season, and it may be one of the reasons why he merely has three top-10 finishes and no wins by the time he drove up Magnolia Lane.

History has proven that a good start is important at Augusta National.

This is the fourth consecutive year that Scheffler has opened with a round in the 60s. In 2022, he backed it up with a second-round 67 en route to his first green jacket, and he used his opening 66 last year to catapult him to his second one.

Perhaps this one will help the 28-year-old become the youngest with three green jackets since Jack Nicklaus in 1966.

“I struggled for what felt like two pars today. I had to make two really good up-and-downs,” Scheffler said. “But other than that, the golf course was in front of me most of the day, kept the ball in play, did a lot of really good things out there.”

Couples still has it: Fred Couples was so unflappable during the first round of the Masters that not even a sound engineer for one of the broadcasts who wandered down the middle of the fairway as the 1992 champion was trying to tee off threw him out of sync.

Couples chipped in for birdie from left of the green at the first. He holed a hybrid from 191 yards for eagle at the 14th. And after finishing with four consecutive pars, Couples signed for a tidy 71 on Thursday that made him the second-oldest player to shoot a subpar round at the Masters.

Tom Watson was a month older when he shot 71 in 2015.

“I don’t want to be a clown,” Couples said, “but I can play golf. I can play around here. If the weather is like this and not hard, I can — as long as I don’t do crazy things — I can shoot 73 or 4 or 5. That’s not embarrassing myself at all. If I do that, and did that today and come back with 70 or 71 tomorrow, the goal is for me to make the cut.”

Hard to believe that a year ago, Couples wondered whether Masters chairman Fred Ridley would want him to keep playing.

His back was bothering him, he had just limped through rounds of 80 and 76 to miss the cut and it seemed like a whole lot more than 12 months since Couples had become the oldest player in Masters history to play the weekend.

It took a call with Steve Ethun, the chief tournament officer for the Masters, to reassure Couples he was welcome.

He certainly looked like he belonged on Thursday.