PONTE VEDRA BEACH, FLORIDA | The wind was blowing and there were dark gray storm clouds on the horizon late Sunday afternoon when Scottie Scheffler walked into a family tree of hugs behind the 18th green at the Stadium Course, having just completed a five-stroke victory in the Players Championship.
The hugs, from his wife, his parents and his 88-year-old grandmother, lingered as Scheffler let the moment wash over him.
Eleven months earlier, he had tearfully questioned whether he was good enough to win the Masters. By Sunday afternoon here, having turned in what felt like a dominating performance on a golf course designed to break hearts, Scheffler had done more than return to No. 1 in the world ranking.
He has put himself in a rare place, an imposing force who seems to embrace the moments that scare others away. It wasn’t just that Scheffler has now won six times in 13 months on the PGA Tour and added the Players Championship trophy to the green jacket in his closet.
It’s the style with which he has done it. He doesn’t have Rory McIlroy’s bounce or Jon Rahm’s ferocity, but Scheffler has the gift of making a hard game – and hard situations – appear comfortable.
Unlike Brooks Koepka, who seemed to arm-wrestle his way to big trophies, Scheffler makes the moment look easy even when it isn’t. He’s long-limbed and athletic in a way that isn’t built in workout rooms, though Scheffler knows his way around a gym.
Scheffler looks like he could have been an outfielder or a shooting guard had he chosen a different path, but instead he already has written his name deep into the rich history of Texas golf, which claims Hogan, Nelson, Trevino, Crenshaw, Kite and Spieth, among others.
“... Hard times make the good times that much sweeter.”
Scottie Scheffler
He is shouldering his way into their company.
“When it comes to sports, I want to win,” Scheffler said. “I think I get excited when we get to the biggest tournaments and the best players are there.”
The Players Championship occupies a unique place in the game’s hierarchy, the biggest non-major in the world, on a stage that feels like Broadway painted with ryegrass. Winning the WM Phoenix Open two years running is nice, but adding a Players title to the Masters triumph changes more than a player’s win total.
Last August, Scheffler was gutted when he lost the Tour Championship and FedEx Cup to McIlroy, who started the final round six shots behind and walked away with the $15 million prize.
“We were pretty sad after that, but the hard times make the good times that much sweeter,” Scheffler said Sunday evening, the Players’ gold trophy sitting at his right hand.
As Sunday morning crept toward his 1:45 p.m. final-round tee time, in which he would start with a two-stroke lead over Min Woo Lee, Scheffler felt the weight of the moment.
“This tournament feels like a major championship to me, and this morning was tough,” Scheffler said.
When he started slowly, playing his first seven holes in 1-over par while a parade of players came at him, Scheffler didn’t panic.
Scheffler has what life-long coach Randy Smith called a “library of situations” that underpin his experience, and they have made him a better player.
“It’s becoming a habit to make the right decision and then just play golf,” Smith said.
The day changed when Scheffler studied a chip shot from the left side of the par-3 eighth green. His feet were in the sand and he had to choke down to the steel on his wedge, but he had a good feeling.
Smith had a sense of what was coming, the way Scheffler studied the green before settling over his shot. When Scheffler chipped in from 35 feet for birdie, nothing was the same after that.
Not only did it give Scheffler some breathing room, it triggered a run of five consecutive birdies that briefly pushed his lead to six strokes. It also allowed Scheffler to poke fun at his caddie Ted Scott again.
Last year, Scott challenged Scheffler to chip in 10 times over the course of the season, promising to pay his boss some of his hard-earned money. Scheffler won last year and he won again this year, his hole-out at the eighth hole Sunday being his 11th.
“He said, ‘Do I get a bonus?’ I said, ‘No, you’re done. We’re not doing this again,’ ” Scott said, holding the flagstick from the 18th hole on his shoulder.
If there is an underappreciated aspect of Scheffler’s game, it’s his extraordinary short game. Jordan Spieth, Phil Mickelson and Tiger Woods may have had more flamboyant short games, but Scheffler’s talent around the greens is his secret weapon.
“It looks just kind of homegrown, which I always feel like works pretty well,” Max Homa said. “Jordan's kind of similar. Obviously they have great mechanics, but it feels like they do it a different way, which means they typically own it a bit more. So, I feel like he just knows what he's going to do. He has this stabbing spinner. He's got the really good kind of soft one out of the rough. I feel like he's just very artistic in that way.”
There is an artistry in how Scheffler plays.
“You give him this canvas, he’s going to paint on it,” Smith said. “Give him (another) canvas, he wants to paint on it. He’s not just a one-dimensional player. He’s not just a high-ball player.”
Scheffler has scar tissue, from a near-miss at the U.S. Open last summer, a playoff loss at Colonial to his friend Sam Burns and the Tour Championship at East Lake. What’s that saying about what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger?
Scheffler is exactly what the PGA Tour needs at this moment.
The Players Championship and the Stadium Course were created to celebrate the PGA Tour, and if last week was a beat shy of a full spring-break vibe, there was a tangible sense of relief given all the challenges the tour has faced over the past year.
Rather than looking over its shoulder, the tour is now marching into a new era of its own making, defined by designated events and who has stayed rather than who has left.
A year ago, commissioner Jay Monahan sounded defiant in the face of LIV Golf’s threat. This year, Monahan was definitive, the path forward determined.
As for this Players Championship, its DNA shone through with a curious collection of names on the leaderboard. There is a pride in a tournament history that doesn’t play favorites and, aside from Scheffler, who keeps going like a waterfall, an eclectic collection of characters came and went over the weekend.
Min Woo Lee, a 24-year-old Australian and two-time winner on the DP World Tour who might be more famous for being the younger brother of the LPGA’s Minjee Lee, introduced himself until a pair of Sunday afternoon 7s whisked him off the main stage. He still appeared to have as much fun as someone shooting 76 could, waving on the fans who chanted “Woo, Woo, Woo” on almost every hole.
Aaron Rai, Chad Ramey, Christiaan Bezuidenhout, Adam Svensson, Tom Hoge, Justin Suh and David Lingmerth made cameos on a weekend when Jon Rahm was gone due to illness and Rory McIlroy was absent due to bogeys.
Other than Scheffler, who ascended to No. 1 with his win, the only other player ranked among the top 10 in the world (Max Homa) finished in the top 10 while the Stadium Course was as provocative as ever. It’s all angles and edges, and when the wind blows as it did more often than not last week, it’s as if there is broken glass in the air.
Then you realize that Tyrrell Hatton finished with five straight birdies on Sunday to high-jump into second place and Scheffler made five in a row midway through the final round to blow open what had felt like a tight tournament.
Scheffler has scar tissue, from a near-miss at the U.S. Open last summer, a playoff loss at Colonial to his friend Sam Burns and the Tour Championship at East Lake.
What’s that saying about what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger?
“I mean, it's always frustrating to not win when you feel like you can,” Scheffler said after his 17-under 271 total came with a $4.5 million pay day from the $25 million purse. “The U.S. Open was challenging. I felt like I had a good chance to win that tournament and came up short. Colonial, the same way. But all you can do is just continue to put yourself in position. It's like volume shooting. I'm just going to try and get up there as many times as I can and see what happens.”
E-MAIL RON
Top: There is a certain artistry to Scottie Scheffler's game, which was on display last week at TPC Sawgrass.
Jared C. Tilton, Getty Images