PORTRUSH, NORTHERN IRELAND | Having raised his own existential question last week about the meaning of all the winning he does, Scottie Scheffler has brought another question into the equation.
Where is all of this going?
Scheffler’s latest masterwork, a four-stroke victory over Harris English in the Open Championship at unexpectedly docile Royal Portrush, was cast classically in his own style.
Not so much fire-and-brimstone golf as brick and mortar flecked with gold, spelled out on the scoreboard with rounds of 68-64-67-68 for a 17-under-par 267 total.
As another long, slow sundown settled over this picturesque edge of the world, Scheffler had taken another step in his slow dance into history.
Scheffler has won four majors in the last 39 months, including two in the last three months. He has four wins this season, would require a backhoe to unseat him from the No. 1 spot in the world and he won’t turn 30 until next June.
Invoking a comparison to Tiger Woods in any form has been off-limits in golf but what Scheffler is doing – and the smothering consistency of it – has made it inevitable.
“They’re a bit silly” is how Scheffler brushed off the Tiger comparisons Sunday evening.
A sense of inevitability had settled over Royal Portrush by Saturday evening when Scheffler went home with a four-stroke lead, having won the last nine times he had led after 54 holes. For all the good things Scheffler does, what he may be best at is burying hope among his challengers.
If Tiger’s career could be represented by an entire cake, Scheffler has so far carved out a chunk that’s beginning to look like those oversized desserts served at high-end restaurants.
Scheffler being who he is, it’s probably plain old pound cake.
“I don’t think we thought the golfing world would see someone as dominant as Tiger come through so soon, and here’s Scottie sort of taking that throne of dominance,” Xander Schauffele said.
In a time when it seems everyone is selling something – sometimes their soul – Scheffler walks through the world clear-eyed and occasionally clean shaven.
He makes doing the right thing seem easy and he seems to have mastered the difficult task of living in the moment.
The best images of Scheffler these days aren’t from the golf course. They capture his time with his son, Bennett, and wife, Meredith, the wonder shining in Scheffler’s eyes.
There is a photograph of Scheffler signing his scorecard after winning the PGA Championship in May and looking over his shoulder at his son, sitting on the floor nearby, as his dad puts his signature on another bit of history.
Now, he can add photos of Bennett with the Claret Jug and his arms around Meredith, the first person he looks for after every victory. Scheffler’s sincerity rings as deep and true as a good Sunday sermon.
“He doesn’t care to be a superstar. He’s not transcending the game like Tiger did. He’s not bringing it to a non-golf audience necessarily,” said Jordan Spieth, who has known Scheffler since they were kids.
“It’s more so the difference in personality from any other superstar that you’ve seen in the modern era and maybe in any sport. I don’t think anybody is like him.”
Scheffler has never sought fame and, consequently, has been able to keep it at arm’s length, though he has had to find a second Chipotle restaurant because everyone now recognizes him in the one closest to his Dallas home.
When Scheffler opened up last week about the fleeting joy that comes with each victory, it was both revealing and reinforcing. Scheffler loves the journey as much as the destination.
He loves those sweaty Texas days when he’s refining what he has spent a lifetime doing, chasing perfection in a game that never allows it. Scheffler has a true north and is guided by it, often with his longtime coach Randy Smith standing nearby, telling him what he needs to hear, not just what he wants to hear.
At times, his swing has an element of pretzel logic to it, his feet sliding and his forearms twisting, bending convention to fit him.
“If Scottie’s feet stayed stable and his swing looked like Adam Scott’s, we’d be talking about him in the same words as Tiger Woods. I just think because it doesn’t look so perfect, we don’t talk about him like that,” Shane Lowry said.
When the engraver etched Scheffler’s name into the Claret Jug, the conversation tilted more in Tiger’s direction.
Scheffler isn’t the first player in the post-Tiger world to collect major championship trophies in a hurry. McIlroy won four in four years before an 11-year wait for his next one. Brooks Koepka won four of his five in a three-year period but rarely won much else. Spieth won three in three years and it has been eight years since his last one.
What has separated Scheffler and stoked discussion about where his achievements might eventually land him in golf’s pantheon is his extraordinary consistency, both in his play and his personality.
The events of the week may have been encapsulated on the first hole Sunday. Playing in the penultimate pairing, beloved native son Rory McIlroy arrived at the first tee to a now familiar chorus of cheers that rolled down the fairway the way the wave goes around crowded stadiums. It was both celebratory and hopeful and McIlroy marched down the middle of the opening fairway making sure to look and wave to fans on both sides before making a routine par.
Moments later, Scheffler played his uphill approach shot to within 18 inches of the hole, giving him a kick-in birdie to start, earning appreciative cheers but without the understandable emotion that tried to carry McIlroy.
“To be honest with you, walking up 18, I didn’t really know if I was going to get that much support from the crowd. The crowd, I think, wanted somebody else to win this week, and I kind of got to play spoiler a little bit, which was fun as well.”
Scottie Scheffler
It felt like the difference between going to a rock concert and admiring a museum piece.
“To be honest with you, walking up 18, I didn’t really know if I was going to get that much support from the crowd. The crowd, I think, wanted somebody else to win this week, and I kind of got to play spoiler a little bit, which was fun as well,” Scheffler said.
At the PGA Championship in May, Scheffler lost a five-stroke final-round lead on the front nine before hitting the reset button and winning by five. It was a reminder that he doesn’t play perfect golf.
When he holed a 16-foot par putt at the sixth on Sunday, Scheffler broke character with a feisty fist pump. He followed that with a 15-foot par save at the seventh before a sudden double bogey at the par-4 eighth, cutting to four strokes what had earlier been a seven-stroke lead.
A birdie at the ninth brought Scheffler out of the turbulence and the engraver was able to get a head start.
On the final green Sunday afternoon, Scheffler tapped in for par and hardly cracked a smile as the cheers fell on him like a warm shower. He was looking for his family and didn’t immediately see them.
Then he found them and it all became real. Scheffler raised both arms over his head, threw down his hat and walked into the world that defines him.
With a Claret Jug to go with his two green jackets and Wanamaker Trophy, Scheffler now needs only the U.S. Open trophy to complete the career Grand Slam.
Scheffler’s first chance will come next June at Shinnecock Hills, but it’s rushing away this moment to look that way too soon. As Scheffler said last week, the thrill of winning doesn’t last forever.
This one, however, Scheffler won’t hurry away.
“This is amazing to win the Open Championship, but at the end of the day, having success in life, whether it be in golf, work, whatever it is, that’s not what fulfills the deepest desires of your heart,” Scheffler explained with the Claret Jug sitting on a table in front of him.
“Am I grateful for it? Do I enjoy it? Oh, my gosh, yes, this is a cool feeling. I can’t wait to get home and celebrate this championship with the people that have helped me along the way. But at the end of the day, it doesn’t fulfill the deepest desires of my heart.
“It’s just tough to describe when you haven’t lived it.”
It’s Scheffler living the dream in his own way.
E-MAIL RON
Top: After he captured the third leg of the Grand Slam at age 29, the sky's the limit for Scottie Scheffler.
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