PINEHURST, NC – The kids were packed three by four deep behind the 17th tee and were temporarily – miraculously – completely silent. Then the big Texan in the azure golf shirt fired his tee shot into the blue Carolina sky, and the kids erupted.
“Scottie! Scotty! Scottie!”
There was absolutely nothing organized about the group of children around Scottie Scheffler. They just wanted to get close to him however they could.
The children are not alone. Scheffler arrived at Pinehurst this week for the U.S. Open as golf’s undisputed heavyweight champion, and the reigning storyline. Here’s the story: Almost every other player is questioned about Scottie. Not since Tiger Woods’ highest highs (and lowest lows) has one player been the subject of so many questions to other players.
“You can have a nice run, but then you usually fall back to whatever, a more average week,” Viktor Hovland said. “But his average week is just very good.”
“Every week we play,” said PGA champion Xander Schauffele, “he seems to be building a bigger lead and somehow making the mountain even bigger for all of us to climb.”
“He’s the gold standard right now,” Bryson DeChambeau said, “and we’re all looking forward to him saying, ‘Okay, how do we get to that level?’”
“It’s nice to hear some good things from my peers because I think we’re all trying to take each other out at times when we’re playing and competing,” Scheffler said. “I think part of the bond of friendship is wanting to mess with your friends, so it’s definitely nice to hear some compliments every now and then.”
The point is, Scottie has earned all this praise. At a time when athletes from Caitlin Clark to Travis Kelce are riding waves of viral hype straight into the nation’s consciousness, Scheffler is piling fame the old-fashioned way: by getting arrested. Oh, and also by winning.
Let’s start with the wins first. Scheffler is currently sitting on an ungodly stove. He has already won five tournaments this year and it is only June. He hasn’t missed a cut in any of his thirteen tournaments this year. His lowest finish is T17, and that was in January. It’s a legit shocker right now if he is not on a weekend ranking.
“To win the tournaments he wins – to win Bay Hill, Players, Masters, RBC and then Memorial,” Jon Rahm said, “you’re basically replicating a Tiger Woods season.”
There it is: the Tiger Woods connection, if not comparison. Scheffler is nowhere near Woods’ territory, mainly because Woods’ territory is a bizarre continent. Woods won nine tournaments in 2000, eight in 1999 and 2006, seven in 2007, six in 2005 and 2009, and five each year from 2001 to 2003 and in 2013. (You forgot how good Woods was, didn’t you?)
But you can’t create a legendary career without stacking legendary seasons, and Scheffler is well on his way to doing just that. During his last eight tournaments he has five wins, two second places and a tie for eighth place. That low point came at the PGA Championship, where there were, shall we say, extenuating circumstances.
“The only thing that kept him from winning a golf tournament,” Rory McIlroy joked, “was sitting in jail for an hour.”
Ah yes, the prison cell. , thanks to a traffic stop outside the PGA Championship that went horribly wrong, only added to his legend. Now that all charges have been dropped (and all pants replaced), all that’s left are the jokes… like the guy who showed up at a member-guest tournament in Louisville with a “cop” at his door:
And then there’s the Pinehurst Police Department, which is getting useful information this week to prevent similar problems:
Scheffler acknowledged that he has seen some of the jokes — often because Schauffele and others texted them to him. “I don’t like reliving it, but sometimes being able to laugh about it is a good skill,” he said. “When they joke, it’s definitely hard not to laugh.”
The period behind bars did not cost Scheffler much time, but it did wonders for his fame. The “Free Scottie” brigade hasn’t come to North Carolina from Louisville yet, but there’s a good chance you’ll hear some of those cries this weekend as you watch Scheffler. And you’ll almost certainly be watching him this weekend, probably late Sunday.
One of the most important weapons in Scheffler’s arsenalPerhaps most important is his ability to compartmentalize, focus on the task at hand, and shut out the outside world. Whether it’s a new baby, a prison sentence or a triple-bogey, Scheffler has a remarkable ability to keep himself level-headed.
“He really has control over the environment, not just his environment, but the conditions on the golf course,” DeChambeau said. “He knows what the golf ball is going to do. He knows how to respond to that. When things go [wrong], he can right the ship pretty quickly. That’s just a recipe for success.”
“There are going to be bad breaks,” Scheffler acknowledged Tuesday, “but it’s more about your reaction to those things than actually receiving the bad break, because over the course of a 72-hole tournament you’re going to get a lot of bad breaks and made a lot of bad shots. It’s more about, ‘How am I going to recover from those shots?’”
Part of that balance comes from Scheffler keeping his personal and professional lives separate. Being a new father forces that on you.
“When I’m home and I have (son) Bennett around, it’s almost easier not to be on my phone and not watch TV,” he said. “I just want to hang out with him and hang out with (wife) Mere, and rocking him to sleep puts me to sleep. Being home is fun. I haven’t been bored at home for a while, that’s for sure.”
Scheffler is in the midst of one of the most remarkable runs in recent golf history, but don’t ask him to think about it just yet. There is still work to be done.
“I try not to think about the past too much, and I try not to think about the future too much, and I just try to live in the present,” he said. “I don’t think about my victories anymore. All I’m focusing on is this week and preparing to play. The fact that I won last week doesn’t give me any chance against the field this week. We all start equally, and from Thursday the field will be level again.”
Scheffler will play alongside McIlroy and Schauffele on Thursday at 1:14 p.m. And if the past few weeks are any indication, he won’t be at par for long.
