The entire course and country pulled for Rory McIlroy<\/a>, their hometown hero, one pairing ahead. Chants for McIlroy echoed throughout the Royal Portrush property, several directed at Scheffler himself, but they did not propel the Northern Irishman as he would have liked. McIlroy shot 69, and finished seven strokes behind Scheffler. American Ryder Cup hopeful Harris English, for the second time this year, finished second to Scheffler in a major, behind by six strokes at the PGA and four here.<\/p>\nScheffler\u2019s back nine was just as steady as his front, so much so that his two-putt pars almost felt like bogeys. After a birdie on No. 12, Scheffler finished six pars for a round of 68. He shot in the 60s for all four rounds at a major for the first time.<\/p>\n
\u201cPlaying this game is a battle within yourself all the time to try and get the most out of your game and yourself and this week, I did a really good job hanging in there mentally and playing some good golf,\u201d Scheffler said.<\/p>\n
Coming into the 2025 season, Scheffler, 29, was expected to continue his crusade, which is why the opening months of the calendar year posed a new challenge. In 2024, he won seven PGA Tour tournaments, including the Masters, Players Championship, Tour Championship and four signature events. Scheffler also claimed the Olympic gold medal in Paris. The predictions rolled in. Could Scheffler win eight this year, even nine?<\/p>\n
Perhaps that\u2019s why Scheffler\u2019s restless and defensive edge revealed itself this winter, when a hand injury stalled his return to the PGA Tour and his intended results weren\u2019t transpiring. He missed all of January and went without a win in February, March or April. His frustrations boiled over at the Players, and when asked about those emotions becoming visible, Scheffler retorted: \u201cYou\u2019ve played golf before, right?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just one of those things,\u201d Scheffler said. \u201cI\u2019m a competitive guy.\u201d<\/p>\n
If the rest of us were antsy about Scheffler\u2019s early-season performance, imagine how he felt. It didn\u2019t take very long for the tone in Scheffler\u2019s voice to subside with three victories in four starts in May and June, including Scheffler\u2019s third major victory at the PGA Championship at Quail Hollow and a hometown win at the Byron Nelson by eight shots.<\/p>\n
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Scottie Scheffler now has four majors before his 30th birthday. (Mike Frey \/ USA Today Sports)<\/p>\n
The intensity of Scheffler\u2019s competitive fire is one of his more underreported attributes. Watch the 6-foot-3 Dallas native walk the fairways at any tournament, and you\u2019ll notice that unless he\u2019s hitting a golf shot or conversing with his caddie, his gaze is consistently directed downward. He commits to his task by maintaining an elite level of focus, but he uses his surroundings as fuel \u2014 even though it might not look like it.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe bigger the moment, the more it really means something, the more his juices get flowing,\u201d his coach Randy Smith said in a conversation with The Athletic ahead of the Masters. \u201cA lot of people will sit there and get nervous and skittish. But Scottie doesn\u2019t get that way. He looks forward to it. He embraces it. It\u2019s like he runs to it.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s the piece that makes Scheffler a constant threat. If Scheffler isn\u2019t hitting the ball how he wants to, he figures out a way to get it into the hole. If he\u2019s missing putts, his ball-striking makes up for it. He always finds a way, and his competitors know that.<\/p>\n
\u201cLook, Scottie Scheffler is inevitable,\u201d McIlroy said. \u201cEven when he doesn\u2019t have his best stuff, he\u2019s become a complete player.\u201d<\/p>\n
Scheffler has been cementing himself in the game\u2019s history for some time, but those records, all the results \u2014 that\u2019s not what motivates the world No. 1. Scheffler began the week sitting down for a press conference and creating a five-minute-long viral moment in which he stated that his accomplishments on the golf course are unsatisfying. Scheffler finds fulfillment elsewhere, in his role as a family man and in his religious faith. The disposition that Scheffler displayed with that soliloquy was just another explanation for why and how he has seen so much success: The game isn\u2019t attached to his identity. That perspective makes handling golf\u2019s constant mental turmoil a lot easier. Even Scheffler loses a lot more than he wins.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, 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\u2019s not what fulfills the deepest desires of your heart,\u201d Scheffler said on Sunday evening. \u201cAm I grateful for it? Do I enjoy it? Oh, my gosh, yes, this is a cool feeling. I can\u2019t 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\u2019t fulfill the deepest desires of my heart.\u201d<\/p>\n
The truth is, we already knew all of this about Scheffler. This is not the first time Scheffler\u2019s mentality has proven to be uniquely beneficial. It\u2019s not the first time his peers have spoken about his baffling ability to never go away. It is especially unsurprising to see Scheffler blow away the field, strolling into the clubhouse with a lead that was never going to be challenged.<\/p>\n
Scheffler\u2019s trendline has made itself apparent for quite some time. Royal Portrush just provided the stage for him to continue rising.<\/p>\n
(Top photo: Andrew Redington \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PORTRUSH, Northern Ireland \u2014 There is a universal truth in this game: Golf can never be fully mastered.…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":79126,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[1430,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-79125","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golf","8":"tag-golf","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114888006920315545","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79125","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79125"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79125\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/79126"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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