Editor’s note: “In Case You Missed It” is a GGP+ feature that highlights a story from Global Golf Post’s Monday magazine.
This being summer sequel season – think “Mission Impossible,” “Jurassic World” and “Captain America” for those who still leave home to see movies – the next two weeks on the PGA Tour have their own sequel quality.
Rory McIlroy and Scottie Scheffler – again.
The PGA Tour’s two best players and biggest stars begin their two-week overseas odysseys this week at the Genesis Scottish Open followed by the Open Championship at Royal Portrush in Northern Ireland, a run in which more than the season’s final major championship is on the line.
One of them is going to be the PGA Tour player of the year. At this point, with perhaps only four tournaments remaining in which they will both be in the field, these two weeks could be the deciding factor.
It’s just the sort of juice July needs.
Two likeable stars. Links golf. History potentially at hand.
If player of the year votes were being cast today, it might be a split decision. What one hasn’t done, the other has.
McIlroy has won three times including the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, the Players Championship and the Masters in his 12 starts while Scheffler has won three times in 14 starts including the CJ Cup Byron Nelson, the PGA Championship and the Memorial.
Scheffler has the edge with 11 top-10 finishes (including his last nine starts) to McIlroy’s six and Scheffler leads the tour in three vital statistical categories: strokes gained total, strokes gained off the tee and strokes gained approach, while McIlroy is second in two of those categories.
If momentum is a thing, Scheffler has it at the moment while McIlroy is chasing it.
Which brings us to the Renaissance Club this week in North Berwick and Royal Portrush after that.
McIlroy would love to win the Claret Jug in his Northern Ireland homeland, finally having a new mountain to climb in front of him after a few weeks in the “what’s next?” wilderness. Scheffler could add the third piece of a potential career grand slam by capturing the Open Championship.
Because both of them have been so good so often this year, it’s not entirely wishful thinking that they wind up separating themselves over one of both of the next two weeks, adding a big-bang finish to an already memorable major championship season.
“If I can’t get motivated to get up for an Open Championship at home, then I don’t know what can motivate me. I just need to get myself in the right frame of mind. I probably haven’t been there the last few weeks.” – Rory McIlroy
For all Scheffler and McIlroy have done, their achievements aren’t defined specifically by what they’ve done against each other, not in the way Jack Nicklaus and Tom Watson went at each other in the 1977 Open Championship or even Tiger Woods against Bob May in the 2000 PGA Championship.
But if the golf gods want to sprinkle a little magic dust across the pond, a Scheffler-McIlroy showdown either of the next two weeks could have a defining quality.
It’s a blessing to have generational talents at the top of their games at the same time and while McIlroy-Scheffler is built on a mutual respect rather than a rivalry, the next two weeks have significant implications for both.
McIlroy is in the odd spot of having to recapture whatever has been lost since his reaffirming victory in the Masters in April to complete the career slam. The world shared the moment with him because he has a rare magnetism. And while it perhaps should have been expected, his adjustment to having achieved his life’s goal left him adrift for a time.
Because he has been so forthright, to see him become insular after the biggest moment of his career seemed out of balance. He had his reasons for staying silent at major championships and he is due some grace.
He has talked enthusiastically about getting to his family’s new home in the London area and sounded at the U.S. Open like he has been able to recalibrate both his life and his career, having two things he values enormously – the Open in Northern Ireland and the Ryder Cup in September – as his new north stars.
“If I can’t get motivated to get up for an Open Championship at home, then I don’t know what can motivate me. I just need to get myself in the right frame of mind. I probably haven’t been there the last few weeks,” McIlroy said at the U.S. Open.
“Getting home and having a couple weeks off before that, hopefully feeling refreshed and rejuvenated, will get me in the right place again.”
Scheffler, meanwhile, has been as dominant as ever as spring has turned to summer. He has taken two weeks off after playing five events in six weeks – going 1, 1, T4, 1, T7, T6 – and he tends to be his best in big events, having finished in the top 10 in nine of his last 11 majors.
As of last week, Scheffler has been ranked No. 1 in the world for 111 consecutive weeks, the longest streak ever by someone not named Tiger Woods. The most striking thing about Scheffler this year has been his ability to consistently be in contention on weeks when he isn’t at his sharpest.
It speaks to how good Scheffler is that he’s always there. Along the way, Scheffler seems to have grown into the role of being the best in the world. He’s not outwardly brash but he plays with such self belief that it practically radiates.
Scheffler seems more confident sharing his opinion and his sly sense of humor and, in his understated way, his presence within the Ryder Cup team bubble could be one of American captain Keegan Bradley’s most valuable assets.
Every summer deserves a blockbuster. Maybe McIlroy and Scheffler are about to provide one.