Let’s take a moment to consider – again and not for the last time – just how good Scottie Scheffler has been already this young season.
In three starts, Scheffler has won the American Express, tied for third in the WM Phoenix Open after shooting 73 in the first round and tied for fourth at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am last week at Pebble Beach after opening with a flat 72.
Now let’s take it back a little more.
In his last five official starts in 2025, Scheffler won three times with a T3 and a T4 tucked in there as well.
That’s eight consecutive starts with four wins and four top-four finishes. Scheffler is also approaching the one-year anniversary of his last finish outside the top-10, which was a T20 at the Players Championship last March.
Death, taxes and Scottie Scheffler.
It could have been easy for Scheffler to exhale either of the last two weeks when he found himself 10 strokes off the lead after 18 holes. Instead, Scheffler did what he does so well – stayed true to himself and how he plays.
Scheffler has talked often about his competitive fire, whether it’s playing pickleball or ping-pong or golf with his friends in Dallas. It is his eternal flame. And as much as his fundamentals are the foundation of his brilliance, Scheffler’s competitiveness and sense of achievement underpin the swings he makes.
“I look at the way I grew up like playing all different sports, competing with my buddies, and I always had, like, a rational confidence to where I was going to somehow figure out a way to beat my buddies in whatever it is, besides video games,” Scheffler said Wednesday at the Genesis Invitational at Riviera Country Club.
“But if we’re going to play like tennis, pickleball, ping-pong, basketball, like, I love competing. I love challenging myself and the people around me in kind of whatever it is. I love competing. I love having fun.”
He doesn’t like getting beat, not that it has happened often in recent months, but he has learned to accept what he can’t control.
Scheffler was reminded of a moment two years ago at Riviera when he was so frustrated by his putting that he threw his golf ball into the trees walking off one green. It was shortly thereafter that Scheffler went to a TaylorMade Spider putter and he has seemed practically unbeatable since.
The stoicism Scheffler conveys tends to hide his intensity. He doesn’t like getting beat, not that it has happened often in recent months, but he has learned to accept what he can’t control.
“When the tournament ends, one thing I’ve had a lot of growth in since I was a kid is being able to take my hat off, shake hands, say ‘good job’ and then be done with it …
“You look at a guy like Collin [Morikawa] last week. I’ve been competing against Collin since we were like 14 years old. He wins a tournament, he announces [his wife is] pregnant … it’s such a cool moment to see a guy who’s played really good golf over the last few years and hasn’t quite gotten the results and the wins, but he’s played pretty consistent golf, and then he gets to announce that he’s having a kid. It’s this moment, it’s like, wow.
“I competed as hard as I could, got beat, and it’s like, man, that’s awesome. You won, congrats. You’re having a baby, even bigger congrats.”
Riviera is soggy this week, inundated by a series of storms coming off the Pacific, softening the edge on one of the game’s classic layouts. The George C. Thomas design, which will host the 2026 U.S. Women’s Open, the 2028 Olympics and the 2031 U.S. Open, exemplifies the notion that the most thorough challenges don’t need water hazards and out of bounds to define their difficulty.
“When you look at this golf course and you look at it on paper, it seems kind of easy,” Scheffler said. “Then you start playing it and you’re like, hit a ball in the rough on [No. 2] and you’re like, ‘man, this hole is kind of hard.’ Then you don’t hit the fairway on [No. 3] and you’re like, ‘oh, shoot, I don’t know how I am going to hit the ball on the green here.’ And then the golf course just eats away at you over time.
“I feel like this golf course can be about as frustrating to play as any on tour just with the little tricks that it has to it.”
“I think this place is a good case study on certain holes where you don’t have to make golf courses overly long if you want to make them difficult. I think that’s a whole new thing in the game of golf.” – Scottie Scheffler
Riviera has no water hazards but it features a collection of memorable holes. The par-3 sixth is defined by a bunker in the middle of the putting surface and the famous 10th may be the greatest short par-4 in the world.
It requires patience and precision and has a spot on almost every list of architectural gems in the game.
“I think this place is a good case study on certain holes where you don’t have to make golf courses overly long if you want to make them difficult,” Scheffler said. “I think that’s a whole new thing in the game of golf. That’s what modern golf course designers are doing where they are taking out trees making things bigger, wider, and it doesn’t necessarily make them harder just because you make a golf hole longer.
“I think the eighth hole out here is a really good example of a short hole that’s quite difficult, and it gives you a lot of options as well. You can play it up the right, you can play it up the left, and you see guys doing different kinds of things there. I think that’s something that’s interesting about a golf course, when you have different options.”