ATLANTA — Randy Smith was speaking about his star pupil Scottie Scheffler when Scheffler’s mother, Diane, swooped in for a hug. But as he accepted her embrace, Smith answered the question about what he learned seeing Scheffler overcome the dreaded shank at the eighth hole in the final round of the 2024 Tour Championship and bounce back with three straight birdies and go on to win the title and the FedEx Cup for the first time with a winning score of 30 under.
“A lot,” Smith said, his eyes growing wide.
He still remembers when Scheffler was seven or eight years old and he would grow increasingly frustrated when he would do everything in his power correctly but the ball would take a funny bounce or would hit a spike mark and go off line. Scheffler couldn’t understand it. Smith said it took time, but he learned to control what he can control and appreciate that golf is not a game of perfect.
“Golf is hard,” Smith said, “and he’s figured out how to make it easy.”
Indeed, Scheffler has, making five birdies and an eagle at East Lake Golf Club to shoot 4-under 67 on Sunday and beat Collin Morikawa by four strokes in the FedEx Cup finale to remove any doubt of who is the PGA Tour Player of the Year. Scheffler became the first player to win seven times in a single season – eight according to Scheffler, who counts the gold medal at the Paris Olympics – since Tiger Woods in 2007. In the last 40 years, Scheffler joins Woods, who did it four times, and Vijay Singh, who won nine times in 2004.
No less than Adam Scott, the 44-year-old veteran who experienced Tiger’s prime and finished T-4 this week, said Scheffler’s season was worthy of comparisons to some of Tiger’s best work.
“I think it is on par with those great years of Tiger’s. I think it’s very hard today for anyone to separate themselves as much as Scottie has. I don’t think we’ve seen that in a long time. I think it’s harder to do it today,” he said.
Golf Channel’s Brandel Chamblee argued Scheffler’s game from tee to green has been every bit as good as Tiger in his prime. “I never thought I’d be able to say that – Tiger Woods was a much better putter…what we (saw) this week is Tiger Woods-type putting,” he said of Scheffler, who ranked third in Strokes Gained: Putting this week.
Just a few weeks after Rory McIlroy suggested on national TV that Scheffler should consider using a mallet putter, he switched to a TaylorMade Spider in March, and the putts started to drop. When Scheffler, already the game’s most complete player, putts well, it’s not a fair fight.
“I made a lot of putts this year when I really needed to,” he said. “I think of the putt to win Memorial, I think of some of the putts I made over the week at the Players and the putts I made on the back nine Sunday at the Olympics. I made some putts this year when I really needed to, and that’s why I’m sitting here with a lot of wins instead of a few.”
Scheffler entered the Tour Championship at No. 1 in the FedEx Cup standings for the third consecutive year and began at 10 under in the staggered start, two strokes clear of Xander Schauffele and as many as 10 ahead of the last man in the 30-man field. With rounds of 65-66-66, he enjoyed a five-stroke lead heading into the final round, and with Morikawa making bogey at the first and Scheffler sinking a birdie at No. 2, his lead grew to seven. But that seemingly commanding advantage began to shrink. Scheffler made three bogeys in a four-hole stretch beginning at the fifth and concluding with the world No. 1 shanking that ball from a greenside bunker at No. 8.
“You can see it in his body language right now,” NBC’s Jim “Bones” Mackay said. “He is shaken up.”
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Very surprising were the words Morikawa used to describe the shot. He pounced, rolling in his birdie putt for a two-stroke swing to cut the deficit to two. All the momentum had shifted. But one of Scheffler’s super powers is his ability to only look forward.
“He went back to work,” Smith said.
“It almost brought his focus back in for a half second, and that’s something you can’t teach. You just either have it or you don’t,” Morikawa said.
It looked as if Scheffler, who blew a six-stroke 54-hole lead in the 2022 Tour Championship to McIlroy, was reeling. A pep talk from caddie Ted Scott helped settle his nerves. Morikawa wasn’t surprised what happened next: “He played Scottie golf.”
Scheffler drilled a 4-iron at the par-3 ninth to 3 feet and made birdie. He birdied the next two holes to stretch the lead to five. That’s what the greats do. Just like he did down the road at Augusta National Golf Club in April, he sucked all the drama out of the closing holes.
In a year in which he welcomed the birth of his first child, a son Bennett, and stretched in a Louisville jail cell before the second round of the PGA Championship at Valhalla, Scheffler collected his 13th Tour title, tying him with a group that includes Jordan Spieth, Jason Day and David Duval. That included another major championship, his second Masters title, and he also won the Players, becoming the first player to win the Tour’s flagship event in back-to-back years. He also claimed four signature events: the Arnold Palmer Invitational, the RBC Heritage, the Travelers and the Memorial.
He won $25 million in bonus money as the FedEx Cup champion, bringing his grand total to $62,228,357 this season between official and bonus money.
“He’s the guy to beat every single week,” Justin Thomas said. “I don’t think people understand how hard that is to do, when you’re expected to win, when you’re the favorite to win, when every single thing you’re doing is being looked at, good and bad, on the golf course, and how hard it is to get in your own little zone and own little world and truly just quiet the noise. It’s something that is just as much of a skill as being able to hit a driver in the fairway or an iron on line. He’s clearly figured that out very well.”
Scott has tried to figure out Scheffler’s secret sauce, which included ranking first in 40 different statistical categories measured by the Tour – among them first in greens in regulation (73 percent) and putting average (1.69). No player had led both categories in a single season since 1980. (In 2000, Woods was second in putting average.)
“I’m observing all the time everything he does. I switched to his golf ball this year. I did a bunch of stuff just to see what’s going on. But I didn’t find it,” Scott said.
Aaron Rai, who made it to East Lake for the first time this season, has been keeping close tabs on Scheffler’s relentless play and run of dominance and offered a different take on what makes Scheffler special.
“His biggest strength is his outlook and his perspective on life,” Rai said. “To be able to maintain that level of golf under the pressure of being world No. 1 and the attention that surrounds him every week and to be able to play his best golf at No. 1 shows a different dimension to his game.”
Schauffele, who with two majors enjoyed a breakthrough season and finished T-4 at the Tour Championship, has witnessed Brooks Koepka, Dustin Johnson, McIlroy and Jon Rahm take their turn at No. 1, but what Scheffler has done stands alone.
“I think by the definition of dominance, I think that’s literally where he’s sitting,” Schauffele said. “They were kind of punching back and forth between 1, 2 and 3. Scottie has just been at the tip-top of the mountain for, what, two full years now it seems.”
Schauffele, Scott, Morikawa and the best players in men’s golf will get another shot next season to knock Scheffler from his perch, but none of his success surprises CBS analyst Colt Knost, who watched Scheffler blossom into the best in the world from a young age.
“This is what he does,” Knost said. “He’s been a winner his whole life, and I don’t see him slowing down any time soon.”