When Scottie Scheffler is making putts, it seems there’s no better golfer in the world.
Well, Scheffler has started making putts again.
As the PGA Tour’s best players descend upon TPC Sawgrass for the 50th anniversary of the tour’s flagship event, The Players Championship, Scheffler will enjoy the momentum from a win last week as he seeks to defend his 2023 title.
The so-called fifth major of men’s golf tees off Thursday in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla.
Scheffler, 27, had struggled with his putting for long stretches of time after his tear in early 2022 that saw him bag the Masters and three other tournaments. In the 2022-23 season, he led the tour in strokes gained: tee-to-green by a good margin, but he lost 0.301 strokes on the field when putting, ranking 162nd.
Before last week’s Arnold Palmer Invitational, at the suggestion of Northern Ireland’s Rory McIlroy, Scheffler traded in his blade putter for a mallet style. He shot a final-round 66 to win the event by five strokes.
“I’m not going to give him any more advice, that’s for sure,” McIlroy joked Wednesday.
Scheffler has made it clear that it didn’t take one simple trick to fix that area of his game. He has put in the practice and worked on his mental game over time.
“It’s not like the whole week I just showed up and I made every putt,” Scheffler said. “I was up a few strokes in putting, but I’m most proud of how I stuck to the process and bounced back from those kind of little mistakes.”
Scheffler had a third-round 65 last year en route to finishing 17 under for the week, winning by five. In 50 years of The Players, no one has ever won it back-to-back.
“It really is a Pete Dye (course), just kind of genius design, where you have to hit all different kinds of shots, and it tests you in a lot of different ways,” Scheffler said. “That’s why I think it’s one of the best places we play on tour, just because it really doesn’t suit one type of player.”
Sawgrass is best known for its iconic par-3 17th hole, the Island Green.
“I think if it was surrounded by grass and not water, it would probably be one of the simplest par-3s that we play all year,” said McIlroy, who won in 2019. “Obviously it’s not, and you’re standing there, and for a par-3 that’s 140-whatever yards, it’s more mentally challenging than the physical element of it.
“Play that hole and make four 3s during the week, you’re pretty happy.”
Other past TPC winners in the field this week include Justin Thomas (2021), Webb Simpson (2018), Jason Day of Australia (2016) and Rickie Fowler (2015).
Though Thomas has gone nearly two years since his last win (the 2022 PGA Championship), he’s playing far better in 2024 than 2023, already with two top-10s and two T12 finishes.
“I feel like things are very, very close in terms of winning tournaments,” Thomas said. “I feel and know that I’m playing well enough to win tournaments. It’s just at this point about actually doing it.”
More than just a handful of elite players will be there. A new class of golfers is bubbling up and will try to contend. Nick Dunlap, Jake Knapp and Frenchman Matthieu Pavon got into the field by winning tournaments over the winter. It will also mark the first Players start for Swedish 24-year-old Ludvig Aberg, who was still in college this time last year but has since won in Europe and the United States.
–Field Level Media