Birdies are on the agenda for Scottie Scheffler this week, although it does not necessarily have anything to do with the pressure to perform as No. 1-ranked player in the world as the PGA Tour hits the mainland for the first time in 2024.
Scheffler is among an impressive but modest group of stars playing in this week’s The American Express in the California desert. Justin Thomas, Patrick Cantlay, Xander Schauffele, Tony Finau, Rickie Fowler, Wyndham Clark, Jason Day and Shane Lowry also will be in the field.
A regular in the event, based in La Quinta, Calif., not far from where the Coachella music festival takes place each spring, Scheffler knows that if his game hits all the right notes this week, it will because he manifested it.
“For me, it’s all about preparation and I don’t really pay attention to the world rankings too much,” Scheffler said Wednesday. “(It) doesn’t really give me any extra strokes or anything like that this week.”
Hunkered down full time in the chilly confines of Dallas, where low temperatures will hit the teens this weekend, Scheffler still managed to get in enough offseason preparation to finish tied for fifth at the season-opening The Sentry event at Maui, Hawaii, earlier this month.
After not playing at Honolulu last week, Scheffler is guaranteed at least three rounds this week before the 54-hole cut in an event that is played on three different courses: PGA West Pete Dye Stadium Course, the Nicklaus Tournament Course and La Quinta Country Club.
That three-round cut, to allow everybody in the field to play each course, has worked out to Scheffler’s benefit in the past. And not merely for his weekend paycheck.
“I think it was, maybe two years ago here, this tournament kind of helped jump start me for the rest of the season,” Scheffler said. “I think I was outside the cut line by maybe three shots with three holes to go over on Stadium Course, and I chipped in for eagle on 16, and made a 30-footer for birdie on 18 to make the cut on the number.”
The momentum continued into the final round on the Stadium Course, with its rock island of a green at No. 17 and the San Jacinto Mountains looming to the west.
“I finished 20th or 25th, something like that,” he said. “Then, after that, it kind of jump started the rest of my year. I think I played Torrey Pines the next week, and won in Phoenix a couple weeks after that, and kind of started my run there in 2022.
Scheffler won again at the Arnold Palmer Invitational at Orlando, Fla., a few weeks later. That was followed by another trophy at the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play in Austin, Texas. His momentum was only growing.
The victory at Austin pushed Scheffler to the No. 1 ranking in the world and he celebrated that in April of 2022 with a victory at the Masters Tournament. He was just the fifth to ever win the Masters while holding the No. 1 ranking.
With limited rough on fairways that are surrounded by dormant Bermuda, attacking the pin will be crucial this week. Jon Rahm blasted the course setups a few years ago as a “birdie contest.” He then went out and won The American Express title last year, but he will bypass this year’s event after his move to LIV Golf.
Rahm or no Rahm, birdies by the bunches still will be key.
“Yeah, usually at the beginning of the year I’m excited to go out and make birdies and not bogeys, so it’s nice coming into tournaments where you got to make birdies,” Scheffler said. “But, no, just like any golf course, you got to be precise. I feel like on the easier courses on tour you can’t really get behind, just because it’s so much harder to catch up.”
–Field Level Media