Scottie Scheffler urges a heart breaking brutal statement towards PGA tour $36m problem as offense….. Full details below
Scottie Scheffler urges a heart breaking brutal statement towards PGA tour $36m problem as offense….. Full details below
The world’s best golfer, Scottie Scheffler, is in the middle of a patch of form so good that to call it a golden run seems an embarrassing understatement.
He’s the best player on the planet and there’s daylight second.
He might be the most dominant player in any individual sport in the world right now – though Iga Swiatek can make a case on the back of her French Open crown last week.
Scheffler last weekend won the Jack Nicklaus Memorial Tournament, his fifth victory of 2024 already. Not since Tom Watson in 1980 has any player won five tournaments before the US Open, which takes place this weekend with Scheffler an almost unbackable favourite.
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Scheffler has amassed a staggering pot of prizemoney, more than $24 million ($36 million AUD) heading into the third major of the year.
And the list of events he’s winning is about as prestigious as it gets: the Memorial, Masters, Players Championship and Arnold Palmer Invitational as well as the RBC Heritage. Five big events – and five wins from his last eight tournaments.
The three weeks he didn’t win? He finished runner-up twice and tied for eighth at the PGA Championship.
But that last result – his worst of the season – might end up being the most important of the lot.
Because for all of his brilliance, Scheffler has a problem. Or more accurately, the PGA Tour has a problem with Scheffler.
He’s not the most marketable superstar.
At a time when golf’s civil war has torn apart the game for two years, the PGA Tour is desperate for a public relations boost. And yet ever since LIV blew up the golfing world in 2022, the best player on the PGA Tour has been a devout Catholic, a quietly-spoken family man who never makes a headline for the wrong reasons.
Sure, he’s fiercely competitive, but he’s unlikely to snap a club after a poor shot (like Rory McIlroy, Brooks Koepka, or Patrick Reed for example). He’s not likely to be repeatedly accused of cheating (Reed, again), destroying a golf course (Sergio Garcia) or even loudly swearing (Tiger Woods, or Jon Rahm at this year’s Masters roaring “Go F*** yourself. Every drive on the back nine to the f***ing right. God damn, f**k”).
Scheffler does none of this. He just turns up to a golf course, and more often than not, he wins.
There’s an increasing sense of inevitability when it comes to Scheffler these days. Even when rivals play well – or better than well – they can’t keep up with him. Scheffler just grinds his way to victory.
It was the same with peak Tiger Woods – only his larger-than-life personality made it must-watch TV. The Tiger Woods phenomenon brought golf to the masses. It’s safe to say that Scheffler lacks much of that cut-through.
It’s a shame, really. Scheffler’s a brilliant player, a supreme competitor, and ¬seemingly a good person to boot. He’s just had his first child – then turned around and won another tournament.
But that sense of inevitability, combined with his no-fuss personality, has led to descriptions of Scheffler as ‘boring’.
Former American ice hockey star Ryan Whitney said as much last year after Scheffler’s Players’ Championship win.
He tweeted: “Scheffler is a machine. Just an incredible player. Seems to come from a great family. His dad told him ‘be a better person than a golfer’. Awesome stuff”.
That was nice enough. Then he added: “Having said all that, he is so boring. Does nothing for me. If he runs away with the Masters again and ruins Sunday I’ll snap”, he concluded.
Again, this isn’t Scheffler’s fault. He’s openly spoken about golf being just one part of his life. His faith and his family are equally important – and that’s a good thing.
But with LIV doing its best to splinter the golf world, the PGA Tour is desperate for new stars to emerge that have broader cut-through and marketability – and Scheffler just isn’t that.
Or wasn’t, until the most unlikely sports story of the year.
At the PGA Championship last month, Scheffler was arrested attempting to drive into the tournament. He had had a misunderstanding with a police officer amid chaotic traffic outside the gates, after a pedestrian was killed earlier in the morning in a tragic crash.
The world’s best golfer – and the most unassuming – was filmed in handcuffs, being dragged away while calling out to a journalist for help. And this was during one of the four majors!