Scottie Scheffler’s Sorcery – Fried Egg Golf

There was an oddball take that bubbled up toward the end of PGA Championship about Scottie Scheffler. It did not have anything to do with his arrest, and probably went under the radar. But there were some talking heads on the television questioning why he had not won past the month of April on the PGA Tour. All that success, all that dominance since the winter of 2022, but zero victories in the back half off the schedule.

It was a weird take, but that’s what consistent excellence can provoke. “Yeah, but…” oddball takes and reaches to poke holes tend to bubble up. That particular angle neglected his record of continued excellent play at many events in summer months, Ryder Cups, and elsewhere on a variety of turfs and conditions. But the “win” portion is now disposed of thanks to a one-shot victory at the Memorial, where he edged Collin Morikawa on a firm, breezy, and brutish Muirfield Village in the month of June. It’s his 11th PGA Tour victory since February 2022, including two Masters, two Players, and four elevated/designated/signature events. As Fried Egg tweeted on Sunday, the last three months alone yield a resume that might put one up for Hall of Fame consideration and certainly qualifies as a wonderful career.

Whether February, April, or now June, Scheffler did it how he always does it in this Memorial, with an approach game that was statistically miles ahead of the competition in another field full of most of his elite peers. His putting wasn’t great, but was good enough, and his cushion to start the day combined with a tough overall setup to allow Scottie to win despite a Sunday 74. The win seemed quite meaningful to him. He has little to prove right now, but pouring in that medium-length par-saving putt on 18 elicited a sort of “take that’ reaction, a rather emphatic one by Scheffler standards. It was his fifth win in eight starts.

There have been a handful of “best player since Tiger” nominees over the past decade. There are better overall resumes, but Scheffler has played the best, most consistent golf since Tiger’s prime. Golf is a solitary game, the player against the course, where the best pros are insistent they take it one shot at a time and just worry about what they can control. But every now and then, a great player goes on such a heater that he looms over everyone else’s approach, be it mental or execution. Scheffler has reached that status this year. After the round, runner-up Morikawa, who has played very good-to-great golf this year and has won multiple majors himself, said, “The guy is so steady not just with his golf game but with life and that’s an amazing thing to have. But it’s just, every shot is just great distance control. And you know when I feel like I’m on, that’s what I have. But Scottie’s got it every day.”

This is another bit of Tiger-like sorcery. Golfers tend not to compare their games or resumes out loud to one another, though they may do so quietly. Scottie is at the point where the others know he’s better, and say it out loud more and more because it’s simply silly to pretend otherwise. And worse for them still, he knows that they know. And on top of all the great shots and near flawless execution, that can start to matter when it’s Friday, Saturday, and even Sunday during a round of 74 as others try to press to keep up, or understand the doom that comes with a moment when they might not “be on”, as Morikawa framed it. It’s a special place to be, and now comes a major championship where he’s gone T-7, T-2, and 3rd the last three years. Thankfully he’s proved he can win in June, because it’s Scheffler’s U.S. Open to lose.

This piece originally appeared in the Fried Egg Golf newsletter. Subscribe for free and receive golf news and insight every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. For more coverage of the U.S. Open, visit the Fried Egg Golf U.S. Open hub here.