Scottie Scheffler he doesn’t look like Scottie Scheffler in this arena The world No. 1 has dominated the golf world for the past four years. Throw in the balls in a 72-hole event, and the odds were good that on Sunday night Scheffler would find himself either holding the trophy or coming up just shy. Ask anyone in pro golf, from Rory McIlroy to Jordan Spieth, and the answer is the same: it’s Scottie Scheffler. . . and everyone else.
But that hasn’t been the case in weeks like this one the Presidents’ Cupwhere the normally inevitable greatness of Scheffler did not come in the match-play format. In two previous Presidents Cups, Scheffler is 3-5-1 overall with a 1-3-1 record in foursomes and an 0-2-1 record in singles. His numbers are just as confusing at the Ryder Cup, where he is 3-6-3 with a 0-4-0 record in foursomes and a 1-2-2 mark in fourballs.
With numbers like that, it would be understandable if the hyper-competitive Scheffler arrived at Medinah Country Club a little irritated.
And, well, it kind of is.
Scheffler said there is one aspect of team competitions that has left him and many of his teammates frustrated. But it has nothing to do with his stats or record, or, for that matter, the Presidents Cup. Everything comes from that other team event.
“I think it’s something that’s probably frustrating for us as American players is part of the narratives that have gone on in the course of my team match career – things like Patrick Cantlay not wearing his hat or stupid rumors that simply aren’t true,” said Scheffler on Tuesday. “Like meeting in a different team room and the Americans are not a tight team. It’s something for us that can be very frustrating at times because it’s very fake.”
Of course, those narratives only came after or during the failures of the US Ryder Cup. Patrick Cantlay’s report out during the 2023 Ryder Cup to Marco Simone. It was followed by the suggestion that the The US team’s room was fractured. The Americans showed up at Bethpage Black two years later and did little to quiet the murmurs as the Europeans dominated them for two days before hanging on to win in singles.
None of this angst has been a problem in the Presidents Cup. U The United States dominated the eventwinning 10 in a row and losing just once in the history of the event. But it is understood that the Ryder Cup and its tentacles are in the Presidents Cup. Although one is run by the PGA of America and the other by the PGA Tour, it has long been argued that the Presidents Cup could be used as a way to help the Americans find greater success in the Ryder Cup, building continuity between the captains and in the team room, giving young players an early exposure to team events and creating a plan for the American golf team to follow each year, whether the Presidents Cup Ryder Cup, either Regardless of the year, any conversation about American team golf eventually comes back to the Ryder Cup and the recent failures of Team USA.
So Scheffler is frustrated by the narratives and reports that have emerged about him and his teammates after the losses in Italy and Long Island. But, no doubt, he also knows that the same questions facing Medinah this week – questions about a poor match record, how to fix it and whether his teammates are pushing too hard for who he is – will likely be asked next year in Ireland at Adare Manor.
On Tuesday at Medinah, Scheffler responded to his team’s competition in simple terms.
“I think you can always play better,” he said. “I always feel like – every time I go out, I feel that I can always play better. In the team format, when you look at the best ball and the alternative shot, there is a little flukiness for sure. Sometimes you are against the guys who played really well. It is very easy, I think, after the tournaments to play quarterback in the armchair and feel that you can do things differently.”
Scheffler is the dominant force in golf. And as was true of the previous gravitational center of the game, Tiger Woods, Scheffler has not been as inevitable in the team format as in the stroke game. Woods went 13-21-3 in the Ryder Cup, including 5-10-0 in fourballs and 4-9-1 in foursomes. Woods, however, was dominant in the Presidents Cup, going 27-15-1 overall and 12-4-1 in foursomes. Scheffler could also face a similar problem that Woods encountered during his team career: finding the right partner who can handle playing with the world No. 1 and not let his nerves let him choke his game.
“I think there’s an inherent kind of — not fear for the guy they’re playing with, but a feeling of letting him down,” U.S. captain Brandt Snedeker said Tuesday about the task of finding Scheffler a consistent partner. “He’s the best player in the world. He’s so good at everything; no matter what I do, it won’t be good enough.”
Snedeker admitted it’s a “challenge” to find the right fit for someone with Scheffler’s talent and aura. Since 2023, Scheffler has had seven different partners in team events. He and Sam Burns were cleared by several red international pairs in 2022. At the Ryder Cup 2023, Scheffler and Brooks Koepka were cleared 9 & 7 in foursomes. It seemed that Scheffler found a partner in Russell Henley at the 2024 Presidents Cup, where they went 2-1. But the Scheffler-Henley pairing went winless last September at Bethpage.
Scheffler admitted Tuesday that it might weigh on his partners a bit, because you never want to let your partners down, regardless of who they are. But more importantly, Scheffler says he might want too much. That the key to bring his stroke-play dominance to the team format is not to find the right partner, but in the world No. 1 letting off the gas a little.
“As a hypercompetitive person, I think sometimes I can try too hard,” Scheffler said. “I think that when you look at this format, and as you said, maybe my record does not correspond to what I think it should be, could I have tried too hard? I think that is definitely a factor for sure. For me, it is different in the sense that you also have a partner with you and you are playing for someone other than yourself, and this is also very different.
“Kind of a balance between how much you care, I think that’s something I’m always trying to figure out. Definitely for me, I think just trying less would be really important. It’s just one of those things that’s a lot easier said than done.”
So, because everything goes back to the Ryder Cup, Scheffler was asked a question that everyone associated with the American golf team tried to answer: Why were the Americans able to dominate the Presidents Cup and did not have the same kind of success in the Ryder Cup?
“That’s a good question,” Scheffler said. “There are a lot of things that you can look at. Many times you can play armchair quarterback after the thing, and you can invent a hundred reasons why things could go differently in this thing. What I try to focus on most of these tournaments is just controlling the controllables and the things that I can control. It’s getting out there and having a good attitude and trying not to run something outside, I think not to run something. else really.”
That will be for the rest of us after the dust settles in Medinah and we’ll see if the Americans’ Scottie Scheffler enigma has been solved as they head to Adare Manor.
