Scottie Scheffler might want to be careful. It won't be long before he starts getting booed. If he does, it will be his own fault. Just like Novak Djokovic, he has brought it on himself they're both too good. We all appreciate the skill and crazy performance levels, but do we really want to see one player dominate the game?
Don't worry, Scheffler isn't going to get booed - this isn't football, or Centre Court. He might get heckled at Bethpage, provoked by European fans desperate to knock the American off his stride, but it won't make one bit of difference. The World No.1 is unflappable. Some might call the way he goes about his business boring, but is it really that different to the other guy who won for fun, Tiger Woods?
Let's have the Woods discussion straight away - the comparison. Woods is the only player in the men's game to have held a vice-like grip on the World No.1 spot. Following Woods' peak, Messrs Mcllroy, Spieth, Johnson, Koepka and Rahm all threatened to pull away from the chasing pack, only to suffer a dip or be reeled back in. Staying there is clearly not easy.
A view widely shared at the time was that the game would never again witness a player rule the roost for so long like Woods. At the time of writing, Scheffler is into his 65th consecutive week looking down on the rest, and he won't be budging any time soon.
How did this happen? Last autumn, he'd been left in tears after suffering a record 9&7 foursomes defeat at the Ryder Cup. His putting was fragile and so too, it seemed, was his mind. Tee to green there was no one better, but his putting, at times, looked decidedly average. There was even talk that he had the yips.
After suffering that humiliation in Rome, Scheffler won six PGA Tour titles in 15 events. In a sport where players 'lose' most weeks, his win ratio is quite remarkable.
This story is from the September 2024 edition of Golf Monthly.
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This story is from the September 2024 edition of Golf Monthly.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
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