Scottie Scheffler Wants to Play Well and Enjoy Olympic Experience

“Obviously my biggest priority is showing up ready to play this week, but I definitely want to experience a little bit of the Olympics,” Scottie Scheffler said in the media interview prior to the beginning of the golf competition. “It's definitely special to be part of the Olympics, and I'm looking forward to the chance to compete for a medal for our country.”

He’s also visiting some other areas in and around Paris. He played golf at a course a couple hours south of Paris where he and his wife stayed for the week before coming north to Paris. 

Scottie Scheffler described it as a mini-vacation.

He played and Meredith and baby Bennett rode in the cart to keep him company.

“Definitely fun, good time with the family last week,” he added.

Scheffler has a full entourage that includes his trainer, his in-laws, as well as others in Meredith’s family.

“They are doing all the Olympic stuff. They went to tennis today and swimming tonight,” he explained.

But Scottie and Meredith Scheffler did some touristy things, too, like visiting what is probably the most famous museum in the world, the Louvre which houses more than 35,000 works of art, just part of the collection which numbers in excess of 500,000. 

“It was a cool experience,” Scheffler said about the Louvre. “Definitely shocked me a little bit just how many people were in there and how big the place was.” 

Big is an understatement. The Louvre is just over 650,000 square feet. By comparison, the relatively new TPC Sawgrass clubhouse is 77,000 square feet. So it would take almost 10 TPC Sawgrass clubhouses to equal it in size. The museum was originally a fortress and then the palace of French kings beginning in 1546. When the royals moved to Versailles, the buildings were used as a residence for artists who had royal patronage. The Louvre became a public museum during the French Revolution and was then used to safeguard art treasures some of which had once belonged to the royal family.  

In their Louvre visit the Schefflers saw the Mona Lisa, which Scottie said was “really cool,” and they viewed the French crown jewels. He thinks they saw perhaps 1/10th of the museum in a two-hour period. (He probably underestimated that!)

“I felt like I could have been there for days exploring around looking at all the old paintings,” he added. “I would say the paintings were something that really took me back. It was pretty wild how big they were and how talented people were back then, and also how long they preserved them for as long as they have. I can get pretty interested in that kind of stuff.”   

The biggest painting in The Louvre is 22′ 3″ x 32′ 0″ and represents the biblical story of the Wedding at Cana during which Jesus changes water into wine. It was created by Paolo Veronese in 1562-1563.

Scheffler has his own version of a museum at home where he keeps his trophies and keepsakes.

“It's called the golf room,” he explained. “There's some trophies in there and we built a couple additional shelves this year which is pretty fun. We were redoing the room as I was winning a bunch and so we just kind of had to continue to adjust, which was a pretty fun thing to be able to do. And yeah, I got some cool stuff that I like to hold on to.”

According to Scheffler, after winning the Masters, there’s another special gift.

“You get like this little thing that signifies that you're a member of the club,” he said. “You only get it once, and so that sits in the room, and it's something that a lot of people don't know about. It kind of just chills in a little corner.”

When they have guests who want to talk about golf, he will give them a tour of the room.

“But for the most part, I go there to work on my clubs and practice a bit. Definitely don't sit in there, it's like my office,” he added. “I work on my clubs back there but I don't do anything else.”

In his media interview, he was asked if he thought he could be a multi-sport athlete in the Olympics.

“I don't think so, but sometimes I have irrational self-confidence, and maybe if I really put my mind to it,” he quipped.  “I don't think you'll be seeing me out playing tennis in the Olympics any time soon, the table version or the regular version.”

Though he has had some light-hearted moments already in Paris, make no mistake, when it comes time to compete, Scheffler will be serious about wanting to win.

“It's not very often you get to compete in the Olympics, so to be able to have a medal for the rest of your life would be very special,” he said.