What Scottie Scheffler says about his season: The Players, The Masters, The Olympics

The man won six PGA Tour events, including The Players and The Masters. Then he had the joy of becoming a father for the first time and capped it off with an Olympic gold medal in golf. It doesn’t get much better than that. But the season isn’t over.   

Now, he’s trying to win the FedEx Cup, something he hasn’t been able to do so far in his short career. It would be more than icing on the cake, it would be bigger than Texas barbeque.  And believe me, in Texas, they take their barbeque seriously.  For sure it would be a monster year, one no other golfer has been able to match.      

However, Scheffler has had his challenges at the Tour Championship.

“I didn't have my best stuff at East Lake the last couple years,” he said about the regular season-ender.“I played good there my rookie year, but outside of that, the last few years, I haven't had my best stuff.” 

Scottie Scheffler hopes to change that in a few weeks. 

There have been a few changes to the golf course at East Lake, and he’s hopeful that will play into his strengths, and maybe give him a better chance to best Xander Schauffele who always plays well there.

Schauffele won the tournament portion of the Tour Championship in his rookie year, but Justin Thomas took all the headlines by winning the FedEx Cup.  

“I think I've been No. 1 the last two years going into the tournament. Went in 2022 having a really great chance to win and wasn't able to pull it off, and last year really just playing poorly pretty much the entire week,” he said about his past play.

This time around he has a good luck charm in his Olympic medal, although Schauffele has one of those, too.  But Scheffler brought his medal to Memphis for the first event of the Playoffs. 

“I was definitely surprised at how many people want to see the medal,” he said. “I feel like there's a lot of stuff in golf where they'll say congratulations, but I think a lot of people get a lot of joy from seeing the medal, and it's pretty cool, so that part has been fun.”

He said one of the best things about it is there aren’t any rules around using it or letting people hold it or wear it.

“With the green jacket it's pretty strict, when you're out representing the club with the green jacket,” he noted. “It's a bit of a different feeling with the Olympic medal. It's like, yeah, sure, you can wear it, take pictures, do whatever you want. A lot of my friends have gotten a good amount of joy out of that, and it's been fun.”

One reason he brought it was that several people texted him and asked if he could bring it out to the course. They wanted to see it. They all wanted to take a picture with it.

“Showing the kids out there and taking pictures with my buddies. It was a lot of fun,” he added.

He was asked about his play at the Olympics compared to The Players. 

“The Players, I got what I felt like was everything I could have, the way my body felt that week,” he admitted, referencing his stiff and sore neck that week. 

“At The Players, I birdied 16, 17, 18 on Saturday, and I just felt like when I rolled in that birdie putt on 18, it was huge because I was just -- what I felt like was close enough to where, if I had a good front nine, I'd be ahead of the leaders, and I would be able to kind of put pressure on them by posting a score.”

He said in Paris on Sunday he had a similar chance to post a score ahead of those who had been leading. But it didn't quite work out that way.

“All of a sudden, I went from getting right to the lead to just watching the guys going further and further ahead of me,” he said about the final round at Le Golf National.

He said that, like TPC Sawgrass, it’s the kind of course that makes you think you have to hit perfect shots but really it was a matter of hitting the right shot at the right time. In the end, he said he was able to “do enough and kind of feed off some mistakes that the leaders made and put myself in position.”

The golf courses – Le Golf National and TPC Sawgrass -- had a similarity in that the closing holes have a lot of opportunity but also a lot of danger.  As those who watched saw, there was just enough trouble at Le Golf National to ruin the rounds of those who had been in the lead when Sunday began.  And as Scheffler said, he was able to make enough birdies to edge his way to the front.

The Olympic podium experience was different than anything else he has done.  

“Standing on the podium I think was definitely one of the coolest things that I'll ever experience in golf. It was a lot of fun,” Scheffler said.

He may be the only medalist who has described it that way, but you have to bet it was fun, thrilling, and moving. His tears were real.

And the biggest event of the year, Baby Bennett, is growing and evolving. As any parent will know, the changes come pretty fast and furious sometimes. Right now, Bennett has been learning how to smile.

“It's really cool when you get in his face and he recognizes you and it's like, hey, man, what's up, hi,”  Scheffler explained. Cool indeed, Scottie, cool indeed.