For the first time since his victory at the 20-player Hero World Challenge last December, Scottie Scheffler found the winner's circle this past Sunday, torching the field at TPC Craig Ranch to win the CJ Cup Byron Nelson.
But what exactly should we take away from this win?
For someone who won nine times in 2024, enduring a self-inflicted cooking injury during the Christmas holiday is not what Scheffler wanted from Santa. While it may have made the competition happy, cooking pasta in December certainly interrupted the run of what had become as much of a reliable winning machine as Secretariat.
But it wasn't just the injury itself, which healed in January. It was the time spent away from practicing and working out that came along with it.
“There wasn't really a whole lot I could do,” he explained back in February at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, which was his first start back.
He said he hit a lot of balls when he was first cleared to play and did that for a specific reason.
“I wanted to push myself pretty hard at home to make sure I wouldn't have a flare-up here on the road if that makes sense,” he added. “It continued to get better and better each day. So figured I might as well come back out and start playing.”
Then, after a few tournaments, it was easy to see that the Scheffler of February and March wasn’t quite the same Scheffler we saw in 2024.
Frustration was building. He had gotten accustomed to winning, but when he returned, he wasn‘t able to do that. There was some club tossing and some bag bashing. All the things ordinary golfers do, but that we hadn’t seen Scottie do much of in the past.
It was nothing more than frustration, trying to get back to the level of play he was used to and that fans were used to seeing from him.
Finally, this past week at Byron Nelson, his hometown event, Scheffler got his 14th PGA Tour win. He was clearly happy and relieved, and got emotional as soon as a microphone was put in front of his face.
“It really is a lifetime of hard work and sacrifice from a lot of the people that I have around me, and my family is obviously the starter for that. Yeah, I guess when my family is here, I always tend to get a bit emotional,” he admitted to the media after the tournament was finished.
But was this victory a big celebration or just a relief?
Scottie Scheffler beat a weak field at the CJ Cup Byron Nelson
There's no getting around the fact that this year's Byron Nelson featured what any honest golf writer would call a weak field.
Someone who knows more about the PGA Tour than I ever will once asked a tournament winner, “Who’d you beat?”
Wow, I thought that was harsh. But that’s the world of professional golf. It’s not just that you won, which they all understand. It’s who you beat. Who was in the field that you could maybe count on beating next time?
Did you beat the best? Or did you beat a bunch of guys casual golf fans have never heard of?
Many of the pre-tournament notes for the CJ Cup focused on players who might qualify for this week's Signature Event, the Truist Championship. Really?
Well, they might have had a point.
Of the top 50 from last year’s FedEx Cup final standings, only nine were in the 156-player field in Dallas. And that included the defending champ, Taylor Pendrith, who missed the cut by one, as well as Scheffler, Sam Burns, Austin Eckroat, Eric Cole, and South Koreans Sungjae Im, Byeong Hun An, and Si Woo Kim.
The tournament sponsor, CJ Group, is a South Korean conglomerate, and those last three may have felt it was important to support that company, but no mention was made of it.
Jordan Spieth, who is a hometown hero in Dallas, was a natural to play as well, but he’s a borderline top-50 player these days.
Interestingly, the celebrated Højgaard twins, Nicolai and Rasmus, chose to play. Both are up-and-coming players, and perhaps they saw the event as a good opportunity to break through, which didn't happen, as Rasmus finished in solo 48th while Nicolai finished three shots worse in a tie for 56th.
However, having Scheffler in the tournament almost makes up for everything else as far as fan appeal is concerned, at least in Dallas, and that’s where they are selling tickets.
Importantly, Scheffler delivered, as he matched the PGA Tour 72-hole scoring record, tying the totals of Justin Thomas at the 2017 Sony Open and Ludvig Åberg at The RSM in 2023.
Scheffler was typically gracious, and he seemed relieved.
“Being here at home is pretty nice,” he said after the finish. “A lot of times when you finish a tournament, you've got to catch a flight home. It's really nice to be able to hop in the car and be in my own bed tonight.”
While that’s true, as he put his head on his pillow, he knows what those who cover the sport know. The massive eight-shot margin of victory was great, but the field certainly wasn’t. Nevertheless, it was a statement of his power on the course and the power of the mind.
While he didn’t beat a legion of Rory McIlroys and Justin Thomases, he did show that he’s overcome his injury and that he still has the “Scottie mental power of concentration.” That’s worth almost as much as the victory itself.