There have always been “buts” when it comes to Scottie Scheffler at the start of his PGA Tour seasons: He’s a great young player, but he hasn’t won yet. He’s the world No. 1, but he didn’t win during the summer. He’s striking the ball at a historic clip, but his putting may be historically bad. He is the best player in the world, but he is less than 100% following an injury.
Despite these “buts,” Scheffler produced jaw-dropping moments and head-turning victories, so let your mind wander and instead imagine what happens when the “buts” become “ands.”
In 2022, Scheffler entered the PGA Tour season without a win to his name. As some questioned his ability to close, no one expected he would kick off this run of success. By the time 2023 rolled around, Scheffler had ascended to the world No. 1 ranking thanks to a four-victory campaign; this despite not entering the winner’s circle since slipping on the green jacket that prior April.
He picked up two more wins that year without a cooperative putter, which kept a generational ball striker from being considered a generational player. Plus, as his wins came in February and March, he again left the meat of the schedule for the field.
Scheffler entered 2024 ranked 162nd out of 193 players on the PGA Tour in strokes gained putting. Scheffler put a new mallet-style putter in rotation during his sixth start of the season, thinking he would give it a chance in the heat of the battle. No matter how he fared, he promised to keep it in the bag all four days at the Arnold Palmer Invitational.
Well, Scheffler won that tournament by five strokes. The putter has not left the bag since.
Scheffler’s 2024 season was beyond historic. He picked up his second Masters, six other PGA Tour wins and the gold medal at the Paris Olympics. Despite the accolades, the praise and the lofty comparisons, Scheffler still believed he could improve.
He again field tested a new method on the greens, a claw-style putting grip from inside roughly 15 feet to repair some struggles from close range. Debuting the new process at the Hero World Challenge, he came away with a six-stroke victory that let the golf world know, yes, he could get even better.
Scheffler’s win in the Bahamas came less than a month before news broke of his offseason mishap. He suffered a hand injury from improperly using a wine glass to roll out ravioli dough while cooking with friends and family during the holidays. Scheffler was forced to sideline himself — not only from playing but from preparing.
“It’s a bit easier this way. I’m going to try to continue this into the future. This is a little easier offseason than last,” Scheffler said Sunday after winning the American Express, his 20th victory on the PGA Tour. “It’s one of those things. You look at last year, it is different just because I had made what I felt was so much progress in the offseason, and then to have that basically taken away by 4-6 weeks of inactivity from golf, that has an effect.
“To fine-tune the skills that we have out here takes a lot of work. Like the chipping: There’s a big difference between hitting a chip to a foot versus 5 feet. If I hit it to a foot, I’m probably never going to miss that foot putt. But if you hit it to 5 feet, your percentages of making that putt go down. When you just kind of see that over the course of four days, that has an effect on where my game is at. So being able to have the whole offseason to prepare to come out here … to have that time to prepare and get my body and mind right in order to compete, I think, really paid off early in the season.”
Scheffler’s preparation is one of his many separators, but it does not receive the same attention as what he accomplishes over 72 holes most weeks. His preparation is neither as breathtaking as his iron play nor as funky as his footwork. It has not seen noticeable improvement like his putting, and it cannot be measured like strokes gained.
But it’s preparation on which Scheffler hangs his hat.
In between dodging comparisons to Tiger Woods and Jack Nicklaus, who he recently joined as the only players to claim 20 PGA Tour wins and four major championships before the age of 30, and answering a different variation of the same question, wondering how this triumph feels as opposed to the rest, Scheffler beats the same drum over and over again: prepare, prepare, prepare.
Once Scheffler was able to prepare himself weekly returning from injury last year, he must have felt unstoppable. He won six of his last 12 tournaments of 2025, including major victories at the PGA Championship and The Open. He has not finished outside the top 10 in a tournament since The Players Championship last March, now almost 11 months ago.
Entering the year at hand (no pun intended), Scheffler spent the past offseason in the gym preparing for the long, grueling haul that is a full PGA Tour campaign. The area on which he wished to improve this time around was not a skillset but rather his overall endurance — another trait spectators are unable to see.
Through one tournament, well, so far so good.
Scheffler being able to prepare this offseason — honing his craft, identifying a spot that continues to bother him and attempting to improve upon it — has led to him answering the bell each time it rings.
Scheffler is a great player, and he continues to close tournaments when in contention. Scheffler is the world No. 1, and he is riding momentum from the previous summer into a new season. Scheffler’s ball striking remains historic, and his putting is among the best in the game.
Scheffler is the most dominant player in the world, and now, he is 100% healthy at the start of the season.
