Scottie Scheffler would return to No. 1 with Hero World Challenge win

NASSAU, Bahamas – PGA TOUR Player of the Year Scottie Scheffler would return to world No. 1 with a victory at this week’s wind-blown Hero World Challenge.

And he’s very much in contention.

According to Nosferatu, which tracks the Official World Golf Ranking, Rory McIlroy would still be projected to end 2022 atop the ranking “regardless of what happens this week at Hero.”

In many respects, this has been Scheffler’s year.

He was the first player to win twice last season, the first to win three times, and the first to win four times. He collected those four wins in a torrid six-week stretch that took him from winless to world No. 1 as he slipped on the green jacket for winning the Masters in April.

He won on the West Coast Swing (WM Phoenix Open) and in the Southeast (Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard). He excelled at match play (winning the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play a year after finishing second) and on the hallowed ground of Augusta National (he was so far ahead he could laugh after four-putting the 72nd hole).

He made the right moves off the course, too, starting with hiring veteran caddie Ted Scott – they celebrated their one-year anniversary at The RSM Classic last month.

“I knew he just needed one putt to drop at the right time,” said Jordan Spieth, a friend and fellow Texas alum, “and if he could get that, then the sky was the limit.”