At Bay Hill, Scheffler’s goal is a simple one: Survive

ORLANDO, Fla. – Many know this portion of the PGA TOUR’s season as the Florida Swing, which winds from Palm Beach Gardens (The Honda Classic) eventually heading north and west to Palm Harbor (Valspar Championship), with two Designated events (Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard, THE PLAYERS Championship – wedged between. Pass the sunscreen.

Just about as easily, one also could call this stretch of the 2022-23 season ‘The Part Where Scottie Scheffler Sure Defends A Lot’. That run started at the Waste Management Phoenix Open last month, but churns through Orlando; Austin, Texas (World Golf Championships-Dell Technologies Match Play); and a little Augusta, Georgia, as well.

“It's kind of fun,” Scheffler, after his opening 4-under 68, said of his time serving on the Defending Champion Speakers Bureau. A busy spell like that can happen when you win in four of six starts, as he did.

The WM Phoenix Open a year ago in February technically may have been where the wheels of Scheffler’s winning ways first met the road, but Bay Hill was the place where he started to squeal the tires and produce some smoke. Others took notice. Winning at Bay Hill was a terrific learning experience, in that Scheffler began to see that he could be the last man standing in any number of ways. At Phoenix, he needed birdies down the stretch. At Bay Hill? Well, Sunday there was just different.

“I appreciate the fact that this golf course is very challenging, and I feel like it's a place where I can just try and hang in there,” Scheffler said. “That's what I did last year. I didn't play amazing for four days. One of the guys I played a practice round with this week asked me what I did so well last year, and I just told 'em, ‘I survived.’ That's really what it felt like.”

Scheffler had one PGA TOUR victory at this juncture a year ago. Now he has five. That’s a Tiger-like pace as he, Jon Rahm and Rory McIlroy wrestle for world No. 1 (currently, Scheffler stands second to Rahm, a three-time winner this season). Scheffler did more than just survive on Thursday, getting to 5-under par until he closed with a bogey at the 492-yard ninth, which was something many of Thursday’s competitors were doing.

Bay Hill's greens already are firm for early-round play, and when Scheffler tees off for his second round on Friday shortly after noon, he may need to superglue his hat to his head. Forecasts are calling for winds whistling past 20 mph in the second round. Firm greens? Tough rough? Big winds? It sounds like a combination phoned in directly from the Arnold Palmer Heavenly Request Hotline.

“It better not blow too hard, or they may need to slow them (the greens) down or something,” Scheffler said. “I really don't know what they're going to do. Yeah, that's how I feel like I remember this golf course playing in that kind of wind.

“I think my rookie year here (2020) it was like that almost ... I remember it because, I know for sure it was the last two days, because I shot like 75-75 on the weekend, and didn't really move down the leaderboard. So it's definitely a challenging place, but like I said earlier, just try and get the ball in play and go from there.”

Scheffler has a memory as good as his game. In 2020, in his first Arnold Palmer Invitational start, he did shoot a pair of 75s on the weekend and eventually tied for 15th. That doesn't happen too often on TOUR.

Thursday, Scheffler did a nice job keeping his ball out of Bay Hill’s dense rough and hit 12 of 18 greens. A couple of putts he thought were well-struck just failed to fall, but he did have some nice birdies on the card to offset his two bogeys. The 217-yard second hole was a good spot to pick up a shot on par – he drained a 43-foot bomb for 2) and making birdie at the 440-yard eighth was a nice bonus.

With the Masters only five weeks away – his biggest defense to date – Scheffler said he is keeping his head down on the current task at hand, but it’s not hard to look down the road every now and again. He isn’t one to look back a whole lot – he has yet to visit Augusta National since last year’s first major victory, for instance but says he will. He does know he left Bay Hill last March having gained a lot.

“The way I finished out down the stretch last year definitely gave me a lot of confidence going forward,” Scheffler said. “Where I wasn't playing perfect golf or anything close to it on Sunday, I was able to come from behind and win with some really, really great pars on the back nine.”

At Bay Hill, where twice in the last three years the winning score has been single-digits under par (Scheffler won at five-under 283), pars can be plenty. The field at Arnie’s Place could be in for a brutal test in the days ahead. Really tough. Which makes a cool customer such as Scottie Scheffler... just shrug his shoulders.

That’s probably why he’s been collecting all those trophies of late.