Hugely competitive PGA TOUR also a brotherhood

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. – Scottie Scheffler had several reasons to put a mallet putter in play for last week’s Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard. Testing data, his putting coach Phil Kenyon – Scheffler wasn’t necessarily taking cues from Rory McIlroy.

Still, at The Genesis Invitational last month, as Scheffler (T10) ranked last in Strokes Gained: Putting among those who made the cut, McIlroy had finished his round and was helping with the CBS broadcast when he wondered aloud if a mallet might help Scheffler.

In his very next start at the Arnold Palmer, Scheffler deployed a TaylorMade Spider Tour X putter and finished first in Strokes Gained: Putting in the final round as he shot 66 and won by a mile.

“I'm not going to give him any more advice, that's for sure,” McIlroy said with a laugh from THE PLAYERS Championship at TPC Sawgrass on Wednesday.

Scheffler, who had used the mallet last summer and was already considering going back to it, said at Bay Hill, “I did hear that he said that, and it was just kind of funny timing.”

McIlroy, THE PLAYERS champion from 2019, may have a coaching career ahead of him if the playing thing doesn’t work out. But while he jokingly feigned alarm – “I didn't know he was going to put it straight in the bag and win by five,” he said – he knows players have always helped each other.

“I think over the years, coming up through the ranks, people have been good enough to me if I've asked them for advice to give me advice,” McIlroy said, “so I think I should be able to repay that to other people if they come to me.”

Whoever hoists the trophy at THE PLAYERS this time round, will no doubt thank his family, coach, and agent, but he could just as easily credit a fellow TOUR pro for a timely tip, help with a piece of equipment, or even guidance on how to get around from week to week.

“Charley Hoffman did that for me,” said Xander Schauffele, who finished T2 in his 2018 PLAYERS debut and has four top-10 finishes in six starts this season. “He was awesome to me, San Diego born and raised. I would literally text him to ask him where registration is.

“We would play practice rounds together,” he continued, “and I’d watch how he’d practice and prepare. I kind of latched myself onto him, and he was super cool about it.”

As was the case for Vijay Singh, who was famous for going so far as to camp out on the range with a player in need, Hoffman has a history of helping his fellow man.

Austin Eckroat, who won the recent Cognizant Classic in The Palm Beaches, was prepping for his first non-major TOUR start at the 2019 World Wide Technology Championship when he and his caddie, Stone Coburn, happened upon Hoffman and his caddie, Andy Barnes. Hoffman and Barnes helped the newbies anticipate pin locations and make other preparations.

“It was simple things,” Eckroat said, “but it’s still helpful to this day.”

Mentorship on TOUR takes many forms. It wears school colors – former Alabama golfer Justin Thomas helping fellow Crimson Tide product Nick Dunlap; Charles Howell III watching out for fellow Oklahoma State golf product Viktor Hovland – but not always.

It can be informed by a shared piece of equipment – Adam Scott helped Camilo Villegas transition into a long putter before Villegas broke a nine-year win drought at the Butterfield Bermuda Championship last November – or two players going into battle together.

Ludvig Åberg’s European Ryder Cup teammates in Rome told him it was OK to be nervous.

“No one’s a robot,” Åberg, a PLAYERS first-timer, said. “Everyone’s feeling those emotions because we’re all human, and I always look back and think about that whenever I’m in a similar situation, that it’s OK to feel overwhelmed at times, it’s OK to feel nervous.”

Occasionally pros bond for the simplest reason of all: game recognize game.

Jake Knapp, who won the Mexico Open at Vidanta last month, said he’s received career advice from a handful of pros, McIlroy, Luke Donald and Justin Rose among them.

“Justin Rose told me to manage your expectations because now you have a win and think you should be winning every week,” said Knapp, another PLAYERS first-timer. “He said, ‘There’s a lot of good players out here, tough courses, good competition, don’t be too upset with yourself if things don’t go perfect. The wins will come.’”

Yet other times the big brother/little brother thing happens by accident, and it’s not entirely clear who is the mentor and who is the mentee.

Chan Kim was playing the Japan Golf Tour in 2015 when he got paired with a kid making his first professional start: Schauffele. At the time, it was Kim who had more experience, and the two hit it off. They stayed in touch, and when Kim finally reached the TOUR in 2024, Schauffele became the mentor, their role reversal in effect for a practice round at The American Express earlier this season. It was only nine holes on a Monday, but Kim remembered it vividly.

“There was nobody else out there, so we probably spent two hours, 45 minutes on that back nine,” he said. “I saw some of the lines he was taking off the tee, and which were green-light pins, or pins that you should never go at, or ones where you can use the slope to get it closer.

“I learned a lot,” Kim added.

Their bond helped, too, as both wound up in contention in the final round, with Kim’s caddie keeping him apprised of where they stood in relationship to Schauffele. In the end, Kim, who admitted he was all but drafting off Schauffele, finished T14, while Schauffele tied for third.

All of which reminds us that when it comes to swing theory, gear recommendations, or just how to carry yourself, no man is an island, not even an island green.