A captain’s pick in 2021, Scottie Scheffler is now United States’ No. 1

CHARLOTTE, N.C. – With the PGA TOUR in town, Scottie Scheffler was prepared to host his fellow players and caddies at his Dallas home. As so many gatherings of TOUR players do, this one ended up around a ping-pong table.

Scheffler, who takes pride in his propensity with a paddle, splurged on a $200, high-end implement for the occasion. To further prove his acumen, Scheffler took a lesser partner in a doubles match against his caddie, Ted Scott.

“As we are beating him, I’m running my mouth,” Scott said with a laugh. “He’s way better than me. I said, ‘You think you’re so good. You have the good paddle.’”

After the match was over, a voice resonated throughout the room.

“Ted, other side of the table,” said Scheffler, seeking revenge. He gave his caddie the preferred paddle, then declared, “I’m going to beat you so bad you’re going to want to quit ping-pong.”

Scott describes what followed as “a blood bath.”

Scheffler thrives in mano-a-mano situations, a fact that’s become clear over the last year. The man who is tender-hearted enough to admit he cried before the final round of the Masters, who hosted his caddie that week and picked up his meals, also is a savage competitor, a trait we saw most notably last year when he was a winless Ryder Cup rookie who unseated the world’s No. 1 player in Singles.

A year later, Scheffler will occupy a vastly different role on the U.S. Team. He arrives at Quail Hollow as the top-ranked player in the world, the reigning Masters champion and recently-named PGA TOUR Player of the Year, accomplishments that make it easy to forget that just a year ago he was the lowest-ranked U.S. player at the Ryder Cup after receiving one of Steve Stricker’s final captain’s picks.

But his upset of Jon Rahm, then the No. 1 player in the world and U.S. Open champion, was one of the most memorable results from the U.S. Team’s record-setting rout. Scheffler birdied the first four holes en route to a 4-and-3 win. That win, which some joked should count as his first TOUR victory, served as a catalyst for Scheffler’s success in 2022.

“I think probably having the vote of my peers was definitely a huge kind of confidence boost for me. I think there was a few guys that really wanted me on the team, and I was able to perform well under that immense pressure,” Scheffler said about last year’s Ryder Cup. “You feel what it's like in the heat of battle, and when you go home and practice, you're actually able to prepare for that because you know exactly how it feels on the biggest stage.

“I think going into this year I had that experience and I knew what it felt like in those moments, and I was able to perform well.”

Scheffler didn’t have to sweat a phone call this year. His spot on the team has been secure since he won at Augusta National in April.

This is just his second time representing the United States in international team competition as a professional, but he’ll be one of the leaders on the youngest U.S. Team in Presidents Cup history.

U.S. Captain Davis Love III says Scheffler occupies “a spot of stability” on the roster.

“Scottie has that quiet, calm leadership or confidence,” Love said. “You know he is going to be willing to do whatever it takes. He’s a legendary practicer. You know he’s going to be prepared.

“I’ve watched him in a couple settings just sit back and let everyone else be the center of attention. Then, when it’s time to say something to sum it up or support his teammates, he’s always positive and he never says anything negative or unsupportive.”

It was Scheffler’s well-rounded game and ability to pair with a variety of players, in addition to his top-10s in the last three majors, that aided Scheffler’s Ryder Cup candidacy last year. But the team’s leadership also saw an ascendant player, who after a standout amateur career became the 2019 Korn Ferry Tour Player of the Year and 2020 PGA TOUR Rookie of the Year.

“A few people said he was about to bust loose,” said Love, an assistant on last year’s Ryder Cup team. “Then you put him out there and you watch him play and he played like a veteran.”

Scheffler went 2-0-1 at Whistling Straits and his first official TOUR win came just a few months later, at the WM Phoenix Open in February. It started a run of four wins in six starts, culminating at Augusta National.

That run also included a victory at the World Golf Championships-Dell Technologies Match Play that allowed him to replace Rahm atop the world ranking, a spot Scheffler has held since. Scheffler also finished runner-up at the Match Play in 2021 and won the biggest prize in junior golf, the U.S. Junior Amateur, under that format.

Competitiveness is the common characteristic of players who excel when golf becomes a head-to-head pursuit. Scott saw that quickly when he got on Scheffler’s bag last fall. He remembers the 72nd hole in Phoenix, when Scheffler was pursuing his first win in the TOUR’s most raucous setting.

“He gets on 18 and says, ‘I don’t want to miss the Super Bowl, let’s win it,’” Scott recalled. “I’m like, ‘This guy is serious.’ It’s a tough environment and he hadn’t won yet, but to have that mindset and that attitude … was crazy impressive to me.”

Scheffler hit his approach to 6 feet. He misread the birdie putt, but then dispatched Patrick Cantlay, the reigning FedExCup champion, in a playoff. At the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard, on one of the season’s most stressful courses, Scott was impressed with how Scheffler displayed the fortitude to play for pars, hitting to the center of greens even though that meant he would need to execute lengthy two-putts on crusty greens. And then at Augusta National, he executed key short-game shots off tight lies, including a chip-in on 3 and key par saves on 11 and 12.

“It’s like playing Operation after sprinting 100 yards,” Scott said of hitting short-game shots at Augusta National under Sunday stress. “It’s a very fine movement, which takes some serious hands and mind control.

“He’s one of these people who’s created a machine that was ready to perform. He spent his whole life developing a super high skill level in every aspect of the game and now … it’s like, ‘Let’s go. Let’s race this car.’”

In match play, that same car can leave tire marks on its opponents’ backs.