By Travis Duncan
“He doesn’t want to be a superstar,” so said Jordan Spieth about fellow PGA Tour player Scottie Scheffler who just won a golf tournament (The Open) one of the four majors on in the world of professional golf, that many men can only dream about winning. Scheffler won with ease shooting 17-under for a full four stroke victory over his nearest competitor.
This week he talked about being a regular guy, going to Chipotle.
Added Spieth, (via USA TODAY’S Golf Week) “He’s not transcending the game like Tiger did. He’s not bringing it to a non-golf audience necessarily. He doesn’t want to go do the stuff that a lot of us go do, corporately, anything like that.”
The Tiger comparisons happened this week, perhaps for the first time, if some had made it privately it had not yet met the national headline or national media. But many would not make the Tiger comparison, too fundamentally different players and personalities.
Scheffler for his part, laughed it off, (Via Golf.com)“Tiger won, what, 15 majors? This is my fourth. I just got one-fourth of the way there. I think Tiger stands alone in the game of golf. He was inspirational for me growing up. He was a very, very talented guy, and he was a special person to be able to be as good as he was at the game of golf.”
The biggest non-starter for comparing Tiger is the personality. Tiger wore the Sunday red, his entire life no doubt and mind-set for many years was devoted not only to dominating the world of professional golf but also becoming the biggest brand known to the game, ever. Tiger was everyone, clothes, video games, cars, Tiger’s endorsement haul often outpaced his winnings.
According to one estimate, Woods made 126 million on the golf course, and 1.6 billion in endorsements. Wow.
Scheffler just wants to play, go home and live his life. Rory McIlroy has been trying to do that for the better part of five to ten years, and much to his emotional pain, has quite found a way to compartmentalize his superstardom and private life, it appears from onlookers it’s his greatest pain and challenge.
Golf has the unique need for individual stars, and Scheffler is coming to grips with that now, whether he likes it or not, he will become the media’s focus, because the 100th ranked guy on Tour just simply can’t be the topic of discussion every day. While pro golf is much more isolated from the day-to-day 24/7 news cycle, many in the golf media or pro tour would like it be much more talked about, Scheffler just doesn’t see the point.
Scheffler no doubt could stop playing golf tomorrow and never work again in his life and be just fine financially.
He said earlier this week that the Pro Golf life and being the best in the world is not fulfilling, perhaps its most iconic quote yet, after a few years of just boring copy. Golf writers finally got something.
“To get to live out your dreams is very special, but at the end of the day, I’m not out here to inspire the next generation of golfers,” Scheffler said prior to the Open last week (via PGA TOUR.com).
“I’m not out here to inspire someone to be the best player in the world because what’s the point? This is not a fulfilling life. It’s fulfilling from the sense of accomplishment, but it’s not fulfilling from a sense of the deepest places of your heart.
“There’s a lot of people that make it to what they thought was going to fulfill them in life, and you get there, you get to No. 1 in the world, and they’re like, ‘What’s the point?’. I really do believe that, because what is the point? Why do I want to win this tournament so bad?”
