At Atlanta’s oldest golf club, East Lake, at the 18th hole, here is Scottie Scheffler the world’s best, banging his club into the sand. His shot out of the bunker just scooted across the green past the pin and Scottie isn’t happy. A television commentator says “There’s that temper”.
Oh yes there’s that personality we all need to make him the next “guy”.
But he wasn’t really all that angry, and that “temper”? Does he really have one?
Pro Golf and corporate sponsors, like tennis, think perhaps mistakenly, that they need a guy, a guy who the masses will tune into watch no matter, just to see what the guy is doing.
Scottie Scheffler doesn’t want to be that guy.
The Tour Championship, the final go at the season long “points” (dollars) back in the day, took place this weekend in Atlanta. An event that seeds the Top 30 players on Tour for the season and naturally fills the tee sheet with the big names. But an event that, as it’s not a major, doesn’t get the attention that probably the bosses at the PGA Tour would like.
Scottie could you please be that guy. Yes he would be this weekend, no doubt viewership increased with many tuning in to see exactly where Scottie was for the week.
This week he is giving the other guys a chance, after not missing a fairway on Thursday he struggled a bit on Friday with three bogeys and a few more Saturday.
He has played a remarkable 72 rounds coming into Atlanta with a scoring average of 68.11 — fourth all-time compared to three of Tiger Wood’s seasons (2000 67.9, 2007 67.79, 2009 68.05).
As the season on the PGA Tour winds down, yes pro golf is in a weird spot. Tiger is not around anymore. Phil is chasing birdies in a much more laid back Tour more suitable to his liking.
Rory has been carrying the torch for Tiger, and it’s been a heavy one.
Scheffler we need you, as naturally he is the best – clearly the best golfer in the world right now according to all measurable standards, but he keeps telling us he doesn’t care that much.
He is a hard worker, those stories of him always at the Tour gym no matter the city were sounded this week. It was to be known that Scheffler despite his laid back approach was the Tour’s hungriest player.
He just doesn’t seem like he has the angst and the frustration and the worry and the intensity of Tiger and Rory. Scottie is not a type A personality. Tiger you get the impression always was certainly. Rory become a type A. Scheffler no shot.
Did Scheffler have to work as hard at Tiger and Rory banging through the demands as a child prodigy with the world watching while still a teen?
Scheffler famously declared earlier this summer, “What’s the point?” when asked about the thrill of victory.
Perhaps telling the media to back off, he doesn’t need to be the superstar that he has become.
He still wants to be the guy who goes to Chipotle anonymously in a hat. Said Scottie about his Chipotle visits, “There’s another one in a different part of town that I’m not going to tell you where it is, but if I go there, nobody recognizes me ever.”
“He doesn’t care to be a superstar,” Jordan Spieth said earlier this summer.
