Scottie Scheffler won the Arnold Palmer Invitational, The Players, The Masters, RBC Heritage, Memorial Tournament, Travelers Championship and Tour Championship on the PGA Tour in 2024 – along with gold for Team USA at the Paris Olympics – to secure FedExCup victory
What next for Scottie Scheffler after FedExCup glory? Former major champion Rich Beem reflects on a memorable Tour Championship win for the world No 1 and looks at why he can continue his dominance in the sport…
I look at Scottie Scheffler as one of these complete players that is going to continue to rack up the big wins time and time again, simply because that is exactly what he expects out of himself each and every week.
When he lost that big lead to Rory McIlroy at East Lake a couple of years ago, he certainly didn’t have the same mentality as he does now. He struggled a little bit that day, but he’s a completely changed man.
He’s a different player and different man to what he was, not just back then in 2022, but even last year. This week he delivered, when the pressure was probably at one of the greatest levels he has had, to close out his season in style.
He deals with pressure in such a calm way that his exhale moment is a lot less than our inhale moment would be, which is something only reserved for the great players. He is winning at such a clip that being on top coming down the stretch is starting to become easy to him.
Scheffler closes out FedExCup success
When Scheffler got that birdie at the second hole on the final day and went seven ahead, I was expecting him to race off into the sunset as he looked like he was swinging so freely. All of a sudden, the mistakes came in and you feared it wasn’t going to be his day again.
He responded to that shank at the eighth with that amazing shot on nine and the three birdies in a row, which basically left it game, set and match from there. It was a little closer than we expected after those early holes, but Scheffler got the job done.