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CHARLOTTE, N.C. – After Scottie Scheffler rolled the field at the CJ Cup Byron Nelson two weeks ago, ESPN’s Scott Van Pelt asked two-time U.S. Open champion Curtis Strange, winner of 17 PGA Tour titles, if he ever had shot 31 under.
“No. Thanks for asking, though,” Strange said.
Scheffler’s eye-popping total matched the low 72-hole score in a Tour event, matching a mark previously set by Justin Thomas and Ludvig Aberg before him.
“Thirty-one is pretty low,” Van Pelt said. “Just trying to frame it appropriately.”
“Gosh. I don’t think I ever shot 20-under. He’s got me by 11,” Strange said. “That’s how good he is sometimes.”
Scheffler was an absolute beast in 2024, winning seven official events, including the Masters, the FedEx Cup and also an Olympic Gold medal. Not even two major championships for Xander Schauffele were enough to keep Scheffler from winning the PGA Tour Player of the Year title for a third consecutive year. It was Tigeresque. But until Scheffler laid down the hammer at the CJ Cup, he was winless this season after recovering from missing time due to hand surgery after an accident making ravioli on Christmas.
Golf Channel analyst Brandel Chamblee wondered if Scheffler is on the verge of becoming one of the rare players who can lap a field and his mere presence on a leaderboard can make golfers wilt under pressure.
No one in the last 30 years could impose his will on the field the way Tiger Woods did. Chamblee wanted to figure out the cost of being paired with Tiger. In 2008 or 2009, he spent multiple days calculating the score of every player who had played with him on the weekend.
“It was something like 3 ½ shots,” Chamblee said on the podcast The Favorite Chamblee, a show he started recently with wife, Bailey. “I remember one time, Billy Horschel said he couldn’t wait to get paired with Tiger on the weekend in San Diego. I thought, OK, but it would be cheaper if you just bought a pro-am spot on Wednesday because that would cost you only $10,000-$15,000. But to get paired with Tiger Woods on Saturday or Sunday is going to cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars. You may gain from the experience, but it literally is going to cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars … and it did in this particular experience.”
Chamblee counted Nick Faldo and Seve Ballesteros on the short list of intimidating players.
“It's intriguing to see a player become intimidating,” Chamblee said. “Scottie’s getting to a point now where he’s so relentless and hits so many great shots – again, he’s so congenial and so nice, but he is very competitive and he does, you get the sense, want to step on your throat where you’re competing.”
“He’s more like Jack Nicklaus than any player I can think of,” Chamblee added.
For further proof of the Nicklaus intimidation factor, he told the rollicking story of Victor Regalado, who was paired with Jack Nicklaus one time. Regelado, a Mexican native who won once on Tour, was so nervous to play with the Golden Bear that he didn’t sleep the night before. He was just hoping not to embarrass himself. On the front, he went shot-for-shot with Nicklaus and tied him at 2-under. He was hanging in there with the Great Jack Nicklaus. Standing on the 10th tee, Nicklaus came over and patted him on the back and said, “Come on, let’s get it together on the back nine. We both played like crap.”
“Except he didn’t use the word crap,” Chamblee said. “That was Jack at once being congenial and intimidating. Very few players get to a spot where their mere presence (causes players to collapse.)”
Is Scheffler ascending to a spot in the game that his presence makes other players fold? Quail Hollow and the 107th PGA Championship could be another test of Chamblee’s hypothesis. Scheffler, for one, knows he’s riding a wave of momentum from his romp in Dallas two weeks ago.
“It would be silly to say that I can't ride the positive momentum from a good week like that,” he said. “To finish off that tournament the way I did and have it not really be too close on the back nine, I played some really nice golf.”
This article originally appeared on Golfweek: Scottie Scheffler is getting an intimidation factor like Jack Nicklaus
Continue reading...
“No. Thanks for asking, though,” Strange said.
Scheffler’s eye-popping total matched the low 72-hole score in a Tour event, matching a mark previously set by Justin Thomas and Ludvig Aberg before him.
“Thirty-one is pretty low,” Van Pelt said. “Just trying to frame it appropriately.”
“Gosh. I don’t think I ever shot 20-under. He’s got me by 11,” Strange said. “That’s how good he is sometimes.”
Scottie Scheffler's 2024 was like a Tiger Woods year
Scheffler was an absolute beast in 2024, winning seven official events, including the Masters, the FedEx Cup and also an Olympic Gold medal. Not even two major championships for Xander Schauffele were enough to keep Scheffler from winning the PGA Tour Player of the Year title for a third consecutive year. It was Tigeresque. But until Scheffler laid down the hammer at the CJ Cup, he was winless this season after recovering from missing time due to hand surgery after an accident making ravioli on Christmas.
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Golf Channel analyst Brandel Chamblee wondered if Scheffler is on the verge of becoming one of the rare players who can lap a field and his mere presence on a leaderboard can make golfers wilt under pressure.
No one in the last 30 years could impose his will on the field the way Tiger Woods did. Chamblee wanted to figure out the cost of being paired with Tiger. In 2008 or 2009, he spent multiple days calculating the score of every player who had played with him on the weekend.
“It was something like 3 ½ shots,” Chamblee said on the podcast The Favorite Chamblee, a show he started recently with wife, Bailey. “I remember one time, Billy Horschel said he couldn’t wait to get paired with Tiger on the weekend in San Diego. I thought, OK, but it would be cheaper if you just bought a pro-am spot on Wednesday because that would cost you only $10,000-$15,000. But to get paired with Tiger Woods on Saturday or Sunday is going to cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars. You may gain from the experience, but it literally is going to cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars … and it did in this particular experience.”
Nick Faldo, Seve Ballesteros also intimidating
Chamblee counted Nick Faldo and Seve Ballesteros on the short list of intimidating players.
“It's intriguing to see a player become intimidating,” Chamblee said. “Scottie’s getting to a point now where he’s so relentless and hits so many great shots – again, he’s so congenial and so nice, but he is very competitive and he does, you get the sense, want to step on your throat where you’re competing.”
“He’s more like Jack Nicklaus than any player I can think of,” Chamblee added.
For further proof of the Nicklaus intimidation factor, he told the rollicking story of Victor Regalado, who was paired with Jack Nicklaus one time. Regelado, a Mexican native who won once on Tour, was so nervous to play with the Golden Bear that he didn’t sleep the night before. He was just hoping not to embarrass himself. On the front, he went shot-for-shot with Nicklaus and tied him at 2-under. He was hanging in there with the Great Jack Nicklaus. Standing on the 10th tee, Nicklaus came over and patted him on the back and said, “Come on, let’s get it together on the back nine. We both played like crap.”
“Except he didn’t use the word crap,” Chamblee said. “That was Jack at once being congenial and intimidating. Very few players get to a spot where their mere presence (causes players to collapse.)”
Is Scheffler ascending to a spot in the game that his presence makes other players fold? Quail Hollow and the 107th PGA Championship could be another test of Chamblee’s hypothesis. Scheffler, for one, knows he’s riding a wave of momentum from his romp in Dallas two weeks ago.
“It would be silly to say that I can't ride the positive momentum from a good week like that,” he said. “To finish off that tournament the way I did and have it not really be too close on the back nine, I played some really nice golf.”
This article originally appeared on Golfweek: Scottie Scheffler is getting an intimidation factor like Jack Nicklaus
Continue reading...
