PGA Tour Stars Discuss Scottie Scheffler’s Dominance Before RBC Heritage

In the formidable days of Tiger Woods, the gap between the top player in the world and the rest of the Tour was considerable. Woods spent 281 consecutive weeks and 683 total weeks as world number one, finally getting caught by Adam Scott in May 2014.

Since Woods’ magnificent record, none have come close to Woods and his feat with Duston Johnson and Rory McIlroy the closest competitors, but their time on top was limited with Johnson having the most on top at 135 weeks.

The newest top player making a charge at Woods is two-time Masters champion Scottie Scheffler who has a sizable 6.6373 points lead over Rory McIlroy and seems to be the player to beat according to his peers.

“I want to beat his ass pretty bad at some point,” Max Homa, who finished T3, but seven shots behind Scheffler at the Masters said leading into the RBC Heritage. “The beauty of this is you want to beat the best when they’re at their best. It’s fun, and it’s hard.”

Homa went on to say that if you beat Scheffler pretty much any week, you’ve had a good week.

Starting at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am where Scheffler finished T6, the 27-year-old has not finished worse than T10 and the last four tournaments include three wins and a runner-up finish.

Now Scheffler comes to Hilton Head looking to extend his success. Uninterested in the gap between him and current world No. 2, Rory McIlroy, Scheffler sees this week as just a single week. ‘We’re all even-par again,” Scheffler said of his approach to the week.

“So going into this week, it’ll be a bit more challenging than it was last week just because I think playing in contention at majors and especially winning takes a lot out of you, Scheffler said after his ninth PGA Tour win. “There’s a lot of stuff that goes on after the Masters on Sunday, and you get home very late, and emotionally I think I’m a bit drained.”

Wyndham Clark, who lost to Scheffler at The Players Championship, sees two-time Master’s winner’s game as consistent and believes his game needs to be as consistent so that when he comes up against Scheffler again, he can go toe to toe.

“I think when my game is on and his game is on, I think we both can battle it out, and I believe I can win tournaments against Scottie when he’s playing well,” Clark said.

But at the same time, Clark doesn’t see a little gap between himself and Scheffler, but more a chasm, with Clark needing to put the work in to get to a similar place as Scheffler.

Clark sees his short game, specifically putting, as an area he needs improvement and his focus on the golf course has waned at times, costing him shots and either position in the tournament or wins.

“I think I can improve on that if I’m shaving one shot a day, I win maybe — maybe I’m in a playoff against him at Bay Hill and then I win The Players and then maybe it would be a different conversation,” Clark said of the need for work on short game and focus on the course. “That’s stuff I’ve got to work on, we’ll see, it could happen overnight, or it could be a year or two from now.

Oddly, Ludvig Åberg who was the last man standing with a chance to beat Scheffler last week, agrees a gap exists between the world No. 1 and the rest of the tour, but at 24, he seems a little less focused on Scheffler and more on his game and how he can take Scheffler down.

“I just keep being me, keep making sure the things that I’m working on, they’re good, and I think as a golfer, it’s always going to be an endless challenge of trying to get a little bit better, whether it’s you’re putting or chipping or short game or hitting balls or whatever it is,” Åberg said. “I think it’s good to have him here because he’s pushing everyone else to get a little bit better, as well.”