Scottie Scheffler hasn’t looked like Scottie Scheffler in this arena. The world No. 1 has lorded over the golf universe for the last four years. Roll the balls out in a 72-hole stroke-play event, and chances were good that by Sunday night Scheffler would’ve found himself either holding the trophy or coming a whisker shy. Ask anyone in pro golf, from Rory McIlroy to Jordan Spieth, and the answer is the same: It’s Scottie Scheffler . . . and everyone else.
But that hasn’t been the case in weeks like this one at the Presidents Cup, where Scheffler’s normally inevitable greatness has not arrived in the match-play format. In two previous Presidents Cups, Scheffler is 3-5-1 overall with a 1-3-1 record in foursomes and a 0-2-1 record in singles. His numbers are just as confounding at the Ryder Cup, where he is 3-6-3 with a 0-4-0 record in foursomes and a 1-2-2 mark in fourball.
With numbers like that, it would be understandable if hyper-competitive Scheffler arrived at Medinah Country Club a little peeved.
And, well, he is a bit.
Scheffler said there’s an aspect of team competitions that has left him and many of his teammates frustrated. But it’s got nothing to do with his stats or record, or, for that matter, the Presidents Cup. It all stems from that other team event.
“I think that’s something that’s probably been frustrating for us as American players is some of the narratives that have gone on over the course of my team match-play career — stuff like Patrick Cantlay not wearing his hat or stupid rumors that simply aren’t true,” Scheffler said on Tuesday. “Like meeting in a different team room and the Americans aren’t a close team. It’s something for us that can be very frustrating at times because it’s very much untrue.”
Of course, those narratives arrived only after or during U.S. Ryder Cup failures. The Patrick Cantlay hat report came out during the 2023 Ryder Cup at Marco Simone. That was followed by the suggestion that the U.S. team room was fractured. The Americans showed up at Bethpage Black two years later and did little to quiet the murmurings as the Europeans dominated them for two days before hanging on to win in singles.
None of that angst has been an issue at the Presidents Cup. The U.S. has dominated the event, winning 10 in a row and losing only once in the event’s history. But it’s understandable that the Ryder Cup and its tentacles are at the Presidents Cup. Despite one being run by the PGA of America and the other being run by the PGA Tour, it has long been argued that the Presidents Cup could be used as a way to help the Americans find greater success in the Ryder Cup by building continuity between captains and in the team room, giving young players early exposure to team events and creating a blueprint for American team golf to follow year in, year out, whether it’s a Ryder Cup or Presidents Cup year. Regardless of the year, every conversation about American team golf eventually turns to the Ryder Cup and Team USA’s recent failings.
So Scheffler is frustrated by the narratives and reports that have emerged about him and his teammates after the losses in Italy and Long Island. But he undoubtedly also knows that the same questions he faces this week at Medinah — questions about a poor match-play record, how to fix it and whether his partners are pressing too hard because of who he is — will likely be asked next year in Ireland at Adare Manor.
On Tuesday at Medinah, Scheffler answered his team competition conundrum in simple terms.
“I think you can always play better,” he said. “I always feel like — every time I go out, I feel like I can always play better. In the team format, when you look at best ball and alternate shot, there is a little bit of flukiness there for sure. Sometimes you’re up against guys that have played really good. It’s very easy, I think, after tournaments to play armchair quarterback and feel like you can do things differently.”
Scheffler is the dominant force in golf. And as was true of the game’s previous gravitational center, Tiger Woods, Scheffler has not been as inevitable in the team format as he is in stroke play. Woods went 13-21-3 in the Ryder Cup, including 5-10-0 in fourball and 4-9-1 in foursomes. Woods, however, was dominant at the Presidents Cup, going 27-15-1 overall and 12-4-1 in foursomes. Scheffler might also be facing a similar issue that Woods ran into during his team career: finding the right partner who can handle playing with the World No. 1 and not let the nerves of letting him down drown his game.
“I think there’s an inherent kind of – not fear for the guy they’re playing with, but a feeling of I’m letting him down,” U.S. captain Brandt Snedeker said on Tuesday about the task of finding Scheffler a consistent partner. “He’s the best player in the world. He’s so good at everything; no matter what I do isn’t going to be good enough.”
Snedeker admitted it’s a “challenge” to find the right fit for someone with Scheffler’s talent and aura. Since 2023, Scheffler has had seven different partners across the team events. He and Sam Burns got blitzed by several red-hot international pairings in 2022. At the 2023 Ryder Cup, Scheffler and Brooks Koepka got buzzsawed 9&7 in foursomes. It looked like Scheffler found a partner in Russell Henley at the 2024 Presidents Cup, where they went 2-1. But the Scheffler-Henley pairing went winless last September at Bethpage.
Scheffler admitted Tuesday that he could be weighing his partners down a bit, because you never want to let your partners down, regardless of who they are. But more importantly, Scheffler says he might want it too much. That the key to bringing his stroke-play dominance to the team format is not about finding the right partner but in the World No. 1 letting off the gas a bit.
“As a hypercompetitive person, I think sometimes I can probably try too hard,” Scheffler said. “I think when you look at this format, and like you said, maybe my record hasn’t matched up to what I think that it should be, could it be trying too hard? I think that’s definitely a factor for sure. For me, it’s different in the sense that you also have a partner with you and you’re playing for somebody outside yourself, and that’s a lot different as well.
“Kind of striking the balance between how much do you care, I think that’s something I’m always trying to figure out. Definitely for me, I think just trying less would be really important. It’s just one of those things that’s a lot easier said than done.”
Then, because everything comes back to the Ryder Cup, Scheffler was asked a question that everyone associated with American team golf has been looking to answer: Why have the Americans been able to dominate the Presidents Cup and not had the same kind of success in the Ryder Cup?
“That’s a good question,” Scheffler said. “There’s a lot of stuff you can look at. A lot of times you can play armchair quarterback after the thing, and you can come up with a hundred reasons why things could go differently in this thing. What I try to focus on most going into these tournaments is just controlling the controllables and things I can control. That’s going out there and having a good attitude and trying to execute shots. Outside of that, I’m not going to think a ton about anything else really.”
That will be for the rest of us to do after the dust settles at Medinah and we see if the Americans’ Scottie Scheffler conundrum has been solved as they head toward Adare Manor.
