Over the top by Meraj Shah: Scheffler special – Opinion News

This is getting a little ridiculous: You can’t talk about the level of competition — the depth of field — on the PGA Tour with a straight face anymore. Not that you’re wrong: There have never been more players on that tour who are capable of having a good week and winning. Except that no matter which player makes a run, he almost always falls short to a guy who can do no wrong, a guy who’s just in a different league than everyone else.

In fact, if Scottie Scheffler is there on the starting grid for the race, then it’s more than likely that he’ll be lapping the field. Consider these breathtaking images Statistics: Of the eight Signature Series events in the recently concluded PGA Tour season, Scheffler has shot seven times. And the world number one has won four of those events: the Arnold Palmer Invitational, the RBC Heritage, the Memorial and, finally, last month’s Travelers Championship. In the three events he didn’t win, Scheffler finished tied for fifth (The Sentry), tied for sixth (AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am) and tied for 10th (Genesis Invitational).

In case you missed the memo, the Signature Series is a set of limited-field events on the PGA Tour that have larger purses ($20 million) and offer players more FedExCup points. The field is capped at 70-80 players and comprises the top performers from the previous season and the current season. Four of these events do not make the cut: this is no coincidence, since the entire point of the series was for the PGA Tour to respond to the challenge posed by the LIV Golf Tour.

But I digress. Scheffler’s win rate in those events was 57 percent, and in case you’re wondering, he’s had other wins, too. There’s been a major: he wore the green jacket at the 2024 Masters Tournament, and an unofficial major—the Players’ Championship, for starters. That’s Scheffler’s record in the last four months alone; it’s more than most of his peers will win in their entire careers, and it’s almost enough to put a player in the Hall of Fame. The last player to win six events before July was Arnold Palmer in the 1960s. You know what I mean… we’re running out of things to say about Scottie Scheffler, the golf media is.

The closest anyone has come to Scheffler is Tom Kim. Kim and Scheffler both beat the field by two strokes at the Travelers Championship, which is rare these days, and Scheffler edged Kim on the first playoff hole. The other standout performer at The Travelers Championship was power hitter Cameron Young. On the penultimate day of the event, Young made seven birdies and two eagles at TPC River Highlands to shoot a historic 11-under par 59. The ironic thing about Young’s performance was how “not feeling” he was before he started. “I didn’t feel particularly great,” Young said of his pre-round warm-up. “I gave a little less on the course than I did yesterday.” Now, pros don’t give a little more, so it’s a fair guess that something was off with Young’s game. But whatever it was, it was resolved by the time he got to the first tee. Young birdied the first two holes and then hit a pitching wedge for an eagle on the third and then added another birdie on the fourth to start five under through four holes. And that pretty much set the tone for the day. Young shot a four-under 66 on the final day to finish tied for ninth in the event.

Akshay Bhatia, the Indian-born golfer, has been on a roll since winning the Valero Texas Open in May this year, his second PGA Tour victory in a playoff with Denny McCarthy. Both of Bhatia’s victories have come in playoffs, suggesting the young player has the mental strength to back up his extraordinary ball-playing. Bhatia is among that crop of young players who don’t hold back when they swing the golf ball. Bhatia finished tied for fifth at the Travelers Championship and has continued that momentum at next week’s Rocket Mortgage Classic. Bhatia was eight under to lead the field after the first round and was involved in a thrilling tussle with English player Aaron Rai over the weekend. Just when it looked like Bhatia had finally gotten past Rai, he missed a putt on the 72nd hole to tie 2021 champion Cam Davis, who came out of nowhere to take the lead from the locker room. Davis, who won the event in a three-way playoff in 2021, would not have to be bothered on this occasion. Bhatia’s sadness should boost the young player’s courage and remind him that on the PGA Tour, it’s not over until it’s over. Even Scheffler would agree.

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