Scottie Scheffler looked downright scary on a surprisingly sharp Thursday at the Presidents Cup.
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MONTREAL – Shortly after 3:00 PM on Wednesday afternoon, US Ryder Cup Capt Keegan Bradley looked at the assembled public and exploded.
“What I’ve learned about Scottie is how friendly he is, how quick he is to sit with the new guy on the bus, how quick he is to tell a joke, (to) just be a good teammate,” said Bradley. “I think it is difficult to do as player no. 1 in the world.”
Shortly after 3:00 p.m Thursday afternoon, Scottie Scheffler looked at the assembled audience and he shouted.
“WHAT WAS THAT?!” He yelled at his playing day partner, fellow PGA Tour good guy Tom Kim.
Most days, there are two men closest friends on the PGA Tour. On Thursday, though, Scheffler looked like he wasn’t about to lend his friend water in the middle of the desert. He stalked toward Kim on the 8th green, taking two aggressive strides before turning back toward the hole, letting out another whoop.
“Huh?!?”
This version of Scottie Scheffler was, charitably, terrible. Occasionally ill-mannered, snarling and generally grumpy, Scheffler seemed like Spiderman 3 version of the guy who managed to become far and away the best golfer in the world on the back of an arsenal of jokes and scriptures. But to MOST The scary part of Scheffler’s game wasn’t the big (and completely unexpected) revelation that his competitive fire burns hot, it was the discovery that his competitive fire can be ignited. THIS hot … and his game can travel with him.
On a day when the rain never came, Team USA’s newest dominant force led a rainstorm for the Americans. Scheffler shot six under in just 16 holes along with partner Russell Henley to beat Kim and Sungjae Im 3 and 2. It would have been the biggest shot of the opening day of the Presidents Cup if not for the collective explosion of team: USA has the home team in a 5-0 session. The Americans, who entered the week as heavy favorites, looked as heavy favorites after Scheffler’s play on Thursday. They left the course in the early evening after making a close – and with the air of an early victory celebration.
And with Scheffler on their team, who could blame them? Scheffler, who entered the week with an absurd record of 2024, but struggled protracted questions about his struggles in the Presidents Cup in ’22 and the Ryder Cup in ’23, he seemed a bit of the type of guy who wants to keep quiet. any question furiously. He soaked up the life of the internationals every chance he got, not afraid to raise the temperature even further as Kim kept long birdies and even longer celebrations in his face, or in general, looking like the most dominant player the game has seen in this side. Tiger Woods.
“I think I had four or five birdies,” Kim said after his round, dejected. “That’s just what Scottie does.”
Scheffler, for his part, seemed unfazed by the sudden burst of competitive energy, or the way his game responded to it.
“It’s the same thing I would have done at home if he had made a layup and we were playing Wolf and he celebrated like that,” Scheffler said Thursday. “It’s fun to compete and fun to represent our country, and at the end of the game I take off my hat and shake hands.”
He stopped.
“We’re friends later, we’re not friends long, I guess.”
The good news for Team USA is that if Scheffler keeps playing like this, there won’t be much long. The lesson of Scheffler’s strange Thursday at the Ryder Cup wasn’t the subsequent scuffle that came during Kim and Im’s early walk on the eighth hole, or the honest bravado between jaw-dropping co-captains Kevin Kisner and Camilo Villegas ( “If you want to beat the No. 1 player in the world, good luck,” Kisner said. The lesson was that the United States could finally have the piece that has been missing from the Ryder and Presidents Cup eras of golf after Woods’ last start at either event in 2019: a dominant force. And with a force as dominant as Scottie at the helm, a close Presidents Cup might not be a contest at all.
“It’s a very different dynamic,” said Stewart Cink, an American assistant captain, echoing Bradley’s words. “Tiger, you’re talking about one of the most scary type personalities in the sport for quite some time at that, and Scottie is just an open, welcoming and kind person. He’s just easy to get along with.”
In the end, the only irony of Scheffler’s raucous Thursday at the Presidents Cup was that his teammate, Xander Schauffele, said it best.
“I thought so,” Schauffele said, wearing a mile-wide smile. “…like they hit the bear.”
