TROON (AP) – The first stage of Scottie Scheffler’s rise to the top of golf felt like warp speed. He went from number 15 in the world to number one in the span of five tournaments, and that was before he won the Masters for the first time.
Now he’s on a level not seen since Tiger Woods was in his prime.
Scheffler is not the biggest draw at the British Open, not with Woods in the field. Rory McIlroy remains a big attraction, especially in the United Kingdom (UK), and he comes into Royal Troon as a sentimental favourite from his sad collapse in the United States (US) Open and going 10 years without a major.
But any conversation at the final major of the year starts with Scheffler, a heavy favourite as he has been in every major this year. And that has taken him time to fully appreciate his status in the game.
His six PGA Tour victories before the calendar turned to July are the most since Arnold Palmer in 1962. Someone pointed out to Scheffler that Palmer’s seventh victory that year was a claret jug he won at Royal Troon.
He wasn’t sure how to react to that except to shrug his shoulders and said, “Yeah, that would be great.”
“I love the history of the game, and there’s certain things that I know and certain things that I don’t. That was something that for some reason I just never stumbled across,” he said, searching for the right answer. “So I had no idea that that was a thing.”
The British Open figures to present his biggest test.
Scheffler is still relatively new to links golf – everything about his rise to number one is new – having played this style in 2021 for the first time. He has learned to adjust the flight of his ball since links turf creates a little more spin on certain shots. The greens can be slower. Bunkers are to be avoided.
He is a two-time Masters champion, missed a US Open playoff by one shot at The Country Club and was runner-up in the PGA Championship at Oak Hill. But he has never seriously contended in golf’s oldest championship.
Even so, the love of the links is there.
He went to the J P McManus Pro-Am in Ireland a few years ago and took side trips to Lahinch and Ballybunion. He began this trip across the Atlantic Ocean by skipping the Scottish Open at The Renaissance Club – links style, but not links turf – and going to Turnberry with Sam Burns for a match with their caddies, both good players.
And then it was time for work at Royal Troon, the links renowned for having the longest hole (the 623-yard sixth) and shortest hole (the 123-yard eighth) in the British Open rotation.
Most peculiar about Troon is that the outward nine – typically with at least a wee breeze at the players’ back – has two par 5s and measures 3,539 yards. The inward nine with the wind in the face has one par 5 and is 3,846 yards.
“It’s basically a tale of two nines on this course,” McIlroy said. “You feel like you have to make your score on the way out and then sort of hang on coming in.”
McIlroy has far more experience on links golf – and a claret jug to show for it from his victory at Royal Liverpool in 2014 – but it still takes time to adjust because “you play 11 months of your golf every year in very different conditions”.
Players also are preparing for weather described as “mixed”, a gentle way of saying it probably won’t be terribly pleasant for most of the week. Sunshine gave way to spells of rain on Tuesday, and that was before lunch was served.
PGA champion Xander Schauffele might be the second-most consistent player in golf behind Scheffler – nothing but top 20s in his last 10 starts and 51 cuts in a row – and has acquired a taste for less-than-pleasant conditions, particularly in the Open.
