NAPA, Calif. — World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler said Wednesday that he’s doing things differently this year after his preparation going into the 2023 Ryder Cup, which the United States lost to host Europe, was “not as good as it should have been.”
“When I look back at the ’23 Cup, I think I halved two matches and lost two, so I think I left there without winning a single match, and that hurt,” Scheffler said. “I think I could have been a little bit sharper at that tournament. That was a learning experience for me.”
“It sucked,” U.S. teammate Collin Morikawa said of losing in Rome. “It sits with you for a little bit.”
This time around, Scheffler is including the Procore Championship — where he’ll play alongside Morikawa and eight other members of the U.S. team — as part of his preparation for the Ryder Cup, which takes place Sept. 26-28. The four-time major winner said that even though some of the team members made a scouting trip to Rome ahead of the 2023 event, nothing compares to staying sharp by playing competitive golf.
“It would be unusual for me to have four or five weeks off before the Masters or the U.S. Open or something like that,” Scheffler said. “So there’s no reason that I should be doing that going into the Ryder Cup.”
Scheffler said that as soon as the Open Championship ended in July, he started thinking about and preparing for the matches at Bethpage Black, and he lauded the work captain Keegan Bradley has done to organize and energize the team.
“You can practice and do all you can at home, but there’s something different about playing competition, getting ready for a tournament,” Scheffler said. “Everybody’s excited to be here. … I feel like going to this year’s Ryder Cup, I’m going to be as prepared as possible and then go out and compete.”
While Scheffler might be the best player in the world at the moment, his role on the team isn’t as outsized as one might expect. He said he doesn’t think about his particular position as anything more than being prepared and putting up points for his team.
Bradley praised Scheffler’s ego-less approach, as well as the fact that he doesn’t shy away from the big moments.
“I think he would hope that it comes down to him in singles,” Bradley said of Scheffler. “I bet he, like, dreams about it. That kind of separates Scottie from the rest of the guys.”
