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PORTRUSH, Northern Ireland — On the brink of a tournament that could get Scottie Scheffler to four major wins and three of the four legs of the career Grand Slam at age 29, the unquestioned best player in the world said Tuesday that he doesn’t find true fulfillment in winning.
“This is not a fulfilling life,” Scheffler said. “It’s fulfilling from the sense of accomplishment, but it’s not fulfilling from a sense of the deepest places of your heart.”
Scheffler has won two Masters, added a third major when he won the PGA Championship at Quail Hollow this year and has 16 career wins since turning professional. He has, in the past, talked at length about not rooting his identity in golf despite acknowledging how badly he wants to win every time he tees it up.
“That’s something that I wrestle with on a daily basis,” Scheffler said at Royal Portrush, where the Open Championship begins Thursday. “It’s like showing up at the Masters every year; it’s like why do I want to win this golf tournament so badly? Why do I want to win the Open Championship so badly? I don’t know because, if I win, it’s going to be awesome for two minutes.”
“That’s something that I wrestle with on a daily basis. It’s like showing up at the Masters every year; it’s like why do I want to win this golf tournament so badly? Why do I want to win the Open Championship so badly? I don’t know because, if I win, it’s going to be awesome for two minutes.”
Scottie Scheffler
Scheffler said Tuesday that sometimes he doesn’t understand the point of winning, even a major championship, because he knows that the nature of the sport will simply be to move on to next week, where he will be asked the same questions about where he goes from here.
“Is it great to be able to win tournaments and to accomplish the things I have in the game of golf? Yeah, it brings tears to my eyes just to think about it because I’ve literally worked my entire life to be good at this sport,” Scheffler said. “To have that kind of sense of accomplishment, I think, is a pretty cool feeling. To get to live out your dreams is very special, but at the end of the day, I’m not out here to inspire the next generation of golfers. I’m not out here to inspire someone to be the best player in the world, because what’s the point?”
As an example, Scheffler brought up the Byron Nelson event on the PGA Tour, which is a tournament, he said, that he has tried to work to win “his entire life,” given it’s his hometown event. Earlier this year, Scheffler shot 31 under on his way to winning the event outside of Dallas and still, he said, he was struck by how fleeting the moment felt.
“You win it, you celebrate, get to hug my family, my sister’s there, it’s such an amazing moment. Then it’s like, OK, what are we going to eat for dinner? Life goes on,” Scheffler said. “It feels like you work your whole life to celebrate winning a tournament for like a few minutes. It only lasts a few minutes.”
Still, Scheffler admitted he can’t help but continue to seek out that feeling, however fleeting, even knowing that, statistically, he is more likely to lose than to win every time he plays.
“It sucks. I hate it, I really do,” Scheffler said of losing. “We work so hard for such little moments. I’m kind of sicko; I love putting in the work, I love getting to practice, I love getting to live out my dreams. But at the end of the day, sometimes I just don’t understand the point.”
The point this week, to many of the players in the field, is getting to raise the Claret Jug on Sunday. Scheffler is not immune from sharing that feeling, and he is doing everything in his power to prepare to win his fourth major championship.
In four appearances at The Open, Scheffler has two top-10 finishes and two finishes outside the top 20. It’s a testament to his consistently high play at major championships that this tournament is likely the one where his performance has not quite matched his other major starts.
“If I come in second this week or if I finish dead last, no matter what happens, we’re always on to the next week,” Scheffler said. “That’s one of the beautiful things about golf, and it’s also one of the frustrating things, because you can have such great accomplishments, but the show goes on. That’s just how it is.”
