No matter what future changes the PGA Tour makes or doesn’t make to the schedule, World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler knows where he wants to be every week.
“At the end of the day I’m going to play where the best players are playing,” Scheffler said on Wednesday. “I love competition, I love playing against the best players, so wherever those guys are playing that’s probably where you’re going to see me.”
Scheffler was speaking to reporters in the Bahamas ahead of the Hero World Challenge, where he is the two-time defending champion.
The four-time major winner was asked about his “perfect” schedule following Tuesday’s comments by tournament host Tiger Woods.
Woods has been tasked by PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp to help shape the future tour schedule, including potentially having fewer events in a shorter window to avoid conflict with the NFL schedule.
“We’re trying to figure out what is the best schedule possible so we can create the best fields and have the most viewership and also the most fan involvement and what does that look like,” Woods said Tuesday.
Scheffler, whose six wins this year included the PGA Championship and Open Championship, said he thinks Woods and Rolapp are bringing “fresh ideas” to the table.
“I don’t know what a perfect schedule looks like for me,” Scheffler said. “I like being able to have a little bit of freedom in the way I play tournaments. That’s something that I think is an advantage to our Tour, I definitely enjoy that part of it.”
Scheffler, 29, was asked to compare his success over the past two seasons to the hot stretches Woods enjoyed in the early 2000s.
“I mean, I was pretty young back then. I’ve got to catch up on a lot of that stuff from YouTube and stuff like that,” he said.
Woods’ consistency is something that stands out to Scheffler.
“I would say Tiger, when he was in the field, I think he was a guy that would always give himself a chance to win, and there was very few spurts throughout his career when he wasn’t the best player in the world,” Scheffler said. “I would say that’s one thing I admired about him, he always had the ability to hit many types of shots and was always working extremely hard on his game. He was never complacent or satisfied with where he was at with his game, kind of always kept working, I’ve admired that about him.”
Consistency has marked Scheffler’s play at the Hero World Challenge. He shot four rounds in the 60s to beat Sepp Straka by three strokes in 2023, then carded four more rounds in the 60s last year to beat Tom Kim by six shots.
–Field Level Media
