ATLANTA – Rory McIlroy was getting lunch on Monday inside the clubhouse at East Lake Golf Club and the first person he bumped into at the buffet was world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler.
“I was like, ‘Are you OK? Are you fine? Are you feeling better?’ ” McIlroy said.
Scheffler provided the answer during his pre-tournament press conference on Wednesday ahead of the Tour Championship.
“I'd say I'm at like 95 percent. The only thing maybe just still a couple of sores in my throat,” he said. “But other than that, I feel really good.”
That wasn’t the case last week when he bogeyed three consecutive holes in the first round, the first time he’d done that since the 2022 U.S. Open, en route to an opening-round 73 at the BMW Championship. Scheffler reportedly was battling
a bug and confirmed after finished T-12 that he was dealing with hand, foot and mouth disease, a common, contagious viral illness mostly affecting young children. As the parent of two-year-old Bennett and Remy, born in March, Scheffler is suspectable to such things.
“Yeah, kids bring stuff home from school. They bring stuff home from day care out here. I think anyone that's had children, it's a part of it,” McIlroy said. “That's the only way that they're going to build up their own immunities. Unfortunately the parents fall foul of that at times. But that's part of life. You're going to get little viruses and little things that happen. But it obviously affected Scottie for the first couple days last week, but he seemed to play and feel a bit better at the weekend. Hopefully he feels back 100 percent this week.”
Close enough, Scheffler said. Last week, he admitted he considered withdrawing from the tournament after coming down with HFMD on Monday. He dealt with blisters on hand, throat and feet.
“I've never been one to ever pull out of a tournament, especially in the middle of it,” he said.
“That's the stubbornness that Scottie has to fight through it last week and play,” said Gary Woodland, who shares a coach, Randy Smith, with Scheffler. “We all knew he was battling it. I don't know if he came out with it until Sunday. We all have the same trainer, and we were trying to avoid the table he was working on. We were working on different tables and avoiding him at all costs.”
The blisters on Scheffler’s hands was the biggest detriment.
“One of Randy Smith's big deals is making sure our grip is the same every day. One of the things we can control is controlling the club face and doing that and making sure our grip is the same. He's got blisters on his hands and trying to grip the club. That just shows you how dang good he is to show up and finish 12th or however he finished last week. It's impressive,” Woodland said.
Scheffler enters the Tour Championship ranked first for the fifth time in his Tour career, the most of any player in the FedEx Cup all-time. A two-time winner this season, Scheffler has been a model of consistency and his scoring average of 67.96 this season is the lowest scoring average in a season on the Tour since 1983.
“Over the course of my career, I feel like one thing I'm most proud of is my consistency week in and week out. I think that's something that I take a lot of pride in,” he said. “It's not easy to show up every single week and play the way that I play and play the intensity that I play and that I bring to each and every tournament.”
He added: “You look at a week like last week where I came in not feeling my best. Basically, my motto is just get through the first couple days. I've won golf tournaments injured before, and I get off to a bad start, don't really get off to a good start again on Friday, but I battled and still almost got myself into the top 10 of the tournament. Stuff like that, I take a lot of pride in.”
This article originally appeared on Golfweek: After battling a contagious virus, is Scottie Scheffler ready for Tour Championship?
