Major winner Justin Leonard has enjoyed a front-row seat to watch Scottie Scheffler, the kid at Royal Oaks Golf Club in Dallas who dressed in long pants like a pro and could hit the barber pole on repeat from 100 yards, grow up and eclipse his record. They share a coach to this day in Randy Smith and while Scheffler’s ballstriking brilliance gets most of the headlines, what has most impressed Leonard is how Scheffler seems to care only about the winning even as he's outwardly wondered what it all means.
“He just wants to step on your throat,” Leonard said. “But then on the other side, like he doesn't. ... it's not all focused on winning golf tournaments or, you know, the money. Like, I bet the money's never been touched. He's just very simple
in that. He's unaffected by it. That's not what drives him. He's not out doing a bunch of commercials and sponsorships and chasing dollars going to Lord knows where for a big appearance fee. He gets done on the golf course and it's ‘Where's (wife) Meredith? Where's (son) Bennett? And where are we eating dinner tonight?’ Like that's it. And who's (bottom) am I going to kick tomorrow? That's what it's all about. And it's beautiful, absolutely beautiful.”
At last year’s BMW Championship at Caves Valley Golf Club in Owings Mills, Maryland, Robert MacIntyre was the latest bottom to be kicked. Scheffler spotted him a four-stroke lead heading into the final round before stepping on the gas and shooting 3-under 67 to win the playoff event for the first time. MacIntyre got off to an inauspicious start in the final round with bogeys at the first two holes. Scheffler birdied the second to trim his four-stroke deficit to one.
“I knew I needed to get off to a good start and Bob gave me a couple gifts there early in the round,” Scheffler said. “All of a sudden, I went from being four back to we were standing on the third tee and I'm only one back, and it's like, ‘All right, it's game on now. No more cushy lead; it's time to go get it.’ ”
Birdie on 7 got Scheffler in front
Scheffler took the lead with a birdie at No. 7. Then he wedged from 88 yards to 3 feet at No. 11 to stretch his lead to two, but one hole later he made a three-putt – from 22 feet – to surrender a stroke. MacIntyre, who had been leading the field in putting all week, failed to apply any pressure. He made his fourth bogey of the day at 13 and didn’t make a birdie until 16. Scheffler let MacIntyre hang around because he made another sloppy 3-putt of his own at 14 to slice his lead in half to one. When Scheffler drove into a fairway bunker at 15 and MacIntyre planted his approach into birdie range, Scheffler refused to blink and stuck his 8-iron from 163 yards to inside 6 feet and converted the birdie putt while MacIntyre missed his attempt.
“Shot of the day was probably on 15 coming out of that bunker,” Scheffler said. “That was a really important shot in the tournament, one that I think will fly a little bit under the radar.”
More heroics were still to come. Nursing a one-stroke lead, he missed the green to the left at the par-3 17th and faced a delicate pitch from 82 feet that had the makings of a two-shot swing. Not so fast, Scheffler said.
“It was kind of a bowl pin back there to where everything kind of funnels towards it, and I knew it was just going to be really fast,” he said. “When it came out, it came out how we wanted it to and then it started breaking and it started looking better and better, and yeah, it was definitely nice to see that one go in.”
Scheffler lifted his left arm high in the air in celebration. Thanks to the birdie, Scheffler signed for a 72-hole total of 15-under 265 and a two-stroke win. Scheffler made just six bogeys all week, the fewest of anyone in the field, and recorded his 17th consecutive round under par. When Scheffler holed the chip shot at 17, MacIntyre, who closed with 73, could only smile and appreciate the brilliance that is Scottie.
"I was really expecting to go out there, foot down, and perform the way I have the last couple days," said MacIntyre, who started with a career-best 62. "But look, he's the better player on the day.”
Scheffler has been a machine in recent years
The Ultimate Driving Machine? It’s been Scheffler, the world No. 1, who won for the fifth time at that point last year and joined Tiger Woods as the only player to win at least five times in consecutive seasons in the last 40 years. (Woods did it six times, most recently in 2006-07.) After hurting his hand in a freak Christmas Day 2024 accident making ravioli, Scheffler reasserted his supremacy and continued his dominant run with victories at the PGA Championship and British Open en route to winning the 2025 Player of the Year Award yet again, the first since Tiger to win it four straight times (1999-2003). Scheffler picked up his 20th career Tour title in his first start of the 2026 PGA Tour season at The American Express, making him just the third player, with Jack Nicklaus and Tiger, to reach that win total in his 20s, and has rarely strayed from the trophy hunt, including a runner-up finish to Rory McIlroy at the Masters in April.
“He’s relentless and I’ll never stop singing Scottie’s praises because he’s incredible at what he’s doing and the way he does it,” McIlroy said. “I think anyone that wants to catch Scottie or get anywhere close is going to have to consistently bring that sort of game week in and week out like he does. He’s really the first one since Tiger that’s doing this.”
And yet Scheffler went 13 starts between victories this season heading into the British Open in July, including four runner-up finishes among them a playoff loss at the Travelers Championship. It’s a drought that qualifies as an eternity for a player of his ability. Asked at the U.S. Open to comment on his season to date, he said, “I think the margins in this game are so small. For me to be winning a lot of tournaments, you've got to just be really, really sharp. I feel like maybe I've just been a touch dull,” Scheffler said. “By no means is it a bad year. Is it up to the play I've had the previous couple of years? Probably not, but it's not far off.”
That razor’s edge is thin, and it has given the competition hope that they have a fighting chance. Or as Golf Channel’s Brandel Chamblee put it, “He’s still the man to beat, but he is no longer the man that can’t be beat.”
Try telling that to Xander Schauffele. “If Scottie is at the top of a mountain, I almost have to talk about a different mountain,” he said. “Mount Everest is maybe too high of a summit at this current time. Scottie has really pulled himself away from the world.”
Deep thoughts, from Scottie Scheffler
Whenever Scheffler dives into deep thoughts on winning as he did in spectacular fashion before claiming the British Open last year, he gives a window into his love of competing, how he lives for it but is conflicted with the double-edged sword of the larger meaning of where it fits in his life.
"What's the point?" Scheffler asked rhetorically in Northern Ireland ahead of the 2025 British Open. "Sometimes the feeling only lasts about two minutes, it seems like, when you're celebrating, and then it's like, OK, now you've got to go do all this other stuff, which is great, but sometimes the feeling of winning only lasts a few seconds. It's pretty exciting and fun, but it just doesn't last that long."
Scheffler is at once both a stone-cold killer and struggling with the push and pull between his desire to be the best at his sport and still be an ordinary person as a husband, father and human being. At the U.S. Open in June, he again delved into what isn't an existential crisis but rather his way of explaining how he doesn't chase the finish line but rather attempts to stay in the moment. “You can feel like a failure in this sport oftentimes just because you're not winning, and I think that's just part of it. That's why I said I try not to focus too much on my successes or my failures, one, because you get beat up an awful lot in this game. It's a tough sport,” he said. “But, two, if I was feeling so good about all my successes, I probably wouldn't be too much fun to be around, either.”
Scheffler is the rare great player who has remained level-headed and just keeps going about his business. He's not tempted by the spoils of victory. He just keeps trying to chase excellence and staying in the present. Time to step on some necks at Bellerive and chase another BMW title.
Adam Schupak is a Golfweek senior writer covering the PGA Tour.
This article originally appeared on Golfweek: Scottie Scheffler is driven to succeed. Can he drive off with the BMW Championship trophy again?
