When world number four Collin Morikawa is baffled by how good one aspect of your game is, you know that you have something very special.
Scottie Scheffler is probably getting close to growing tired with all of the plaudits that he has received so far this year, with the 28-year-old winning eight times worldwide leading into the Presidents Cup. And he went on to produce his best team performance at Royal Montreal; winning three points as USA retained their trophy.
Scheffler’s rise has been somewhat meteoric, with the world number one relying on a captain’s pick to make the Ryder Cup team as recently as 2021. He had not even won a PGA Tour event before Steve Stricker included him in the side for Whistling Straits.
Scheffler is now a two-time major champion, an Olympic gold medalist and recently became the FedEx Cup champion. He is also the first player to retain The Players Championship.
Collin Morikawa shares what he finds unbelievable about Scottie Scheffler
Collin Morikawa has had a front row seat for a lot of that success, with the pair turning professional in successive years. They were both playing at Le Golf National this summer, and have now been part of numerous US teams together. Morikawa was also the one player who seemed to have any chance of stopping Scheffler winning on Sunday at The Tour Championship.
And speaking on Grant Horvat’s YouTube channel, Morikawa shared what has been particularly impressive about Scheffler’s game.
“Scottie’s been playing amazing. It’s amazing to see, and it motivates me because he hits the ball so freaking good,” he said.
“Even when he makes a mistake, it doesn’t freak him out. And he always comes up the next shot and it’s just perfect. And his distance control is really good, and that’s what makes a good iron player. When we talked about spin earlier, his distance control is unbelievable. And his dispersion, I don’t get it; it looks like he’s missing the ball when he’s swinging, but it’s perfect every time.”
The one question mark now hanging over the world number one after amazing 2024
It is going to be fascinating to see how Scheffler kicks on in 2025, as many will have high expectations for him. He will likely go to seven tournaments as the defending champion, including The Masters. So it is going to be incredibly difficult to match what he achieved in 2024.
Billy Horschel recently suggested that he could see Scheffler not getting too close to the same number of wins. And he, and Morikawa, are amongst a number of outstanding players on two major titles right now, so there is so much quality within the game.
It will also be interesting to see how his game changes. Morikawa was, for a long time, known for being an unbelievable iron player, but other parts of his game have now caught up and potentially surpassed his approach game. So perhaps Scheffler will change things up in the future.
But he can take plenty of confidence from the fact that his peers seem to be just as baffled at times as the rest of us.
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