Justin Thomas has made a claim about the quality of Scottie Scheffler’s driving which he has admitted might actually seem a little crazy to suggest.
If there was really any doubt, Scottie Scheffler has ensured that there is no question over who the best player on the planet is right now, with the 28-year-old securing his seventh win of the season at the Olympic Games.
Scheffler became the first player since Arnold Palmer in 1962 to win six times in a single season on the PGA Tour before the end of June. That run included victories at Bay Hill, The Players, The Masters and The Memorial.
Scheffler produced a stunning final round to win the Olympic gold medal at Le Golf National. Jon Rahm described Scheffler’s round as a joke, before insisting that he was not at all surprised.
Justin Thomas makes potentially ‘crazy’ Scottie Scheffler claim
And it seems that most of the American’s peers are not at all shocked by just how much success he has had. Scheffler is, unsurprisingly, first on the PGA Tour this season for strokes gained approaching the green – highlighting how good he is with his irons.
However, speaking on the No Laying Up Podcast, Justin Thomas believes that there is an underrated part of Scheffler’s game which is even better.
“This might be a crazy thing to say, I’m going to say it, I think Scottie is a better driver than he might be an iron player. It’s absurd how good he drives the ball, and the way that stats work, which is statistically how he’s breaking all of these records or doing all of these things, your bad shots are going to be so much better from the fairway than they are the rough,” he said.
“He’s not going to have that time where he’s got to chip out twice a round because he hits it way off line and then that’s a terrible statistic to that, because he hits so many fairways and hits it far and his bad drives are barely missing fairways and he can always get it around the green or on the green.
“And when you’re such a good iron player like he is and you’re hitting 10 to 12 fairways a round, you’re essentially guaranteeing yourself, at the worst, 12 birdie putts and a lot of times, probably 14 to 16. Obviously, his iron play’s unbelievable, but every time I play with him, I’m like, this guy does not get anywhere [near] enough credit for his driving. He drives it so good, it’s wild.”
Well on his way to becoming one of the all-time greats
It truly feels like it could be a flip of a coin for what Scheffler does better. It says everything about how good he is throughout the bag that he is 90th on the PGA Tour for strokes gained with the putter and has still managed to clinch seven victories this year.
Scheffler noted how he got Ted Scott to read greens for him at the Olympics. It is just not where he shines, and yet, he is able to absolutely dominate without being that good on the greens.
He is simply relentless. Jason Day said Scheffler does not blow you away like Tiger Woods used to do, but is having a similar impact on the game right now.
If 2024 is anything like a sign of what is to come from Scheffler, there is absolutely no question that we are talking about one of the greatest to have ever played the game.
Receive exclusive golf news and updates twice a week to your mailbox
