Scottie Scheffler is the best player in the world right now by quite some distance, but what does Patrick Reed really think of him?
Scheffler has dominated professional golf over the past 18 months, with 11 PGA Tour wins, three major championships and an Olympic gold medal to his name since the start of 2024.
Randy Smith thinks Scheffler is playing the best golf of his career right now, and that’s saying something given the numbers he posted in 2024.
Incredibly though, Scheffler has actually been labelled as boring by some – a quite extraordinary take considering how creative he is on the golf course.
Scheffler has also been criticised for his comments about lacking fulfilment from winning golf tournaments but once again, the general consensus is that many of his detractors missed the point he was trying to make.
Now Reed has waded into the debate and given his opinion on his fellow American.
Patrick Reed says what he thinks of Scottie Scheffler
Reed has been speaking about a variety of topics in the golfing world, ranging from the Ryder Cup all the way through to the best golfer in the world right now.
He was asked to give his opinion on Scheffler as a golfer, and what he thinks it is that makes him so good.
Reed explained: “It was some amazing golf. He was two groups ahead of me for the first two rounds and I felt our groups got on the worst side of the weather for the first two days.
“For him to go out and basically just pick that place apart and not really make many mistakes, he just played really boring but really consistent golf.
“To be able to do that at an Open, especially when you are dealing with the elements and things like that. It is just impressive. It’s impressive what he has done the past year and a half, almost two years. It’s just kind of one of those things that he has full confidence in what he is doing in his game and it shows. He is playing the best I have seen really throughout my whole entire career.“
Scheffler’s golf may come across as ‘boring’ but it’s actually far from it.
He never hits one consistent shape and has some of the most wonderfully well-educated hands in the game around the greens.
Reed on Scheffler’s comments about lack of motivation through winning
Whilst Scheffler has received criticism for the comments he made at The Open, Reed offered support for his fellow countryman.
He said: “When I won at Augusta it didn’t really sink in until about seven or eight days afterwards and then it sunk in, but by that point I was already back out grinding and getting ready for the next week. I think that is the thing. In golf it’s what he was saying, you kind of have to have a short term memory. You go out and whether you win or play poorly, it doesn’t matter. You have to get your mind just to flip off and go to the next week and what you are trying to do and prepare.
“If you try to stay too much on the celebratory side then you’re probably not putting it all in on practice, then the next week you are playing is probably going to be a lull and not a great week. If you dwell on a poor event then that can carry on to the following week.
“We celebrate for a short period of time but then it’s back to work because golf is not just as much physical, it’s more mental I feel like at this level, so you have to know and have a clear head and mind going in. You can’t think about the past or the future, you have to always stay present.“
Reed makes a great point here, and in some ways, I think he probably explained it more eloquently than Scheffler did.
If professional athletes spend too long celebrating their successes, they will lose focus on what is lying in front of them.
And that is exactly what Scheffler was trying to say in the first place. It’s also worth remembering that the world number one prides himself on being the best father and husband that he can be, rather than the best golfer.
That outlook on life is probably what makes him so good on the golf course anyway.
Receive exclusive golf news and updates twice a week to your mailbox
