Once again, Scottie Scheffler is returning to a venue this week where he managed to win last year, with the RBC Heritage proving to be victory number four of 2024.
Scottie Scheffler is likely to be the favourite for the first PGA Tour event after The Masters. Scheffler managed to win the RBC Heritage by three shots last year, while he finished 11th in his only other visit to Harbour Town.
It has been an interesting season for the world number one so far. Clearly, replicating his 2024 season was always going to be nearly impossible. But few would have imagined that he would emerge from The Masters still awaiting his first victory of the year.
Ominously for his rivals, Scheffler finished fourth at Augusta National despite having nothing like his best form for the first major of the year. He is still yet to finish outside the top 25 since returning from injury, while he went into The Masters off the back of finishing second at the Texas Children’s Houston Open.
One concern for Scottie Scheffler following The Masters
But it is alarming to see Scheffler unable to take that next step and get across the line.
Speaking on RickRunGood ahead of this week’s tournament, Rick Gehman suggested what seemed to cost Scheffler at The Masters, and why that may not be the biggest issue with the number of collection points at Harbour Town.
“My hunch, because I saw a lot of Scottie Scheffler shots, is the reason that he lost strokes off the tee last week was because of that left miss with the driver. It is something we saw early in 2025, it’s not been nearly as good as the way he’s driven it in 2024,” he said.
“Now listen, he’s awesome. He’s like the best player in the world. But that got him into trouble – that left drive. I’m interested to see, you don’t have to hit a ton of drivers around here if you don’t want to, I’m interested to see if he just puts that club in the bag a little bit more often, and he’s still longer.
“When we look at those plots, Scottie’s going to be the guy closest. Yes, everybody’s going to be playing from a 20 to 25 yard area, but maybe he’s closer so he gets a little bit extra boost because he can hit a shorter club in, something like that.
“You look at the way he’s played around Harbour Town, it’s been splendid. T11 and a win in his only two trips. The only concern I have is that more apparent left-hand miss. Everything else is great.”
What Scottie Scheffler suggested is the biggest differences between Augusta National and Harbour Town ahead of the RBC Heritage
It really should not have come as any surprise last year that Scheffler did win at Harbour Town. It was a fourth win in five starts for the 28-year-old.
But what is interesting is how different a challenge it seems to be from Augusta National, with its expansive green complexes and undulations across the golf course.
Scheffler outlined some of the key differences ahead of last year’s tournament.
“Yeah, it’s very different. I think sometimes when you’re coming from Augusta — we were talking about it today, is it 14 that’s the long par-3 with the water? The green just looked so small. I’m sitting there with a 6-iron looking at this small green, and Augusta everything is really big at times and then you come here and everything is really, really small it seems like,” he said.
“It’s a great golf course. I think it’s a lot of fun to play. I think it’s very interesting.
“I think for some people, distance debate type people if they’re ever looking at golf course design and how to combat people only trying to hit the ball really far, they need to come here and do a case study on this golf course because it’s really, really good. You’ve got to curve the ball both directions, and you have to control your distance. You have to control where the golf ball is going. It’s not just a place where you can go bomb it.”
With so much of the attention on Rory McIlroy right now, this week would be an ideal time for Scheffler just to show everyone that he still clearly knows how to win.
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